Chapter XVIII: The Psychogenesis of Multiple Personality—the Case of B. 545 (2)

I may cite one other experiment dealing with the conservation of the details of a day’s experiences after the lapse of several months. The subject was a little girl who suffered from hysterical tics. Hoping to discover the exciting cause of her nervous disturbance, I put her into deep hypnosis, and evoked the memories of the events of the day on which her disease developed, _about six months previously_. It was astonishing to hear her recall a continuous series of precise thoughts and acts, many of them trivial, of the kind that would be transient and forgotten by anybody. She began with the events of the early morning, giving her own thoughts and acts; the remarks of her father and mother, describing exactly the location in the house at the time of each member of the family; her arrival at school; the several lessons of the day; the remarks of the teacher; the happenings during recess; her final entry into the laboratory; and the sudden onset of the tic. Everything was given in chronological order. The memories were vivid and, as they came up into her mind, were recognized as true recollections.[16] All this was forgotten when she was awake, that is to say, although conserved, it could not be reproduced. There was no way, of course, of determining the accuracy of these memories and, therefore, their correctness lacks scientific proof. On the other hand, the facts, which are in entire correspondence with similar results obtained under conditions where confirmation is possible, have value as cumulative evidence.[17]

It is not difficult to arrange experiments which will test the accuracy with which the minute details of experiences may be conserved when reproduction is at fault. A simple test is to have a suitable subject endeavor to repeat _verbatim_ the contents of a letter written by him at some preceding time—one week, two weeks, a month, or more. Few people, of course, can do this. If, now, the subject is a suitable one for the abstraction or hypnotic method it may be that he will be able to reproduce by one or the other method the test letter, word for word; a comparison of the reproduction with the letter will, of course, determine the accuracy of the memory. In such an experiment I have succeeded in getting two subjects, Miss B.[18] and B. C. A., to repeat _verbatim_ the contents of fairly long letters, and this even, on certain occasions, when, on account of the subject being a dissociated personality, there was no recollection of the letter at all, not even that it had been written. Such minute reproduction affords further evidence that the conservation of experiences may be much more complete and exact than ordinary conscious memory would lead us to suppose.

=Evidence from hallucinatory phenomena=.—I may mention one more example of conservation of a forgotten experience of everyday life as it is an example or mode of reproduction which differs in certain important respects both from that of ordinary memory and that observed under the artificial methods thus far described. This mode is that of a _visual_ or an _auditory hallucination_ which may be an exact reproduction in vividness and detail of the original experience. It is a type of a certain class of memory phenomena. One of my subjects, while in a condition of considerable stress of mind owing to the recurrence of the anniversary of her wedding-day, had a vision of her deceased husband, who addressed to her a certain consoling message. It afterwards transpired that this message was an actual reproduction of the words which a friend, in the course of a conversation some months previously, had quoted to her as the words of her own husband just before his death. In the vision the words were put into the mouth of another person, the subject’s husband, and were actually heard as an hallucination. Under the peculiar circumstances of their occurrence, however, these words awakened no sense of familiarity; nor did she recognize the source of the words until the automatic writing, which I later obtained, described the circumstances and details of the original episode. Then the original experience came back vividly to memory. On the other hand, the “automatic writing” not only remembered the experience but recognized the connection between it and the hallucination. (The truth of the writing is corroborated by the written testimony of the other party to the conversation.)

Although such types of hallucinatory memories are not actual reproductions of an experience but rather translated representations, yet they show the experience must have been conserved in order to have determined the representation. The actual experience, as we shall see later, is translated into a visual or auditory form which pictures or verbally expresses it, as the case may be. This type of hallucination is common. That which is translated may be previous thoughts, or perceptions received through another sense. Thus Mrs. Holland records a visual hallucination which pictured a verbal description previously narrated to her by a friend, but forgotten. The hallucination included “the figure of a very tall thin man, dressed in gray, standing with his back to the fire. He had a long face, I think a mustache—certainly no beard—and suggested young middle age.”... On a second occasion “the tall figure in gray was lying on the bed in a very flung-down, slack-jointed attitude. The face was turned from me, the right arm hanging back across the body which lay on the left side. I started violently and my foot seemed to strike an empty bottle on the floor.”

There is very little doubt that these visions of Mrs. Holland’s represented Mr. Gurney, who had died from an accidental dose of chloroform. Mrs. Holland “took very little interest” in Mr. Gurney, hence she had entirely forgotten that the main facts of his death had been told to her a few months previously by the narrator, Miss Alice Johnson.[19]

In an hallucination of this sort we have a dramatic pictorial representation of previous though forgotten knowledge which must have determined it. In order to have determined the hallucination the knowledge must have been conserved somehow. I have frequently observed a similar reproduction of a forgotten experience, which was not visual, through translation into a newly created _visual_ representation in the form of an artificial hallucination. The following is of this kind: Miss B., looking into a crystal,[20] saw a scene laid in a wood near a lake, etc. Several figures appeared in this scene, which was that of a murder. Although she had no recollection of anything that could have given rise to the hallucination, investigation showed that the original experience was to be found in one of Marie Correlli’s novels which she had read but forgotten. The vision was a correct representation of the scene as described in the book.

