Chapter XVIII: The Psychogenesis of Multiple Personality—the Case of B. 545 (7)

Whether or not this is the correct interpretation of this dream depends entirely upon whether the true causal factors were found. If through the analysis this was the case, as I believe—namely, the scruple or ethical problem whether poor people who yield to temptation ought to be condemned—then the interpretation given is logically sound and the dream is an answer to the doubts and scruples that beset the dreamer’s mind. But the answer is a pictorial symbolism and therefore requires an intervening subconscious process which induces and finally expresses itself in the symbolism. We may suppose that this process in response to and as a subconscious incubation of the ethical problem took some form like this: “Poor people like the Jewess are not to be condemned for yielding to the temptation (of drinking) for my mother, who was beyond criticism, showed by her life she would not have condemned them.”

This may or may not be the true subconscious process and the correct interpretation of the dream. But it is one possible and logical interpretation based upon the actually found antecedent experiences and associative memories of the dreamer. Now it so happens that this interpretation and that of other dreams[114] which I endeavored to trace to antecedent experiences have been warmly challenged by certain clinicians because the inferred causal factors were not found to be antecedent repressed sexual wishes. It is insisted on theoretical grounds that the content of the dreams plainly indicated that there must have been such wishes and that if these had been found this dream would have been unfolded as a logical symbolical fulfilment of a sexual wish. Which interpretation is correct is inconsequential for our present purpose. The controversy only relates to the universality of the sexual theory of dreams. The point is that this difference in interpretation shows the possibility of error in the determination of the causal factor and the subconscious process by clinical methods. The dream may be logically related to two or more antecedent experiences and we have no criterion of which is the correct one. To insist upon one or the other savors of pure dogmatism.[115] Indeed, the justification for the postulation in a dream of any subconscious process in the last analysis depends upon the soundness of the postulation of the antecedent experience as the causal factor. If this factor falls to the ground the subconscious process falls with it.

The second point to which this discussion leads us is that the latitude of interpretation allowed by the method of analysis has given rise to different views as to the specific character of the subconscious process found in many dreams. According to the theory of Freud, to whose genius we are indebted for the discovery of this process, it is almost always a sexual wish and the dream is always the imaginary, even though cryptic, fulfilment of that wish. On the other hand, as a result of my own studies, if I may venture to lay weight upon them, I have been forced to the conclusion that _a dream may be the symbolical expression of almost any thought_ to which strong emotional tones with their impulsive forces have been linked, particularly anxieties, apprehensions, sorrows, beliefs, wishes, doubts, and scruples, which function subconsciously in the dream. It may be a solution of unsolved problems with which the mind has been occupied,[116] just as in the waking state a mathematical or other problem may be solved subconsciously. In some subjects the problem is particularly apt to be one involving a conflict between opposing impulses, therefore one which has troubled the dreamer.[117]

We have seen that in experimental and spontaneous hallucinatory phenomena, where the causal factor is known, a subconscious process is the essential feature of the mechanism. In this respect the mechanism is identical with that of certain dreams. Indeed, dreams are one type of hallucinatory phenomena. In fact we met with one dream the chief element of which was repeated afterward in the waking state as a vision. We are justified, then, in applying the principle of a subconscious process to the elucidation of the _visions of normal people_, although it may be difficult to determine exactly the specific content of the process and the antecedent thought from which it was derived. Sometimes the content of a vision and the known circumstances under which it occurred are sufficient to enable us to interpret the phenomenon with reasonable certainty. In the following historical examples it is not difficult to recognize that the vision was a symbolic answer to a problem which had troubled the conscience of the Archduke Charles of Austria. Unable to solve his problem consciously and come to a decision, it was solved for him by a subconscious process. Indeed, as a fact, the vision was accepted by Charles as an answer to his doubts and perhaps changed the future history of Austria.

“The Archduke Charles (the father of the present Emperor of Austria)
was also greatly troubled in his mind as to the right to waive his
claim to the crown in favor of his son. According to his own statement
he only finally made up his mind when, while earnestly praying for
guidance in his perplexity, he had _a vision of the spirit of his
father, the late Emperor Francis, laying his hand on the head of his
youthful grandson and thus putting all his own doubts to rest_.”[118]

The likeness in type of the dream which we have just discussed to this vision is instructive. In the former the mother of the dreamer answers the question of conscience by drinking the whisky; in the latter the father of the visualizer does the same by laying his hand on the head of the object of the doubt.

