Chapter XVIII: The Psychogenesis of Multiple Personality—the Case of B. 545 (3)

In the two examples I have cited, if my interpretation is correct, the amnesia was due to dissociation by conflict and hence the conservation, as is the rule in functional dissociation, and the reproduction by automatic writing. This principle of dissociation by conflict and of conservation of the dissociated remembrances is of great practical importance as we shall see in later lectures. It can be best studied experimentally with cases of multiple personality. In the case of Miss B. numerous examples of amnesia from conflict were observed. Owing to the precise organization of the consciousness into two distinct personalities it was possible to definitely determine beyond question the antagonistic ideas of one personality which voluntarily induced the conflict and, by the impulsive force of their emotion, caused the amnesia in the other personality.[38] The same phenomena were observed in the case of B. C. A. As memory for the forgotten experiences in these instances returned as soon as the conflict ceased, conservation of them necessarily persisted during the amnesia.

Perhaps I may be permitted to digress here slightly to point out that this same (in principle) phenomenon may be effected experimentally by suggestion. The suggested idea which has the force of a volition or unexpressed wish, coming in conflict with the knowledge of previously familiar facts, inhibits or represses the reproduction in consciousness of this knowledge as memory. It is easy to prove, however, that this knowledge is conserved though it cannot be recalled. Thus, I give appropriate suggestions to B. C. A. in hypnosis that she shall be unable, when awake, to remember a certain unpleasant episode connected with a person named “August.” After being awakened she has complete amnesia, not only for the episode, but even for the name. The suppression of the memory of the episode carries with it by association the name of the person. In fact, the name itself has no meaning for her. When asked to give the names of the calendar months after mentioning “July” she hesitates, then gives “September” as the next. Even when the name “August” is mentioned to her it has no meaning and sounds like a word of a foreign language. The memory of the episode has become dormant so far as volitional recollection is concerned. It can, however, be _recalled as a coconscious process_ through automatic writing, as in the preceding experiment, and then the word in all its meanings and associations is also awakened in the coconsciousness.

The same phenomenon may be observed clinically in transition types standing halfway between the amnesia following emotional episodes and that produced by external suggestion. Auto-suggestion may then be a factor in the mechanism, as in the following example: In a moment of discouragement and despair B. C. A., torn by an unsolved problem, said to herself after going to bed at night, “I shall go to sleep and I shall forget everything, my name and everything else.” Of course she did not intend or expect to forget literally her name, but she gave expression to a petulant despairing conditional wish which if fulfilled would be a solution to her problem; as much as if she said, “If I should forget who I am my troubles would be ended.” Nevertheless the auto-suggestion with its strong feeling tones worked for repression. The next day, when about to give her name by telephone, she discovered that she had forgotten it. On testing her later I found that she could not speak, write, or read her name. She could not even understandingly read the same word when used with a different signification, i.e., stone [her name, we will suppose, is Stone], nor the letters of the same. This amnesia persisted for three days until removed by my suggestion. That the lost knowledge was all the time conserved is further shown by the fact that during the amnesia the name was remembered in hypnosis and also reproduced by automatic writing.

In the epochal type of amnesia a person, perhaps after a shock, suddenly loses all memory for lost _epochs_, it may be for days and even for years of his preceding life. In the classical case of Mr. Hanna, studied by Boris Sidis, the amnesia was for his whole previous life, so that the subject was like a new-born child. It is easy to show, however, that the forgotten epoch is normally conserved by making use of the various methods of reproduction at our disposal. In the case of Hanna, Sidis was able through “hypnoidization” and suggestion to bring back memory pictures of the amnesic periods. “While the subject’s attention is thus distracted, events, names of persons, of places, sentences, phrases, whole paragraphs of books totally lapsed from memory, and in language the very words of which sounded bizarre to his ears and the meaning of which was to him inscrutable—all that flashed lightning-like on the patient’s mind. So successful was this method that on one occasion the patient was frightened by the flood of memories that rose suddenly from the obscure subconscious [unconscious] regions, deluged his mind, and were expressed aloud, only to be forgotten the next moment. To the patient himself it appeared as if another being took possession of his tongue.”[39]

In another class of cases of epochal amnesia known as _fugues_ the subject, having forgotten his past life and controlled by fancied ideas, perhaps wanders away not knowing who he is or anything of the previous associations of his life. The “Lowell Case” of amnesia, which I had an opportunity to carefully observe and which later was more extensively studied for me by Dr. Coriat, may be instanced.[40] A woman suddenly left her home without apparent rhyme or reason. When later found she had lost all recollection of her name, her personality, her family, and her surroundings, and her identity was only accidentally discovered through the publication of her photograph in the newspaper. She then had almost complete amnesia for her previous life.

Another case, also studied by Dr. Coriat and the writer, was that of a policeman who suddenly deserted his official duty in Boston and went to New York, where he wandered about without knowledge of who he was, his name, his age, his occupation, indeed, as there is reason to believe, of his past life. When he came to himself three days later he found himself in a hospital with complete amnesia for the three days’ fugue. When I examined him some days later this amnesia still persisted but Dr. Coriat was able to recover memories of his vagrancy in New York showing that the experiences of this fugue were still conserved. It is hardly necessary to remind you that, of course, the memories of his normal life which during the fugue it might have been thought were lost were shown to have been conserved, as on “coming to himself” they were recovered. In the “Lowell Case” substantially similar conditions were found.