In suitable subjects almost any past experience, whether forgotten or not, can be reproduced in this way if conserved, and observation shows that the number which are conserved is enormous. I shall have occasion to cite further examples in other connections. The phenomenon of translation we shall find when we come to study it, as we shall do in another lecture, throws light upon the nature of conservation for here we are dealing with something more than simple reproduction; what is conserved becomes elaborated into a new composition.

=Evidence obtained from dreams.=—Another not uncommon mode in which forgotten experiences are recovered is through dreams. The content of the dream may, as Freud has shown, be a cryptic and symbolical expression or representation of the experience,[21] or a visualized representation or obvious symbolism, much as a painted picture may be a symbolized expression of an idea,[22] or it may be a realistic reproduction in the sense that the subject lives over again the actual experience. A relative of mine gave me a very accurate description of a person whom she had never seen from a dream in which he appeared. After describing his hair, eyes, contour of face, mouth, etc., she ended with the words, “He looks like a cross between a Scotchman and an Irishman.” After she had most positively insisted that she had never seen this person or heard him described—against my protest to the contrary—I reminded her that I had myself described him to her only a few days before in the identical words, ending my description with the remark, “He looks like a cross between a Scotchman and an Irishman.” Even then she could not recall the fact. Von Bechterew has recorded the case of a man who frequently after hearing an opera dreamed the whole opera through.[23] One subject of mine frequently dreamed over again in very minute detail, after an interval of eight or nine months, the scenes attending the deathbed of a relative. Indeed, in the dream she realistically lived them again in a fashion similar to that of hypnotic dreams such as I have related. Although she had not forgotten these scenes it is highly improbable that she could have voluntarily recalled them, particularly after the lapse of so long a time, without the aid of the dream, so rich was it in detail, with each event in its chronological order.

Dream reproductions, whether in a symbolic form or not, are too common to need further statement. I would merely point out that the frequency with which childhood’s experiences occur in dreams is further evidence of the conservation of these early experiences. The symbolic dream, cryptic or obvious, deserves, however, special consideration because of the data it offers to the problem of the nature of conservation which we shall later study. In this type of dream, if the fundamental principle of the theory of Freud is correct, the content is a symbolical continuation in some form of an antecedent thought (experience) of the dreamer.[24] When this thought, which may be forgotten, is recovered the symbolic character of the dream, in many cases, is recognized beyond reasonable doubt.[25] If this principle is well established, and nearly all investigators are in accord on this point, though we need not always accept the given interpretation of individual dreams—if the principle is sound, then it follows that symbolism includes memory of the original experience which must be conserved. So that even this type of dream offers evidence of conservation of experiences for which there may be total loss of memory (amnesia).

Before closing this lecture I will return to the point which I temporarily passed by, namely, the significance of the _difference in the form of reproduction_ according as whether it is by automatic writing or through associative memories in abstraction. In the latter case, as we have seen, the memories are identical in form and principle with those of everyday life. They enter the personal consciousness and become conscious memories in the sense that the individual personally remembers the experience in question. Abstraction may be regarded simply as a favorable condition or moment when the subject remembers what he had at another previous moment forgotten. We have seen also that the same thing is true of remembering in hypnosis (excepting those special realistic reproductions when the subject enters a dream-like or somnambulistic state and lives over again the past experience in question). In automatic writing, on the other hand, the reproduction is by a secondary process entirely separate and independent of the personal consciousness. In the examples I cited the latter was in entire ignorance of the reproduction which did not become a personally conscious memory. At the very same moment when the experiences could not be voluntarily remembered, and without a change in the moment’s consciousness, something was tapped, as it were, and thereby they were graphically revealed without the knowledge of the subject, without memory of them being introduced into the personal consciousness, and even without the subject being able to remember the incident after reading the automatic script. Even this stimulus failed to bring back the desired phase of consciousness. It was very much like surreptitiously inserting your hand into the pocket of another and secretly withdrawing an object which he thinks he has lost. What really happened was this: a secondary process was awakened and this process (of which the principal or personal consciousness was unaware) revealed the memory lost by the personal consciousness. At least this is the interpretation which is the one which all the phenomena of this kind pertaining to subconscious manifestations compel us to draw.[26] At any rate the automatic script showed that somehow and somewhere _outside the personal consciousness_ the experiences were conserved and under certain conditions could be reproduced.

We now also see that the same principle of reproduction by a secondary process holds in hallucinatory phenomena whether artificial or spontaneous, and in many dreams. When a person looking into a crystal sees a scene which is a truthful pictorial representation of an actual past experience which he does not consciously remember, it follows that that visual hallucination must be induced and constructed by some secondary subconscious process outside of and independent of the processes involved in his personal consciousness. And, likewise, when a dream is a translation of a forgotten experience into symbolical terms it follows that there must be, underlying the dream consciousness, some subconscious process which continues and translates the original experience into and constructs the dream.

This being so we are forced to two conclusions: first, in all these types of phenomena the secondary process must in some way be closely related to the original experience in order to reproduce it; and, second, a mental experience must be conserved in some form which permits of a subconscious process reproducing the experience in one or other of the various forms in which memory appears. Further than this I will not go at present, not until we have more extensively reviewed the number and kinds of mental experiences that may be conserved. This we will do in the next lecture.