I have already pointed out the evidence for a subconscious process underlying the hallucinatory phenomena of sudden religious conversion.[119] I may further cite here, as an analogous phenomenon, the following historical example of not only hallucinatory symbolism, but of _explicitly conscious processes of thought_ which were elaborated by subconscious processes. It is Margaret Mary’s vision of the Sacred Heart. Margaret earnestly desired (according to her biographer)——

“To be loved by God! and loved by him to distraction (aimé jusqu’à la
folie)!—Margaret melted away with love at the thought of such a thing.
Like St. Philip of Neri in former times, or like St. Francis Xavier,
she said to God: ‘Hold back, O my God, these torrents which overwhelm
me, or else enlarge my capacity for their reception.’”

The answer and the form of the fulfilment of this wish came as an hallucination. She had a vision of Christ’s Sacred Heart

“‘surrounded with rays more brilliant than the sun, and transparent
like a crystal. The wound which he received on the cross visibly
appeared upon it. There was a crown of thorns roundabout this divine
Heart, and a cross above it.’ At the same time Christ’s voice told her
that, unable longer to contain the flames of his love for mankind, he
had chosen her by a miracle to spread the knowledge of them. He
thereupon took out her mortal heart, placed it inside of his own and
inflamed it, and then replaced it in her breast, adding: ‘Hitherto
thou hast taken the name of my slave, hereafter thou shalt be called
the well-beloved disciple of my Sacred Heart.’”[120]

There is scarcely room to doubt, on the strength of the evidence as presented, that the antecedent longings of Margaret impelled by the conative force of their emotions were the causal factor of this vision. These longings, organized in the unconscious, must have gone through subconscious incubation (as William James has pointed out) and then emerged after maturity into consciousness as a symbolic visualization accompanied by hallucinatory words which were the expression of explicit subconscious imagination. Indeed, all such hallucinatory symbolisms—like the mental phenomena in general of sudden religious conversion—can only be psychologically explained as the emergence into consciousness of subconscious processes. The problem in each case is the determination of the content of the process.[121]

_Reflection, consideration, meditation._—We are entering upon more uncertain ground in attempting to apply the mechanism of subconscious processes to every-day thought. There are certain types of thought, however, which behave as if this mechanism were at work. When, for instance, we take a problem “under advisement,” reflect upon it, give it “thoughtful consideration,” it seems as if, in weighing the facts pro and con, in looking at it from different points of view, i.e., in switching it into different settings, in considering all the facts related to it, we _voluntarily_ recall each fact that comes into consciousness. Yet it is quite possible, and indeed I think more than probable, reasoning from analogy, that the processes which present each fact, switch each point of view, or setting into consciousness, are subconscious and that what we do is chiefly to select from those which are thus brought into consciousness the ideas, settings, etc., which fulfil best the requirements of the question. In profound reflection or attention to thought (a form of absentmindedness) it seems as if it were more a matter of attention to and selection from the “free associations” which involuntarily come into the mind than of determining voluntarily what shall come in. If this be so, it is evident that the subconscious plays a much more extensive part in the mechanism of thought than is ordinarily supposed. We have not, however, sufficient data to allow us to do much more than theorize in the matter. Yet there are certain data which suggest the probability of the correctness of this hypothesis. In this connection I would point out how entirely confirmatory of this view is the testimony of the hypnotic consciousness which was cited in the previous lecture and which I will ask you to recall. You will remember that this testimony was to the effect that when a problem was under consideration associative memories required for its solution kept emerging out of the unconscious into the secondary consciousness.[122]

Consider certain facts of every-day experience. A novel and difficult question is put up to us for decision. We have, we will say, to decide whether a certain piece of property situated in a growing district of a city shall be sold or held for future development: or a political manager has to decide whether or not to pursue a certain policy to win an election; or the President of the United States has to decide the policy of the government in certain land questions in Alaska. Now each of us would probably say that we could not decide such a question offhand; we would want time for consideration. If we attempted voluntarily, at the moment the question is put, to recall to mind all the different facts involved, to consider the given question from all aspects, to switch the main facts into their different settings, we would find it an impossible thing to do. We consequently take the matter “under advisement,” to use the conventional expression. We want time. Now what we apparently, and I think undoubtedly, do is to put the problem _into_ our minds and leave it, so to speak, to incubate. Then, from time to time, as we take up the matter for consideration, the various facts involved in the different aspects of the question, and belonging to their different settings, arise to mind. Then we weigh, compare, and estimate the value of these different facts and arrive at a judgment. All happens as if subconscious processes had been at work, as if the problem had been going through a subconscious incubation, switching in this and switching in that set of facts, and presenting them to consciousness, the final selection of the deciding point of view being left to the latter. The subconscious garners from the storehouse of past experiences, those which have a bearing on the question and are required for its solution, brings them into consciousness, and then our logical conscious processes form the judgment. The degree to which subconscious processes in this way take part in forming judgments would vary according to the mental habits of the individual, the complexity of the problem, the affectivity and conflicting character of the elements involved. Under this theory we see that there is a deeper psychological basis for the every-day practice of taking “under advisement” or “into consideration” a matter, before giving judgment, than would appear on the surface. There is considerable experimental evidence in favor of this theory. In discussing above the subconscious solution of problems I cited certain evidence, obtained from the memories of subjects in hypnosis, for coconscious and unconscious processes taking part in such solutions. I have been able to accumulate evidence of this kind showing the coöperation of processes outside of consciousness in determining the point of view and final judgment of the subject when a matter has been under advisement; particularly when the subject has been disturbed by doubts and scruples. It is plain that in the final analysis any question on which we reserve our judgment is a problem which we put _into_ our minds. And, after all, _it is only a question of degree and affectivity between the state of mind which hesitates to decide an impersonal question, like a judicial decision, and one that involves a scruple of conscience_. This latter state often eventuates in hallucinatory and other phenomena involving subconscious processes. Scruples of conscience, it is true, usually have strong affective elements as constituents, but the former may also have them, particularly when involving personal ambitions, political principles, etc.