In _continuous or anterograde_ amnesia the subject forgets every experience nearly as fast as it happens. The classical case of Mme. D., studied by Charcot and later more completely by Janet, is an example. The conservation of the forgotten experiences was demonstrated by these authors.

In _multiple personality_ amnesia for large epochs in the subject’s life is quite generally a prominent feature. In one phase of personality there is no knowledge whatsoever of existence in another phase. Thus, for instance, all the experiences of BI and BIV, in the case of Miss B., were respectively unknown to the other. When, however, the change took place from one personality to the other, with accompanying amnesia, all the great mass of experiences of the one personality still remained organized and conserved during the cycle of the other’s existence. With the reversion to the first personality, whichever it might be, the previously formed experiences of that personality became capable of manifesting themselves as conscious memories. This conservation could also be shown, in this case, by the method of tapping the conserved memories and producing crystal visions or artificial hallucinations. Those who are familiar with the published account of the case will remember that BIV was in the habit at one time of acquiring knowledge of the amnesic periods of BI’s existence by “fixing” her mind and obtaining a visual picture of the latter’s acts. Likewise, it will be remembered that by crystal visions I was enabled to bring into consciousness a vision of the scene at the hospital which, through its emotional influence, caused the catastrophe of dissociation of personality, and also of the scene enacted by BI just preceding the awakening of BIV, of all of which BIV had no knowledge.[41] As with Mr. Hanna sometimes these memories instead of being complex pictures were scrappy—mere flashes in the pan. The same condition of conservation of the experiences of one personality during the existence of another obtained in the case of B. C. A. and numerous cases recorded in the literature. In this respect the condition is the same as that which obtains in hypnotic states and which I mentioned a few moments ago.

We may, in fact, lay it down as a general law that during any dissociated state, no matter how extensive or how intense the amnesia, all the experiences that can be recalled in any other state, whether the normal one or another dissociated state, are conserved and, theoretically at least, can be made to manifest themselves. And, likewise and to the same extent, during the normal state the experiences which belong to a dissociated state are still conserved, notwithstanding the existing amnesia for those experiences. Furthermore, if we were dealing with special pathology we would be able to show that many pathological phenomena are due to the subconscious manifestations of such conserved and forgotten experiences.

Observation shows that the experiences of _trance states_ and allied conditions are similarly conserved. Fanny S., as the result of an emotional shock, due to a distressing piece of news, goes into a trance-like state of which she has no memory afterwards. Later, a recollection of this supposedly unconscious state, including the content of her trance thoughts and the sayings and doings of those about her, is recovered by a special device. B. C. A. likewise fell into a trance of which there was no recollection. The whole incident was equally fully recovered in a crystal vision, and also conscious memory of it brought back to personal consciousness by a special technic. In the vision she saw herself apparently unconscious, the various people about her each performing his part in the episode; the doctor administering a hypodermic dose of medicine, etc. In hypnosis she remembered in addition the thoughts of the trance consciousness and the various remarks made by different people in attendance.

Even _delirious states_ for which there is complete amnesia may be conserved. I have observed numerous instances of this in the case of Miss B. For instance, the delirious acts occurring in the course of pneumonia were reproduced in a crystal vision by Miss B. and the delirious thoughts as well were remembered by the secondary personality, Sally.[42] I have records of several examples of conservation of delirium in this case. Quite interesting was the repetition of the same delirium due to ether narcosis in succeeding states of narcosis as frequently happened. A very curious phenomenon of the same order was the following: After the subject had been etherized a number of times I adopted the ruse of pretending to etherize one of the secondary personalities, using the customary inhaler but without ether. The efficient factor was, of course, suggestion. The subject would, at least apparently, become unconscious, passing into a state which had all the superficial appearances of deep etherization. At the end of the procedure she would slowly return to consciousness, repeat the same stereotyped expletives and other expressions which she regularly made use of when ether was actually used, and make the same grimaces and signs of discomfort, etc. This behavior would seem to indicate that the mental and physical experiences originally induced by a physical agent were conserved and later reproduced under imaginary conditions.

Mental experiences formed in states of _alcoholic intoxication_ without delirium may be conserved as dormant complexes. Dr. Isador Coriat,[43] in his studies of _alcoholic amnesia_, was able to restore memories of experiences occurring during the alcoholic state showing that they were still conserved. The person, during the period for which later there is amnesia, may or may not be what is ordinarily called drunk, although under the influence of alcohol. Later, when he comes to himself, he is found to have forgotten the whole alcoholic period—perhaps several days or a week—during which he may have acted with apparently ordinary intelligence, and perhaps have committed criminal acts. By one or another of several technical methods memory of the forgotten period may often be recalled. Dr. C. W. Pilgrim[44] also has reported two cases of this kind in which he succeeded in restoring the memories of the forgotten alcoholic state. I might also recall here the case, cited by Ribot, of the Irish porter who, having lost a package while drunk, got drunk again and remembered where he had left it.

Of course, in order to demonstrate the conservation of forgotten experiences it is necessary, when abstraction is not sufficient, to employ subjects in whom more profound dissociation of consciousness can be produced by one or another of the artificial means described so as to permit of the reproduction of the hidden (conserved) experiences of mental life. Such subjects, however, are sufficiently common. Often the passive state of abstraction after some practice is sufficient.