-----

Footnote 5:

Automatic writing is script which has been produced unconsciously or
involuntarily, although the writer is in an alert state, whether it be
the normal waking state or hypnosis. The hand writes, though the
subject does not consciously direct it. Ordinarily, though not always,
the subject is entirely unaware of what the hand is writing, and often
the writing is obtained better if the attention is diverted and
directed toward other matters. The first knowledge then obtained by
the subject of what has been written, or that the hand has written at
all, is on reading the script. Some persons can cultivate the art of
this kind of writing. Mrs. Verrall and Mrs. Holland, for example,
deliberately educated themselves to write automatically, and each
published a volume of her records. In other normal people automatic
writing seems to develop accidentally or under special circumstances.
In certain types of hysteria it is very easily obtained. “Planchette,”
which many years ago was in vogue as a parlor game, was only a
particular device to effect automatic writing.

Footnote 6:

In this particular experiment, when the hand wrote “automatically,”
the second _hypnotic consciousness vanished_ and the subject went into
a _trance_ state, or what is equivalent to a third hypnotic state.
There was no consciousness present, excepting that which was
associated with the writing hand. At other times, in experiments of
this class with this same subject, the hypnotic or the waking
consciousness, as the case might be, persisted _alert_ while the hand
wrote. For the purpose of the experiment in recovering memories this
change in the psychological condition is not of importance, the
principle remains the same.

Footnote 7:

_Journal of the S. P. R._, July, 1906. A fuller account of this case
was later published in the same journal, August, 1911.

Footnote 8:

A remark made by the subject in the trance state, though passed over
in the report as apparently inconsequential, has really much meaning
when interpreted through that conception of the unconscious memory
process which will be developed in succeeding chapters. The subject,
while in the trance, claimed to be in a mental world wherein “is to be
found, it is said, not only everything that has ever happened or will
happen, but all thoughts, dreams, and imagination.” In other words, in
that psychical condition into which she passed, all the conserved
conscious experiences of her life could be awakened into memory.

Footnote 9:

_Proceedings of the S. P. R._, October, 1906, Chap. XII.

Footnote 10:

In the automatic script, which purported to be a spiritistic message
from a dead friend named Annette, occurred the enigmatical sentence:
“Tell her this comes from the friend who loved cradles and cradled
things.” The meaning of this was revealed by the above-mentioned
letter to Mrs. Holland, written twenty years previously. It was from a
friend of Annette’s, and quoted an extract from Annette’s will, which
ran, “because I love cradles and cradled things.” When Mrs. Holland
was tearing up some old letters she came across this one. (“On the
automatic writing of Mrs. Holland,” by Miss Alice Johnson:
_Proceedings of the S. P. R._, June, 1908, pp. 288, 289.)

Footnote 11:

It would have required a stenographer, whom I did not have, to record
fully all these recovered memories. They would fill several printed
pages, and I can give only a general résumé of them. Some weeks later
the experiment was repeated and a record taken as fully as possible in
long hand.

Footnote 12:

Later in the day she discovered the loss of her gloves and, not
remembering where she had left them, was obliged to retrace her steps
in search of them.

Footnote 13:

Of course the memories recovered by either method may be fabrications
as with ordinary voluntary memory, and the automatic script may
stimulate the conscious memory to recollect the experiences in
question. Nevertheless, while the memories are being recorded by the
script, no “conscious” memory is present with subjects who are unaware
of what the hand is writing.

Footnote 14:

Sidis, Prince, and Linenthal: A contribution to the Pathology of
Hysteria, _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, June 23, 1904.

Footnote 15:

The Dissociation of a Personality, by Morton Prince. (New York;
Longmans, Green & Co., 1906.) P. 77. Hereafter, when this work is
referred to, the title will be indicated simply by “The Dissociation.”

Footnote 16:

Undoubtedly much was forgotten and, therefore, there must have been
hiatuses of which she was not aware; but the remarkable thing is that
not only so much, but so much that was inconsequential and evanescent
was recalled. If additional technical methods had been employed
probably more memories could have been recalled.

Footnote 17:

The objection will probably be made that the memories and statements
of hypnotized persons are unreliable on several grounds, chiefly
suggestibility, liability to illusions and, in some cases, tendency to
fabrications. This criticism is more likely to come from those who
have had a special rather than a wide experience with hypnotism.

Footnote 18:

Miss B., in these pages, always refers to Miss Beauchamp, an account
of whose case is given in “The Dissociation.” In this connection cf.
pp. 501, 81 and 238 of that work.

Footnote 19:

_Proceedings of the S. P. R._, June, 1908.

Footnote 20:

Crystal or artificial visions are hallucinatory phenomena which, like
automatic writing, can be cultivated by some people. The common
technic is to have a person look into a crystal, at the same time
concentrating the mind, or putting himself into a state of
abstraction. Under these conditions the subject sees a vision, i.e.,
has a visual hallucination. The vision may be of some person or place,
or may represent a scene which may be enacted. Because of the use of a
crystal such hallucinations are called “crystal visions,” but a
crystal is not requisite; any reflecting surface may be sufficient, or
even the concentration of the attention. The crystal or other object
used of course acts only by aiding the concentration of attention and
by force of suggestion.—_The subconscious is tapped._

Footnote 21:

Freud: Traumdeutung, 2 aufl. 1909.