-----

Footnote 98:

The Dissociation, Appendix L, p. 548.

Footnote 99:

The Dissociation, Chapter XXXI.

Footnote 100:

As a matter of fact, the judgment was erroneous, though a justifiable
inference.

Footnote 101:

Cf. The Dissociation, 2d edition, p. 567.

Footnote 102:

William James had once said to her in my presence that she could make
a valuable contribution to psychology. It is interesting to note,
although it is aside from the question at issue, that this subject had
strenuously denied that there was any “hope,” insisting that she was
absolutely devoid of any such sentiment. Through hypnotic memories,
however, I was able to demonstrate that this was only consciously
true, and that there were very evident and strong coconscious ideas of
hope of which she was not consciously aware. She had refused to
acknowledge these ideas to herself and by repression had dissociated
them from the personal consciousness. These ideas now expressed
themselves symbolically in the dream.

Footnote 103:

We must remember that a dreaming state is a dissociated state (like a
fugue or trance), and numerous observations have shown that in such
conditions any of the dormant related experiences of life may modify,
repress, resist, alter, and determine the content of the dissociated
consciousness. It is difficult to conceive of a dream allegory being
constructed by the dream consciousness itself. If that were the
mechanism, we should expect that the associative ideas for which
symbols are chosen would appear during the dream construction as is
the case in waking imagination. The method of the mental processes is
very different in the latter. We there _select_ from a number of
associative ideas that crowd into consciousness, choose our symbols,
and remember the rejected ideas. This is not the case with dream
imagination. The imagery develops as if done by something else.

Footnote 104:

It must not be assumed that all dreams are determined by a
subconscious process or that all are symbolic. On the contrary, from
evidence in hand, there is reason to believe that some dreams have
substantially the same mechanism as waking imagination subject to the
limitations imposed by the existing dissociation of consciousness
during sleep. Just as, in the waking state, thoughts may or may not be
determined by subconscious processes, so in the sleeping state. We
know too little about the mechanisms of thought to draw wide
generalizations or to dogmatize.

Footnote 105:

“For two or three days previously I had been trying to write some
verses, and had been reading a good deal of poetry. I had been
thinking in rhythm. I had also been under considerable nervous and
emotional strain for some little time in reference to the facts
portrayed in the verse.”

Footnote 106:

By this is meant “thoughts” of which she was not aware. Numerous
observations on this subject have disclosed such subconscious ideas in
connection with other phenomena. This corresponds with the testimony
of other subjects previously cited. (Lecture VI.)

Footnote 107:

As a theory of the mechanism of the vision I would suggest that it was
the emergence of the secondary visual images belonging to the
subconscious ideas.

Footnote 108:

See page 102. Also Prince: The Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams.
_Jour. Abnormal Psychology_. Oct.-Nov., 1910. G. A. Waterman: Dreams
as a Cause of Symptoms. Ibid. Oct.-Nov., 1910.

Footnote 109:

I base this theory on other observations where coconscious images or
“visions” of scenes occurred. When these images emerge into
consciousness the subject experienced a vision.

Footnote 110:

The Dissociation, p. 332.

Footnote 111:

The Dissociation of a Personality, p. 330.

Footnote 112:

Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams, _Journal Abnormal Psychology_,
Oct.-Nov., 1910.

Footnote 113:

The symbolic expression of beliefs and symbolic answers to doubts and
scruples is quite common in another type of symbolism, viz., visions.
Religious and political history is replete with examples.