Summary

Although in the above résumé of the phenomena of memory I have for the most part made use of personal observations, these, so far as the phenomena themselves are concerned, are in accord with those of other observers. It would have been easy to have drawn for corroboration upon the writings of Gurney, Janet, Charcot, Breuer, Freud, Sidis, Coriat, and others.

A survey of all the facts which I have outlined in this lecture forces us to ask ourselves the question: To what extent are life’s experiences conserved? Indeed it was to meet this question that I have reviewed so large a variety of forgotten experiences which experiment or observation in individual cases has shown to be conserved. If my aim had been to show simply that an experience, which has been lost beyond all possible voluntary recall, may still be within the power of reproduction when special devices adapted to the purpose are employed, it would not have been necessary to cover such a wide field of inquiry. To meet the wider question it was necessary to go farther afield and examine a large variety of experiences occurring in multiform conditions of mental life.

After doing this the important principle is forced upon us in strong relief that it matters not in what period of life, or in what state, experiences have occurred, or how long a time has intervened since their occurrence; they may still be conserved. They become dormant, but under favorable conditions they may be awakened and may enter conscious life. We have seen, even by the few examples I have given, that childhood experiences that are supposed to have long been buried in oblivion may be conserved. We have seen that the mental life of artificial and pathological states is subject to the same principle; that the experiences of hypnosis, trance states, deliria, intoxication, dissociated personality—though there may be absolute amnesia in the normal waking state for them—may still be capable of reproduction as memory. Yet of the vast number of mental experiences which we have during the course of our lives we can voluntarily recall but a fractional part. What proportion of the others is conserved is difficult, if not impossible, to determine. The difficulty is largely a practical one due to the inadequacy of our technical methods of investigation. In the first place, our technic is only applicable to a limited number of persons. In the second place, it is obvious that when an episode—occurring in the course of everyday life—is forgotten, but is recovered under one or another of the conditions I have described, it is only in a minority of instances that circumstances will permit confirmation of this evidence by collateral and independent testimony. Still, if we take the evidence as a whole its cumulative force is such as to compel the conviction that a vast number of experiences, more than we can possibly voluntarily recall, are conserved, and that it is impossible to affirm that any given experience may not persist in a dormant state. It is impossible to say what experiences of our daily life have failed to be conserved and what are awaiting only a favorable condition of reproduction to be stimulated into activity as memory. Even if they cannot be reproduced by voluntary effort, or by some one particular device, they may be by another and, if all devices fail, they may be recovered in pathological conditions like delirium, trance, spontaneous hallucinations, etc., or in normal dissociated states like dreams. The inability to recall an experience is no evidence whatever that it is not conserved. Indeed, even when the special methods and moments fail it is still not always possible to say that it is not conserved.

It would be a gross exaggeration to say, on the basis of the evidence at our disposal, that all life’s experiences persist as potential memories, or even that this is true of the greater number. It is, however, undoubtedly true that of the great mass of experiences which have passed out of all voluntary recollection, an almost incredible, even if relatively small, number still lie dormant, and, under favoring conditions, many can be brought within the field of conscious memory. The significance of this fact will become apparent to us later after we have studied the nature of conservation. Still more significant, particularly for abnormal psychology, is the fact we have brought out by our technical methods of investigation; namely, that almost any conserved experience under certain conditions can function as a subconscious memory and become translated into, i.e., produce sensory and motor automatic phenomena, such as hallucinations, writing, speech, etc. It will not be surprising if we shall find that various other disturbances of mind and body are produced by such subconscious processes.

Two striking facts brought out by some of these investigations are the minuteness of the details with which forgotten experiences may be conserved and the long periods of time during which conservation may persist. Thus, as we have seen, experiences dating back to early childhood may be shown to be preserved in extremely minute detail though the individual has long forgotten them. Furthermore, it has been shown that even remembered experiences may be conserved in far more elaborate detail than would appear from so much of the experience as can be voluntarily recalled. Probably our voluntary memory is not absolutely perfect for any experience in all its details but the details that are conserved often far exceed those that can be recalled.

In the survey of life’s experiences which we have studied we have, for the most part, considered those which have had objective relation and have been subject to confirmation by collateral testimony. But we should not overlook the fact that among mental experiences are those of the inner as well as outer life. To the former belong the hopes and aspirations, the regrets, the fears, the doubts, the self-communings and wrestlings with self, the wishes, the loves, the hates, all that we are not willing to give out to the world, and all that we would forget and would strive not to admit to ourselves. All this inner life belongs to our experience and is subject to the same law of conservation.

Finally, it should be said that much of what is not ordinarily regarded as memory is made up of conserved experiences. A large part of every mental content is memory the source of which is forgotten. Just as our vocabulary is memory, though we do not remember how and where it was acquired, so our judgments, beliefs, and opinions are in large part made up of past experiences which are forgotten but which have left their traces as integral parts of concepts ingrained in our personalities.

-----

Footnote 27:

For a full account of this experiment, see An Experimental Study of
Visions, _Brain_, Winter Number, 1898; The Dissociation, pp. 81, 82.

Footnote 28:

The Dissociation, p. 77.