Footnote 22:

Morton Prince: The Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams. _The
Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, October-November, 1910.

Footnote 23:

Zentralblatt für Nervenheilkunde und Psychiatrie; 1909, Heft 12.

Footnote 24:

According to Freud and his school it is always the imaginary
fulfilment of a suppressed wish, almost always sexual. For our
purposes it is not necessary to inquire into the correctness of this
interpretation or the details of the Freudian theory.

Footnote 25:

For an example, see p. 98.

Footnote 26:

If the physiological interpretation be maintained, i.e., that the
script was produced by a pure physiological process, this phenomenon
would be a crucial demonstration of the nature of conservation, that
it is in the form of physical alterations in nervous structure. I do
not believe, however, that this interpretation can be maintained.

LECTURE III
CONSERVATION OF FORGOTTEN EXPERIENCES OF NORMAL, ARTIFICIAL, AND
PATHOLOGICAL LIFE

I. Normal Life (Continued)

I have directed your attention up to this point to the conservation of experiences which at the time of their occurrence, although lost beyond voluntary recall, for the most part occupied the focus of attention of the individual—were within the full light of consciousness. If these experiences were the only ones which were subject to conservation—and I would have you still bear in mind that I am using the term only in the limited sense of the ability to recover an experience in some favorable condition, or moment of consciousness, or through some fortunate or technical mode of reproduction—if, I say, these were the only ones to be conserved, then the conservation of the experiences which make up our mental lives would be considerably curtailed. It so happens, however, that a large part of our mental activity is occupied with acts of which at the moment we are only dimly aware—or half aware—in that they do not occupy the focus of attention. Some of these are what we call absent-minded acts. Again, many sensations and perceptions do not enter the focus of attention, so that we are either not aware of them, or, if we are, there is so little vividness attached to them that they are almost immediately lost to voluntary memory. The same is true of certain trains of thoughts which course through the mind while one’s attention is concentrated on some other line of thought. They are sometimes described as being in the background of the mind. Then, again, we have our dream life, and that of reverie, and the important artificial state of hypnosis; also certain pathological states to which some individuals are subject, such as intoxication, hysterical crises, deliria, and multiple personality. Accordingly it is important in any investigation into the extent of the field of conservation to inquire whether all this mental life is only fleeting, evanescent, psychological experience, or whether it is subject to the same principle of conservation. If the latter be the case it presages consequences which are portentous in the possible multiplicity and manifoldness of the elements which may enter into and may govern the mechanism of mental processes. But let me not get ahead of my exposition.

=Absent-minded acts.=—In a study made some time ago I recorded the reproduction, as a crystal vision, of an absent-minded act, i.e., one which had not fully entered the focus of consciousness during deep concentration of the attention. It is a type of numerous experiments of this kind that I have made. Miss B. is directed to look into a crystal. She sees therein a vision of herself walking along a particular street in Boston in a brown study. She sees herself take out of her pocket some bank notes, tear them up, and throw them into the street. Now this artificial hallucination, or vision, was a picture of an actual occurrence; in an absent-minded reverie the subject had actually performed this very act under the circumstances portrayed in the vision and had retained no memory of it.[27]

Similarly I have frequently recovered knowledge of the whereabouts of articles mislaid absent-mindedly. Sometimes the method used has been, as in the above examples, that of crystal gazing or artificial hallucinations; sometimes hypnotism, sometimes automatic writing, etc. By the last two methods not only the forgotten acts but the ideas and feelings which were outside the focus of attention, but in the fringe of consciousness, and prompted the acts are described. It is needless to give the details of the observations; it suffices to say that each minute detail of the absent-minded act and the thoughts and feelings that determined it are described or mirrored, as the case may be. The point of importance is that concentration of attention is not essential for conservation, and, therefore, among the vast mass of the conserved experiences of life may be found many which, though once conscious, only entered the margin of awareness (not the focus of attention) and never were subject to voluntary recollection. In the absence of attentive awareness at the time for such an experience (and therefore of recollection), we often can only be assured that it ever occurred by circumstantial evidence. When this assurance is wanting we are tempted to deny its occurrence and our responsibility, but experiment shows that the process of conservation, like the dictagraph, is a more faithful custodian of our experiences than are our voluntary memories.

=Subconscious perceptions=.—It is not difficult to show that perceptions of the environment which _never even entered the fringe of the personal consciousness, i.e., of which the individual was never even dimly aware_, may be conserved. Indeed, the demonstration of their conservation is one of the important pieces of evidence for the occurrence of coconscious perception and, therefore, of the splitting of consciousness. Mrs. Holland, both by automatic writing and in hypnosis, describes perceptions of the environment (objects seen, etc.) of which she was not aware at the time. Miss B. and B. C. A. recall, in hypnosis and by automatic writing, paragraphs in the newspapers read through casual glances without awareness thereof. The same is true of perceptions of the environment experienced under experimental conditions as well as fortuitously. I have made a large number of experiments and other observations of this kind, and have been in the habit of demonstrating before the students at my lectures this evidence of coconscious perception. A simple method is to ask a suitable subject to describe the dress of some person in the audience, or of objects in the environment; if he is unable to do this, then to attempt to obtain as minute a description as possible by automatic writing or verbally after he has been hypnotized. It is often quite surprising to note with what detail the objects which almost entirely escaped conscious observation are subconsciously perceived and remembered. Sometimes the descriptions of my students have been quite embarrassing from their naïve truthfulness to nature.

The following is an example of such an observation: I asked B. C. A. (without warning and after having covered her eyes) to describe the dress of a friend who was present and with whom she had been conversing for perhaps some twenty minutes. She was unable to do so beyond saying that he wore dark clothes. I then found that I myself was unable to give a more detailed description of his dress, although we had lunched and been together about two hours. B. C. A. was then asked to write a description automatically. Her hand wrote as follows (she was unaware that her hand was writing):

“He has on a dark greenish gray suit, a stripe in it—little rough stripe; black bow-cravat; shirt with three little stripes in it; black laced shoes; false teeth; one finger gone; three buttons on his coat.”

The written description was absolutely correct. The stripes in the coat were almost invisible. I had not noticed his teeth or the loss of a finger and we had to count the buttons to make sure of their number owing to their partial concealment by the folds of the unbuttoned coat. The shoe strings I am sure, under the conditions, would have escaped nearly everyone’s observation.

Subconscious perceptions even more than absent-minded acts offer some of the most interesting phenomena of conservation, for these phenomena give evidence of the ability, under certain conditions, to reproduce, in one mode or another, experiences which were never a phase of the personal consciousness, never entered even the fringe of the content of this consciousness and of which, therefore, we were never aware. For this reason they are not, properly speaking, forgotten experiences. Their reproduction sometimes produces dramatic effects. The following is an instance: B. C. A., waking one night out of a sound sleep, saw a vision of a young girl dressed in white, standing at the foot of her bed. The vision was extraordinarily vivid, the face so distinct that she was able to give a detailed description of it. She had no recollection of having seen the face before, and it awakened no sense of familiarity. Suspecting, for certain reasons, the figure to be that of a young girl who had recently died and whom I knew that B. C. A. had never known and was not aware that she had ever seen, I placed before her a collection of a dozen or more photographs of different people among which was one of this girl. This photograph she picked out as the one which most resembled the vision (it was a poor likeness) and automatic writing confirmed most positively the choice. Now it transpired that she had passed by this girl on one occasion while the latter was talking to me in the hall of my house, but she had purposely, for certain reasons, not looked at her. Subconsciously, however, she had seen her since she could give, both in hypnosis and by automatic writing, an accurate account of the incident, which I also remembered. B. C. A., however, had no recollection of it. The subconscious perception was later reproduced (after having undergone secondary elaboration) as a vision.

Similarly I have known paragraphs read in the newspapers out of the corner of her eye, so to speak, and probably by casual glances, not only, as I have said, to be recalled in hypnosis and by automatic writing, but to be reproduced with more or less elaboration in her dreams. She had, as the evidence showed, no awareness at the time of having read these paragraphs and no after recollection of the same.

Experimentally, as I have said, it is possible to demonstrate other phenomena which are the same in principle. The experiment consists, after surreptitiously placing objects under proper precautions in the peripheral field of vision, in having the subject fix his eyes on central vision and his attention distracted from the environment by intense concentration or reading. Immediately after removing the objects it is determined that the subject did not consciously perceive them. But in hypnosis or by other methods it is found that memory for perceptions of the peripheral objects returns, i.e., the perceptions are reproduced. Auditory stimuli may be used as tests with similar results.

Likewise, with Miss B., I have frequently obtained reproductions of perceptions of which at the time she was unaware. This has been either under similar experimental conditions, or under accidental circumstances when I could confirm the accuracy of the reproductions. For instance, to cite one out of numerous examples, on one occasion I saw her pass by in the street while I was standing on the door-step of a house some fifteen or twenty feet away, well outside the line of her central vision. She was in a brown study. I called to her three times saying, “Good morning, Miss B.,” laying the accent each time on a different word. She did not hear me and later had no recollection of the episode. In hypnosis she recalled the circumstances accurately and reproduced my words with the accents properly placed. Such observations and experiments I have frequently made. They can be varied indefinitely in form and condition.

The phenomenon of subconscious perception of sensory _stimulations applied to anesthetic areas_ (tactile, visual, etc.), in hysterics, first demonstrated by Janet, is of the same order, but has been so often described that only a reference to it is necessary. I mention examples here merely that the different kinds of phenomena that may be brought within the sphere of memory shall be mentioned. For instance, Mrs. E. B.[28] has an hysterical loss of sensibility in the hand which, in consequence, can be severely pinched or pricked, or an object placed in it, etc., without her being aware of the fact. Notwithstanding this absence of awareness these tactile experiences were conserved since an accurate detailed memory of them is recovered in hypnosis, or manifested through automatic writing. The same phenomenon can be demonstrated in Mrs. R., whose right arm is anesthetic.[29] The same conservation of subconscious perceptions can be experimentally demonstrated during automatic writing. At such times the writing hand becomes anesthetic and if a screen is interposed so that the subject cannot see the hand he is not aware of any stimulations applied to it. Nevertheless such sensory stimulations—a prick or a pinch or more complicated impressions—are conserved, for the hand will accurately describe all that is done.