Footnote 29:

For numerous observations of this kind, see Pierre Janet: The Mental
States of Hystericals.

Footnote 30:

The Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams, loc. cit.

Footnote 31:

Loc. cit. See p. 51.

Footnote 32:

See Lecture VI, p. 185.

Footnote 33:

Gurney was among the first to demonstrate the induction of several
states in the same subject. He was able to obtain three different
hypnotic states (Proceedings S. P. R., Vol. IV, p. 515), and Mrs.
Sidgwick and Miss Johnson eight in one individual, each with amnesia
for the other. Janet, of course, demonstrated the same phenomena. In
the cases of Miss B. and B. C. A. I obtained a large number of such
states.

Footnote 34:

Morton Prince: The Dissociation, p. 55; also An Experimental Study of
Visions, _Brain_, Winter Number, 1898.

Footnote 35:

Some of the Revelations of Hypnotism, _Boston Medical and Surgical
Journal_, May 22, 1890.

Footnote 36:

Studien über Hysterie.

Footnote 37:

Of course I am not discussing here the genetic mechanism of the
amnesia, being concerned only with the principle of conservation.

Footnote 38:

The Dissociation, pp. 284-5, 456-9.

Footnote 39:

Boris Sidis: The Psychology of Suggestion, p. 224; see also Multiple
Personality, p. 143.

Footnote 40:

_The Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, Vol. II, p. 93.

Footnote 41:

The Dissociation, pp. 220, 221, 255, 531, 532.

Footnote 42:

The Dissociation, p. 83.

Footnote 43:

_The Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, Vol. I, No. 3.

Footnote 44:

_American Journal of Insanity_, July, 1910.

LECTURE IV
CONSERVATION A RESIDUUM OF EXPERIENCES

A consideration of all the facts of observation and experiment of the kind which I have recited in the last two lectures—and I might have multiplied them many times—forces us to the conclusion that whether or not we can recall any given experience it may be still conserved. Bear in mind that I have used conservation, thus far, only in the sense that under favoring changes in the moment’s consciousness, or by special methods of stimulation, a past experience may reproduce itself, or may be made to reproduce itself, in one form or another of memory.

It may be, for example, that you have to-day only a vague and general recollection of the last lecture and if you should endeavor to write an account of it from memory the result would be but a fragmentary report. And yet it is quite possible that, if one or another of the various technical methods I have described could be applied to some one of you, we should be able to recover quite exact memories, of certain portions at least, of the lecture—perhaps _verbatim_ transcripts of certain portions, and large numbers of facts which are quite beyond your present recollection.

Our study of those phenomena of memory which I cited in the last lecture was carried only so far as to allow us to draw the conclusions as to conservation which I have just stated. And, in drawing these conclusions, let me repeat—we have provisionally limited the meaning of the term conservation simply to the potential ability to reproduce experiences, with or without recollection, either in their original form, or translated into a graphic, visual, or auditory expression of them. We have not attempted from these phenomena to draw conclusions as to the nature of conservation, or as to whether it is anything apart from reproduction under favorable conditions. If we do not look below the surface of the phenomena it might be held that memory is only a recurrent phase of consciousness, and that the term conservation is only a figure of speech to express the ability to determine that recurrence in our self-consciousness.

Let us examine now a little more closely some of the phenomena we have already examined but inadequately.

=Residual processes underlying automatic motor phenomena: writing, speech, gestures, etc.=—We will take writing as a type and the following as an example: In a state of hypnosis a subject learns a verse by heart. It is then suggested that this verse shall be written automatically after he has been awakened. (By arranging the conditions of the experiment in this way we make certain that the script afterwards written shall express a memory and not a fabrication.) After the subject returns to the normal waking state he has complete amnesia for the whole hypnotic state and therefore for the verse. Now, if the experiment is successful, his hand writes the given verse without the subject being aware of what his hand is writing, and it may be without being aware that his hand is writing anything at all. The whole thing has been done without participation of his consciousness and without his knowing that any such phenomenon was to occur. (Of course any of his conscious experiences while in the hypnotic state might have been used as a test, these being known to the experimenter as well.) Now the things to be noted are:

1, that the script expresses a memory; that is, reproduces previous _conserved_ conscious ideas—the verse. It expresses memory just exactly as it would express it if it had been consciously and voluntarily written.

2, that these ideas _while in a state of conservation_ and without entering consciousness—i.e., becoming conscious memory—express themselves in written language.

3, that this occurs while the subject has complete amnesia for the conserved ideas and therefore he could not possibly reproduce them as conscious memory.

4, that that which effects the writing is not a recurring phase of the self-consciousness which is concerned at the moment with totally different ideas.

5, that the “state of conservation” is, at least during the writing, a specific state existing and functioning independently and outside of the personal self-consciousness.

6, that in functioning it induces specific processes which make use of the same organized physiological mechanisms which ordinarily are made use of by conscious memory to express itself in writing and that these processes are not in, but independent of, consciousness.

We are forced to conclude therefore that a conscious experience—in this case the ideas of the verse—is conserved through the medium of some kind of residuum of itself capable of specific functioning and inducing processes which reproduce in the form of written symbols the ideas of the original experience.

We need not consider for the present the nature of the residuum, and its process, whether it is the ideas themselves or something else.