An observation which I made on one of my subjects probably belongs here rather than to the preceding types. Several different objects were successively brought into the field of vision, but so far toward the periphery that they could not be sufficiently clearly seen to be identified. In hypnosis, however, they were accurately described, showing the conservation of perceptions that did not enter the vivid awareness or clear perception of the subject.

It is true, as a study of the coconscious would show, that such phenomena of anesthesia and unrecognized perceptions are dependent upon a dissociation of consciousness and upon coconscious perception. But this is a matter of mechanism with which we are not now concerned. The point simply is that subconscious perceptions which never entered the awareness of the personal consciousness may be conserved.

I will cite one more observation, one in which the reproduction was through secondary translation, as we shall see later that it belongs to a class which enables us to determine the nature of conservation.

B. C. A., actuated by curiosity, looked into a crystal and saw there some printed words which had no meaning for her whatever and awakened no memory of any previous experience. It was afterward found that these words represented a cablegram message which she unconsciously overheard while it was being transmitted over the telephone to the telegraph office by my secretary in the next room. She had no recollection of having heard the words, as she was absorbed in reading a book at the time. The correctness of the visual reproduction is shown, not only by automatic writing which remembered and recorded the whole experience, but also by comparison with the original cablegram.

Again, in other experiments there appear, in the crystal, visions rich in detail of persons whom she does not remember having seen, although it can be proved that she actually has seen them.

The reproduction of subconscious perceptions and forgotten knowledge in dreams, visions, hypnosis, trance states, by automatic writing, etc., is interesting apart from the theory of memory. Facts of this kind offer a rational interpretation of many well-authenticated phenomena exploited in spiritistic literature. Much of the surprising information given by planchette, table rapping, and similar devices commonly employed by mediums, depends upon the translation of forgotten dormant experiences into manifestations of this sort. In clinical medicine, too, we can often learn, through reproductions obtained by special methods of investigation, the origin of obsessions and other ideas which otherwise are unintelligible.

=Dreams and somnambulisms=.—Many people remember their dreams poorly or not at all, and, in the latter case, are under the belief that they do not dream. But often circumstantial evidence, such as talking in their sleep, shows that they do dream. Now, though ordinarily they cannot remember the dreams, by changing the waking state to an hypnotic one, or through the device of crystal visions or automatic writing, it is possible in some people to reproduce the whole dream. Amnesia for dreams, therefore, cannot be taken as evidence that they do not occur, and forgotten dream consciousness is subject to the same principles of conservation and reproduction as the experiences of waking life. Thus in B. C. A. dreams totally forgotten on awakening are easily recovered in hypnosis and in crystal visions.[30] In the case of M——l, which I cited to you a little while ago, the forgotten dream in which he lived over again the original episode which led to the development of his hysterical condition and which when repeated in the dream induced each successive attack, was easily recovered in hypnosis. The same was true of the forgotten dreams of Mrs. H. and Miss B.

The reproduction of nocturnal somnambulistic acts and the ideas which occupied the content of consciousness of the somnambulist can be effected in the same manner. I have quite a collection of observation of this kind. In the study of visions,[31] to which I have already referred, may be found the observation where Miss B., looking into a crystal, sees herself walking in her sleep and hiding some money under a tablecloth and books lying on the table. The money (which was supposed to have been lost) was found where it was seen in the vision.

In my notebook are the records of numerous artificial hallucinations of this kind which reproduce sleep-walking acts of B. C. A. To cite one instance: in the crystal she sees herself arise from her bed, turn on the lights, descend the stairs, enter one of the lower rooms, sit by the fire in deep, pensive reflection, then get up and dance merrily as her somnambulistic mood changes. Presently, as the cinematograph-like picture unfolds itself in the crystal, she sees herself go to the writing table, write two letters, ascend the stairs, dropping one letter on the way,[32] reënter her room, open a glove box, place the remaining letter under the gloves, and finally put out the lights and get into bed when, with the advent of sleep, the vision ends. In the vision the changing expression of her face displays each successive mood. In hypnosis also the scene is remembered and then even the thoughts which accompanied each act of the somnambulist are described. Here again, then, we have evidence that even forgotten dreams and somnambulistic thoughts are not lost but under certain special conditions can be revived in one mode or another.

II. Forgotten Experiences of Artificial and Pathological States

The experiences that I have thus far cited in evidence of the principle of the conservation of dormant experiences that cannot be voluntarily recalled have been drawn almost entirely from normal everyday life. We now come to a series of facts which are very important in that they show that what is true of the experiences of everyday life is also true of those of _artificial_ and _pathological_ states of which the normal personal consciousness has no cognizance. These facts are also vital for the comprehension of post-hypnotic phenomena, of amnesia, multiple personality, and allied dissociated states. Let us consider some of the states from the point of view of conservation.

=Artificial states.=—After a person passes from one _dissociated state_ to another, or from a dissociated state to the full waking state, it is commonly found that there is amnesia for the previous state. This is a general principle. The forgetting of dreams is an example from normal life. For the psychological state of sleep in which dreams occur is one of normal dissociation of consciousness by which the perception of the environment, and the great mass of life’s experiences, can no longer be brought within the content of the dream consciousness. Hence there is a general tendency to the development of amnesia for dreams after waking when the normal synthesis of the personality has been established. Yet, as we have seen, forgotten dreams can generally be recalled in hypnosis or by some other technical method (e. g., crystal visions and abstraction). Now _hypnosis_ is an artificially dissociated state. After passing from one hypnotic state to another,[33] or after waking, it is very common to find complete amnesia for the whole of the experience belonging to the previous hypnotic state. By no effort whatsoever can it be recalled and this inability persists during the remainder of the life of the subject. And yet those hypnotic experiences may have been very extensive, particularly if the subject has been hypnotized a great many times. Nevertheless, it is easy to demonstrate that they are conserved and therefore, like all conserved experiences, potentially still existing, subject to recall under favoring conditions; for, as is well known, if the subject be rehypnotized they are recalled as normal memories. With the restitution of the hypnotic state the memories which were dormant become synthesized with the hypnotic personality and conscious.

The method of producing crystal visions may also be used to demonstrate the dormant conservation of experiences originating in hypnotic states. By this method and that of automatic writing, as I have already explained, the memories may be made to reveal themselves, without inducing recollection, at the very moment when the subject cannot voluntarily recall them. The subject, of course, being ignorant of what happened in hypnosis cannot recognize the visions as pictorial memories. In illustration of this I would recall the observation in the case of Miss B. where, in such an artificial vision, she saw herself sitting on a sofa smoking a cigarette.[34] This vision represented an incident which occurred during one of the subject’s hypnotic states when she had smoked a cigarette. Naturally Miss B., in her ignorance of the facts, denied the truthfulness of the vision. Other examples of a like kind might be cited if it were necessary.

By automatic writing, also, evidence of the same principle may be obtained. The conserved memories are _tapped_, so to speak. Thus I suggest to Mrs. R. in hypnosis that after waking she shall write certain verses or sentences. After being awakened she reproduces automatically, as directed, the desired verses or sentences which, of course, belonged to her hypnotic experiences.[35] In other words, although the personal consciousness did not remember the hypnotic experience of having received the command and of having given the promise to write the verses, etc., the automatic writing by the act of fulfilling the command showed that all this was conserved; here again was evidence of conservation, in some form, of an experience at the very moment when the personal consciousness was unable to voluntarily recall what had taken place in hypnosis. Such experiments may be varied indefinitely.

The following is an instance of the same phenomenon obtained by tapping without the use of previous suggestion in hypnosis: subject B. C. A. One of the hypnotic states, b, was waked up to become B, this change being followed, as usual, by amnesia. By means of automatic writing an accurate account was now obtained of the experiences which had taken place during the previous moments in hypnosis, the subject being unaware of what the hand wrote. Here were complete memories of the whole period of which the personal consciousness, B, had no knowledge. One of the most striking, not to say dramatic, demonstrations of this kind can sometimes be obtained in cases exhibiting several different hypnotic states. For instance: “c” and “b” are two different hypnotic phases belonging to the same individual (B. C. A.). c knows nothing of the experiences of b, and b nothing of c, each having amnesia for the other. Now one has only to whisper in the ear of c, asking a question of b, and at once, by automatic speech, the dormant b phase responds, giving such information as is sought in proof of the conservation of any given experience belonging to the tapped b phase. The consciousness of c apparently continues uninterruptedly during the experiment. The same evidence could be obtained by automatic writing under the same conditions. Again in the b phase another state known as “Alpha and Omega” can be tapped, giving similar evidence of conservation. In the case of Miss B. the same phenomena could be elicited. In this respect hypnotic states may show the same behavior as alternating personalities of which I shall presently speak.

Suggested _post-hypnotic phenomena_ depend, in part, on the conservation of dormant complexes. In hypnosis I give a suggestion that the subject on waking shall, at a given moment, take a cigarette and smoke it. There is thus formed a complex of ideas which becomes dormant and forgotten after waking. Later, by some mechanism which we need not inquire into now, the ideas of the dormant complex enter the field of the personal self; the idea of smoking a cigarette arises therein and the subject puts the idea into execution. These consequences of the suggestion could not occur unless the experiences were conserved. Or, we may take an experiment where the hypnotic experiences are reproduced automatically by writing. Here the conserved experiences form a secondary system split off from the personal consciousness. This system reproduces the hypnotic experiences as memory outside of the personal consciousness.

From a practical point of view this principle of the conservation of the experiences of the hypnotic state is of the utmost importance. The fact that a person does not remember them on waking—if such be the case—is of little consequence in principle, and, practically, this amnesia does not preclude these experiences from influencing the waking personality. _As experiences and potential memories they all belong to and are part of the personality._ The hypnotic experiences being conserved our personality may still be modified and determined in its judgments, points of view, and attitudes by them, as by other unrecognized memories when such modifications have been effected in the hypnotic state. When the last is the case the hypnotically modified judgments, etc., may introduce themselves into the content of consciousness in the waking state by association without being recognized as memories. There may be no recollection of the source of the new ideas, of the reason for the modification of a given judgment or attitude of mind, because there is no recollection of the hypnotic state as a whole; but so far as the new judgment or attitude is a reproduction of an hypnotic experience it is memory, although not perfect memory or recollection in the sense of localizing the experience in the past.