=Residual processes underlying hallucinations.=—We will take the observation of B. C. A. looking into a crystal and reading some printed words—a cablegram—which she had previously unconsciously overheard.[45] The words were, let us say, “Best Wishes and a Happy New Year.” This visual picture was not a literal reproduction of the original experience, which was a subconscious _auditory_ experience of the same words, of which she was not aware; but plainly, nevertheless, the visual picture must have been determined somehow by the auditory experience. Equally plainly the visual image was not a recurrent phase of the consciousness, for the words of the message had not been previously _seen_. What occurred was this: the antecedent auditory perception manifested itself in consciousness _after an interval of time_ as a visual hallucination of the words. There was a reproduction of the original experience but not in its original form. It had undergone a _secondary alteration_ by which the visual perception replaced the auditory perception. As a memory it was a conversion or _translation_ of an auditory experience into terms of another sense. Now the conversion must have been effected by some mechanism outside of consciousness; that is to say, it was not an ordinary visualization, i.e., intensely vivid secondary images pertaining to a _conscious_ memory, as when one thinks of the morning’s breakfast table and visualizes it; for there was no conscious memory of the words, or knowledge that there ever had been such an experience. The visualization therefore must have been induced by something not in the content of consciousness,—something we have called a secondary process, of which the individual is unaware.

We can conceive of the phenomenon originating in either one of two possible modes. Either the hallucination was a newly fabricated conscious experience; or it was a reproduction of secondary visual images originally belonging to the auditory perception at the time of its occurrence and now thrust into consciousness in an intensely vivid form. In either case, for this to have taken place something must have been left by the original experience and conserved apart from and independent of the content of the personal consciousness at any and all moments—something capable of functioning after an interval of time as a secondary process _outside of the personal consciousness_. The only intelligible explanation of the phenomenon is that the original auditory impression persisted, somehow and somewhere, in a form capable of conservation as a specific and independent residuum during all subsequent changes in the content of consciousness. This residuum either fabricated the hallucination or thrust its secondary images into consciousness to become the hallucination.

The phenomenon by itself does not permit a conclusion as to the nature of the residuum, whether it is psychological or neural; i.e., whether an auditory perception, as perception, still persists subconsciously outside the focus of awareness of consciousness, or whether it has left an alteration of some kind in the neurons. Whatever the inner nature of the conserved experience it _obviously must have a very specific and independent existence, somehow and somewhere, outside of the awareness of consciousness, and one capable of secondary functioning in a way that can reproduce the original experience in terms of another sense. In other words, conservation must be in the form of some kind of residuum, psychological or neural_. It must be, therefore, something very different from reproduction or a recurrent phase of consciousness. Further, it must form a stage in the process of memory of which reproduction is the final result.

This observation of course does not stand alone. I have cited a number of observations and might cite many more in which the same phenomenon of transformation or conversion of sensory images of one sense into images of another sense was prominent. Indeed a study of hallucinations, artificial or spontaneous, which are representations of former experiences and where the determining factors can be ascertained, will show that in most, if not all, of them this same _mechanism of conversion_ is at work. Take, for instance, the experiment cited in our last lecture, the one in which Miss B. was directed to look into a crystal for the purpose of discovering the whereabouts of some money she had lost without being aware of the fact. In the crystal she sees a vision of herself walking along a particular street in Boston absorbed in thought. She sees herself in a moment of absent-mindedness take some banknotes out of her pocket, tear them up, and throw them into the street.

Now this artificial hallucination was, as we have seen, a picture of an actual occurrence for which there was amnesia. It must, therefore, have been determined by that experience. The psychological phenomena manifested, however, were really much more complicated than would appear at first sight. An analysis of this vision, which unfolded itself like a cinematograph picture, would show that it was a composite visual representation of several different kinds of experiences—of past perceptions of her body and face, of her conscious knowledge of her relation to the environment (in the street), of muscular movements, and of her knowledge derived from subconscious tactile impressions of the act. Of these last she was not aware at the time of their occurrence. Much of this knowledge must have persisted as a residuum of the original experience and functioned subconsciously. Thereby, perhaps, the original secondary visual images were reproduced and emerged into consciousness as the hallucination or pictorial memory.

Similar phenomena indicative of conservation being effected by means of a residuum of the original experience may be produced experimentally in various ways. For instance, in certain hysterics with anesthesia if you prick a number of times a part of the body—say the hand—in which all tactile sensation has been lost, and later direct the subject to look into a crystal, he will see a number, perhaps written on a hand. This number, let us say five, will correctly designate the number of times the hand was pricked. Now, because of the loss of sensibility, the subject was unaware of the pin-pricks. Nevertheless, of course, they were recorded subconsciously, coconsciously). Their subsequent transformation into a visual hallucination not only shows that they were conserved, but that they left something which was capable of taking part, outside of consciousness, in a secondary process which gave rise to the hallucination.

An examination of all crystal visions, so far as they are translated memories of actual experiences, will show this same evidence for a conserved residuum.