This principle can easily be demonstrated experimentally. It is only necessary, for instance, to state to a suitably suggestible subject that the weather, with which previously he was discontented is, after all, fine; for although it is raining, still, the crops need rain; it will allay the dust and make motoring pleasant, it will give him an opportunity to finish his neglected correspondence, etc. The whole prospect, he is told, is pleasing. He accepts, we assume, the new point of view. He is then waked up and has complete amnesia for the experience. Now these ideas, developed in the hypnotic state, are conserved as potential memories. Though with the change of the moment-consciousness they cannot be voluntarily recalled, they have entered into associations to form a new viewpoint. Just speak to him about the weather and watch the result. His discontent has disappeared and given place to satisfaction. He expresses himself as quite pleased with the weather and gives the same reasons for his satisfaction as were suggested to and accepted by him in hypnosis. He does not recognize his new views as reproductions, i.e., memories, of previous experiences because he has no recollection of the hypnotic state. He does not remember when and how he changed his mind; but these experiences have determined his views because they have become a part of his conscious system of thought. The principle applies to a large part of our judgments not formed in hypnosis. There is nothing very remarkable about it. The process is similar to that of ordinary thought though it has had an artificial and different origin. The complex of ideas having been formed in hypnosis still remains organized and some of its elements enter the complexes of the personal consciousness, just as in normal life ideas of buried experiences of which we have no recollection intrude themselves from time to time and shape our judgments and the current of our thoughts without our realizing what has determined our mental processes. We have forgotten the source of our judgments, but this forgetfulness does not affect the mechanism of the process.

=Pathological states.=—In the _functional amnesias_ of a pathological character we find the same phenomenon of conservation. Various types of amnesia are encountered. I will specify only the episodic, epochal, and the continuous, so commonly observed in hysteria. This field has been threshed over by many observers and I need refer only to a few instances as illustrations. In the first two types the experiences which are forgotten may have occurred during the previous normal condition. In the episodic the particular episode which is forgotten may have been, strangely enough, one which from the very important part it played in the life of the subject and its peculiar impressiveness and significance we should expect would be necessarily remembered, especially as memory in other respects is normal. But for the same reasons it is not surprising to find that the experience has been conserved somehow and somewhere although it cannot be recalled. The classical cases of Fräulein O. and Lucy R. reported by Breuer and Freud[36] are typical.

From my own collection of cases I will cite the following episode from the case of B. C. A. This subject received a mental shock as the result of an emotional conflict of a distressing character. This experience was the exciting factor in the development of her psychosis, a dissociation of personality. In the resulting “neurasthenic” state, although her memory was normal for all other experiences of her life, this particular episode with all its manifold details, notwithstanding its great significance in her life, completely dropped out of her memory.[37]

This incident was a very intimate one and it is not necessary to give the details. When put to the test all effort to recall the episode voluntarily is without result, and even suggestions in two hypnotic states fail to awaken it in those states. Yet when a pencil is put in her hand these memories are made to manifest themselves by automatic writing. During the writing the subject remains in a perfectly alert state but is unaware of what her hand is doing. At a later period after the subject had been restored to the normal condition she could voluntarily recall these memories thus, again, showing their conservation.

One other example of episodic amnesia I will cite, inasmuch as, aside from the question of conservation, it is of practical importance, being typical of experiences which lead to obsessions of phobia. The subject, O. N., had an intense fear of towers such as might contain bells that might ring. She had no recollection of the first occasion when the fear occurred or of any experience which might have given rise to it, and, of course, could give no explanation of the obsession. Neither in abstraction or hypnosis could any related memories be evoked, but by automatic writing she “unconsciously” described an emotional and dramatic scene which was the occasion of the first occurrence of the fear and which had taken place some twenty-five years previously when she was a young girl.

With the reason for the amnesia we are not particularly concerned at present excepting so far as it serves to make clear the distinction between recollection and conservation, and to throw light on the nature of the latter. The episodes in both these instances were of a strongly emotional character. Now we have known for many years from numerous observations that emotion tends to disrupt the mind and to dissociate the experiences which give rise to the affective state so that they cannot be brought back into consciousness. We may particularize further and, making use of the known impulsive force of emotion, attribute the dissociation (or inhibition) in many cases to a conflict between certain ideas belonging to the experience and other opposing ideas which, with the emotion, they have awakened. The impulsive force of the latter ideas, being the stronger, dissociates, or, to use the expressive term introduced by Freud, represses, the former. The principle of dissociation by conflict has been formulated and elaborated by Freud in his well-known theory which has been made use of to explain all functional amnesias. It is not necessary to go as far as that, nor does the theory as such concern us now. It is sufficient if in certain cases the amnesia (or dissociation) is a dissociation (repression) induced by the conative force of conflicting emotion. If so we should expect that the amnesia would be of a temporary nature and would continue only so long as the conflict and dissociating force continued. In any favorable moment when repression ceased or failed to be operative, as in hypnosis or abstraction, reproduction (recollection) could occur. But this requires that the registration of the experience should be something specific that can be dissociated without obliteration. And, further, it must be something that can be so conserved, somehow and somewhere, _during dissociation_ that, as in the case of reproduction by automatic writing, it can escape the influence of the repressing force and express itself autonomously, i.e., without the expressed memory of the experience entering the personal consciousness. To this we shall return later.