That _conservation is not merely a figure of speech_ to express the ability to determine the recurrence of a previous experience, but means a specific residuum capable of independent and elaborate functioning, is brought out more conspicuously in those visions which are elaborately fabricated symbolisms of an antecedent experience. In other words, the vision is not a literal recurrence of a previous phase of consciousness, in that the latter has been worked over, so to speak, so as to appear in consciousness in a reconstructed form. Though reconstructed it either still retains its original meaning or is worked out to a completion of its thoughts, or to a fulfilment of the emotional strivings pertaining to them (anxieties, wishes, etc.). These visions, perhaps, more frequently occur spontaneously, often at moments of crises in a person’s life, but also are observed under experimental conditions. Sometimes they answer the doubts, scruples and other problems which have troubled the subject, sometimes they express the imaginary fulfilment of intense longings or of anxieties and dreads which have been entertained, or disturbing thoughts which have pricked the conscience.[46] We are obliged to conclude, in the light of experimental observations of the same class, that such phenomena are determined by the specific residua of antecedent thoughts which must be conserved and function in a specific manner to appear in this metamorphosed form.

=Similar residual processes underlying post-hypnotic phenomena.=—Conserved experiences which give rise to more complicated secondary elaboration may be observed in suggested post-hypnotic phenomena. Experiments of this kind may be varied in many ways. The phenomenon may be an hallucination similar to the one I have just described in hysterics, or a so-called subconscious calculation. You suggest in hypnosis to a suitable subject that he shall multiply certain numbers, or calculate the number of seconds intervening between certain hours—let us say between 10:43 and 5:13 o’clock—the answer to be given in writing on a certain day. The subject is then awakened immediately, before he has time to do the calculation while in hypnosis. Later, if the experiment is successful, at the time designated the subject will absent-mindedly or automatically write the figures giving the answer.

There are two modes in which these calculations may be accomplished. In a special and limited class of cases, where there is a large split-off subconscious personality, or doubling of consciousness, the calculation may be made entirely by this secondary subconscious self, in the same fashion as it would be made by the principal personality if the problem were given in the waking state. The subconscious personality will go through each conscious step in the calculation in the same way.[47] In a second class of cases the _calculations are worked out, apparently, unconsciously_, without participation in the process by a subconscious personality even when such exists. At most it would seem that isolated numbers representing different steps in the calculation arise from time to time coconsciously as a limited secondary consciousness (of which the personal consciousness is unaware) until finally the figures of the completed answer appear therein. The calculation itself appears to be still another process outside both the personal and the secondary consciousness. When the problem has been finished the answer is finally given automatically. The whole process is too complicated to go into at this time before we have studied the problems of the coconscious.[48] It is enough to say that it is plain that the hypnotic experience—the suggested problem—must be considered as some kind of specific residuum, psychological or neural, and that this residuum must be one capable of quite elaborate independent and subconscious intellectual activity before finally becoming transformed into the final answer.

=Residual processes underlying dreams.=—When citing the evidence of dreams for the conservation of forgotten experiences I spoke of one type of dream as a symbolical memory. I may now add it is more than this; it is a fabrication. The original experience or thought may appear in the dream after being worked over into a fantasy, allegory, symbolism, or other product of imagination. Such a dream is not a recurrent phase of consciousness, but a _newly fabricated phase_. Further, analytical and experimental researches go to show that the fabrication is performed by the original phase without the latter recurring in the content of the personal consciousness. The original phase must therefore have been conserved in some form capable of such independent and specific functioning, i.e., fabrication below the threshold of consciousness. For instance:

The subject dreamed that she was standing where two roads separated.
One was broad and bright and beautiful, and many people she knew were
going that way. The other road was the rocky path, quite dark, and no
one was going that way, but she had to go. And she said, “Oh, why must
I go this way? Will no one go with me?” And a voice replied, “I will
go with you.” She looked around, and there were some tall black
figures; they all had names across their foreheads in bright letters,
and the one who spoke was Disappointment; and all the others said, “We
will go with you,” and they were Sorrow, Loss, Pain, Fear, and
Loneliness, and she fell down on her face in anguish.

Now an analysis of the antecedent thought of this subject and a knowledge of her circumstances and mental life, though we cannot go into them here, make it perfectly clear that as a fact, whether there was any causal connection or not, this dream _was_ a symbolic expression of those thoughts. The rocky path has been shown to be symbolic of her conception of her own life entertained through years—the other road symbolic of the life longed for and imagined as granted to others. Likewise the rest of the dream symbolized, in a way which any one can easily recognize, the lot which she had in her disappointment actually fancied was hers. The thoughts thus symbolized had been constantly recurring thoughts and therefore had been conserved. They were reproduced in the dream, not in their original form, but translated into symbols and an allegory. Something must, therefore, have effected the translation. In other words, the dream is not a recurrent phase of consciousness but _an allegorical fabrication_ which expresses these thoughts, not literally as they originally occurred, but in the form of an imaginative story. Now the similarity of the allegorical dream thoughts to the original thoughts can be explained only in two ways: either as pure chance coincidence, or through a relation of cause and effect. In the latter case the dream might have been determined either by the specific antecedent thoughts in question—those revealed as memories in the analysis, or both series might have been determined by a third, as yet unrevealed, series. For the purposes of the present problem it is immaterial which so long as the dream was determined by some antecedent thought. The very great frequency, not to say universality, with which this same similarity or a logical relation with antecedent thoughts is found in dreams after analysis renders chance coincidence very improbable. We must believe, therefore, that the dream was determined by antecedent experiences. It is beyond my purpose to enter here into an exposition of the theory of the mechanism of dreams, although I shall touch upon it later in some detail in connection with subconscious processes. We need here only concern ourselves with this mechanism so far as it bears upon the principle of conservation. Suffice it to say that analytical observations (Freud) have, it seems to me, conclusively shown that conserved experiences may be not only the determining factors in dreams, but that _while in a state of conservation they are capable of undergoing elaborate fabrication and afterwards appearing so thoroughly transformed in consciousness as not to be superficially recognizable_. I have also been able to reach the same conclusions by the method of experimental production of dreams.

The only question is, in what form can a thought be so conserved that it can, _while still in a state of conservation_, without itself rising into consciousness, fabricate a symbolism, allegory, or other work requiring imagination and reasoning? The only logical and intelligible inference is that the antecedent conscious experience has been either itself specifically conserved as such outside of the personal consciousness, or has left some neural residuum or disposition capable of functioning and constructing the conscious dream fabrication.

=Residual processes underlying physiological bodily disturbances.=—Before proceeding further I would invite your attention to another class of facts as these facts must be taken into consideration in any theory of conservation. These facts show that the residua can, by subconscious functioning, induce _physiological bodily manifestations_ without reproducing the original mental experience as conscious memory. In certain abnormal conditions of the nervous system, i.e., in certain psychoneuroses, we meet with certain involuntary actions of the limbs or muscles known as spasms and contractures; also with certain impairment of functions such as blindness, deafness, loss of sensation (anesthesia), paralysis, etc. These disturbances are purely functional, meaning that they are not due to any organic disease. Now the evidence seems to be conclusive that these physiological disturbances are caused sometimes by ideas after they have passed out of consciousness and become, as ideas, dormant, i.e., while they are in a state of conservation and have ceased to be ideas—or, at least, ideas of which the subject is aware. A moment’s consideration will convince you that this means that ideas, or, at least, experiences in a state of conservation, and without being reproduced as conscious memory, can so function as to affect the body in one or other of the ways I have mentioned. To do this they must exist in some specific form that is independent of the personal consciousness of the moment. To take, for example, an actual case which I have elsewhere described:

B. C. A., in a dream, had a visual hallucination of a flash of light which revealed a scene in a cave and which was followed by blindness such as would physiologically follow a tremendous flash. In the dream she is warned that if she looks into the cave, she will be blinded. She looks; there is a blinding flash and loss of vision follows; after waking she was still partially blind, but she continued from time to time to see momentary flashes of light revealing certain of the objects seen in the dream in the cave, and these flashes would be succeeded temporarily by absolute blindness as in the dream. She had no memory of the dream. Now psychological analysis disclosed the meaning of the dream; it was a symbolical representation of certain conserved (subconscious) previous thoughts—thoughts apprehensive of the future into which she dared not look, thinking she would be overwhelmed. _While in a state of conservation_ the residua of _these_ antecedent thoughts had translated themselves into the symbolical hallucination of the dream and the loss of vision. Similarly after waking, although she had no memory of the dream, the conserved residua of the same thoughts continued to translate themselves into visual hallucinations and to induce blindness.[49] It would take too long for me to enter here into the details of the analysis which forces this conclusion.[50]

Similarly, as is well known, convulsions resembling epilepsy, paralysis, spasms, tics, contractures, etc., may be caused directly or indirectly by ideas, after they have passed out of consciousness and ceased to take part in the conscious processes of thought. At least that is the interpretation which the facts elicited by the various methods of investigation seem to require.

There is an analogous class of phenomena which ought to be mentioned among the possible data bearing upon the theory of memory, although too much weight cannot be placed upon them as their interpretation is not wholly clear. I will discuss them in detail later in connection with the phenomena of the emotions. They are certain _emotional phenomena_ which are attributed by some writers to ideas in a state of conservation. It has been demonstrated that ideas to which strong feeling tones are attached are accompanied by such physiological effects as disturbance of respiration, of the heart’s action, of the vaso-motor system, of the secretions, etc., and also by certain _galvanic phenomena_ which are due to the diminution of the electrical resistance of the body, probably caused by increased secretion of sweat.[51]

Now the point is that such phenomena are sometimes experimentally obtained in connection with certain test words[52] spoken to the subject experimented upon, although he has no recollection of any incident in his life which could have given an emotional tone to the word and, therefore, can give no explanation of the physical reaction. By various technical methods, however, memories of a forgotten emotional experience in which the idea (represented by the word) plays a part and through which it derived its emotional tone are resurrected. I have been able to obtain such reactions from test words which investigation showed referred to the incidents of terrifying dreams which were _completely forgotten_ in the waking state. When the test word was given, the subject might, for instance, exhibit a respiratory disturbance—a sudden gasp—without conscious knowledge of its significance, and the galvanometer, with which the subject was in circuit, would show a wide deflection. Recovery of the dream in hypnosis would explain the meaning of the emotional disturbance excited by the word. The interpretation which has been put upon such phenomena is that the residua of the forgotten experience are “struck” by the test word. As the forgotten experience originally included the emotion and its physiological reaction, so the residua are linked by association to the emotional mechanism and when stimulated function as a subconscious process and excite the reaction. If this interpretation, strongly held by some, be correct, the phenomena are important for the support they give to the theory of conservation. They would indicate that conscious experiences must be conserved in a very specific subconscious form, one that is capable, without becoming conscious memory, of exciting the physiological apparatus of the emotions in a manner identical with that of conscious emotional ideas. They are open, however, to a simpler explanation, whether more probable or not: namely, that it is not the residua of the forgotten experience which unconsciously excite the physiological reaction, but the auditory symbol, the test word itself. The symbol having been once associated with the emotional reaction, it afterwards of itself, through a short circuit so to speak, suffices to induce the reaction, though the origin of the association has been forgotten and, therefore, the subject is in entire ignorance of the reason for the strong feeling manifestation. On the other hand, in some instances test words associated with emotional experiences which _originally_ were entirely coconscious and _had never entered conscious awareness at all_ give the reactions in question.[53] As coconscious memories of such experiences can be demonstrated it would seem at first sight as if under such conditions the word-reactions must come from a true subconscious process—the subconscious memory. And yet even here it is difficult to eliminate absolutely the possibility of the second interpretation. There are, however, a large number of emotional phenomena occurring in pathological conditions which can only be intelligibly interpreted as being due to the residua of previously conscious experiences functioning as a subconscious process. These phenomena we shall have occasion to review in succeeding lectures. They are too complex to enter upon at this stage.

Aside, then, from these word-reactions we have a sufficient number of other phenomena, such as I have cited, which indicate that conscious experiences when conserved must persist in a form capable of exciting purely physiological reactions without the experiences themselves rising into consciousness again as memory. The form must also be one which permits of their functioning as intelligent processes although not within the conscious field of awareness of the moment.

As a final summing up of the experiments and observations of the kind which I have thus far cited, dealing with forgotten experiences, we may say that they lead us to the following conclusions:

1. That conservation is something very different from reproduction.

2. A given experience is conserved through the medium of some kind of residuum of that experience. This residuum must have a specific existence independent of consciousness, in that it is capable of specific and independent functioning, coincidentally with and outside of the consciousness of any given moment. Its nature must be such that it can incite through specific processes the following phenomena in none of which the conscious processes of the moment take part as factors:

(a) Specific memory for the given experience expressed through the established physiological mechanisms of external expression (speech, writing, gestures) after the manner of a mnesic process.

(b) A mnesic hallucination which is a representation of the antecedent perceptual experience but after having undergone translation into terms of another sense.

(c) A mnesic hallucination in which the original experience appears synthesized with various other experiences into an elaborate representation of a complex experience, or secondarily elaborated into a symbolism, allegory or other fabrication.

(d) Mnesic phenomena which are a logical continuation of the antecedent conscious experiences and such as ordinarily are produced by conscious processes of thought—reasoning, imagination, volition (mathematical calculations, versification, fabrication, etc.).

(e) Physical phenomena (paralyses contractures, vasomotor disturbances, etc.).

In other words a specific experience while in a state of conservation and without being reproduced in consciousness can incite or induce processes which incite these and similar phenomena.

-----

Footnote 45:

Lecture III, p. 58.

Footnote 46:

For specific instances, see Lecture VII.

Footnote 47:

Morton Prince: Experimental Evidence for Coconscious Ideation,
_Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, April-May, 1908.

Footnote 48:

For further details, see Lecture VI, p. 169.

Footnote 49:

Prince: Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams, _Jour. of Abn.
Psych._, October-November, 1910.

Footnote 50:

If, lacking this knowledge of the data, any one chooses to insist that
it was not the conserved residua of previous thoughts, but of the
dream itself (the only alternative entertainable explanation) which
induced, _after waking_, the hallucinatory phenomena and blindness, we
still fall back upon the same principle, namely, that of the
subconscious functioning of conserved residua of a conscious
experience producing a physiological (and psychological) effect.

Footnote 51:

According to recent researches of Sidis in conjunction with Kalmus,
and later with Nelson (The Nature and Causation of the Galvanic
Phenomenon, Psychological Review, March, 1910) similar galvanic
phenomena under similar conditions may be caused by the _generation_
of an electric current within the body.

Footnote 52:

The test word (e. g., boat, stone, hat, etc.) of course represents an
idea which may have various associations in the mind of the subject.

Footnote 53:

Morton Prince and Frederick Peterson: Experiments in Psycho-Galvanic
Reactions from Coconscious (Subconscious) Ideas in a Case of Multiple
Personality, _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, April-May, 1908.

LECTURE V
NEUROGRAMS

We have got as far as showing that the phenomena of memory to be intelligible require that ideas which have passed out of mind must be conserved through some sort of residuum left by the original experience. But this as a theory of memory is incomplete; the question remains, _How_, and in what form, manner, or way, are they conserved? In other words, What is the nature of the residuum? Is it psychical or physical?[54] As we have seen, from the fact that something outside of the personal consciousness can manifest memory of a given experience at the very same moment when the personal consciousness has amnesia for that experience, we are compelled to infer that conservation must be by a medium, psychological or physiological, capable of being excited as a specific secondary process. Now this medium must be either an undifferentiated “Psyche” or specific differentiated residua. In the former case we postulate a concept of a transcendental something beyond experience and of which, like the soul after death, we have and can have no knowledge. To this concept of an undifferentiated Psyche we shall return presently.