Footnote 114:

_Loc. cit._

Footnote 115:

It has been answered that experience in a large number of cases shows
that dreams always can be related logically to sexual experiences. To
this it may be answered they can also in an equal number of cases,
indeed in many of these same cases, be related to non-sexual
experiences.

Footnote 116:

_Loc. cit._ It is possible, however, that sometimes the problem has
been solved subconsciously in the waking state, the answer then
appearing in the dream.

Footnote 117:

Here we find an analogy with certain allied phenomena—the visions and
voices experienced as phenomena of sudden religious conversion.

Footnote 118:

Francis Joseph and His Sir Horace Rumbold. Page 151. (Italics mine.)

Footnote 119:

See also, “The Psychology of Sudden Religious Conversion,” _Journal
Abnormal Psychology_, April, 1906, and “The Dissociation,” 2nd Edit.,
pages 344 and 564; also James’ “The Varieties of Religious
Experience.”

Footnote 120:

Quoted by William James, page 343.

Footnote 121:

Some will undoubtedly read into Margaret’s vision a cryptic sexual
symbolism. To do so seems to me too narrow a view, in that it fails to
give full weight to other instincts (and emotions) and to appreciate
all the forces of human personality.

Footnote 122:

Lecture VI, pp. 169-172.

LECTURE VIII
THE UNCONSCIOUS

Our studies up to this point have led us to the general conclusion that a large measure of the experiences of life are conserved or deposited in what may be called a storehouse of neurographic dispositions or residua. _This storehouse is the unconscious._ From this storehouse our conscious processes draw for the material of thought. Further, a large amount and variety of evidence, which we have briefly and incompletely reviewed, has shown that conserved experiences may function without arising into consciousness, i.e., as a subconscious process. To what extent such processes take part in the mechanism of thought, contribute to the formation of judgments, determine the point of view and meaning of ideas, give direction to the stream and formulate the content of consciousness, and in particular conditions, by a species of translation, manifest themselves consciously as phenomena which we designate abnormal constitute special problems which require to be studied by themselves.

=Physiological memory and processes.=—There is one phase of the unconscious which for the sake of completeness ought to be touched upon here, particularly as it is of considerable importance in any biological conception of intelligence. _There is every reason to believe that_ intrinsically _there is no essential difference between those physiological dispositions and activities of the lower nervous centers (subcortical ganglia and spinal cord), which condition and determine unconscious behavior, and those dispositions and activities of the higher centers—the cortex—which condition and determine both conscious and unconscious behavior._ The former are undoubtedly innate in that they are primarily conditioned by inherited anatomical and physiological prearrangements of neurons and the latter are pre-eminently acquired through experience although probably not wholly so. (Our knowledge of the localization of function in the nervous system is not sufficiently definite to enable us to delimit the localization of either innate or acquired dispositions.) The innate activities of the lower nervous centers so far as represented by movements can be clearly differentiated from those of the higher centers and recognized in the behavior of so-called “spinal” animals and of animals from which the cerebral hemispheres have been removed. In the former the connection between the spinal cord and all parts of the nervous system above having been severed, whatever movements are executed are performed by the spinal cord alone and therefore of course by unconscious processes. The latter animals, although their actions are more complex and closely approximate (with important differences) those of normal animals, are also devoid or nearly devoid of consciousness. I say “nearly devoid” because in the interpretation of the experiments it is difficult to disprove that, as some hold, elementary sensations—qua sensation—are retained, though others regard the animals as purely unconscious physiological machines.

In the spinal animal, in response to specific stimuli, various movements are elicited which though of a purposive character are effected, as has been so admirably worked out by Sherington, by complex spinal mechanisms of a reflex character. The so-called “scratch reflex” and the reflex movements of walking, trotting, and galloping (the animal being suspended in air) are examples. Such reflexes involve not only the excitation of certain movements appropriate to the stimulus but the inhibition of antagonistic muscles and reflex movements. Further in the integration of the spinal system, reflexes are compounded, one bringing to the support of another allied accessory reflexes so that various coöperative movements are executed. A constellation of reflexes leads to quite complex spinal mechanisms responsive to groups of stimuli acting concurrently and resulting in behavior which is purposive and adaptive to the situation. The neural processes executing such movements are necessarily conditioned by inherited dispositions and structural arrangements of the neurons.

In the animal from which the cerebral hemispheres only have been removed there can be little doubt that the physiological mechanisms governing behavior differ only in complexity, not in kind, from those of the spinal reflexes; that in passing through successive anatomical levels from the spinal animal to this decerebrate animal with the addition of each successive ganglion the increasing complexity of behavior corresponds to increasing complexity of mechanisms or compounding of reflexes. And yet in the decerebrate animal without consciousness, as we must believe (excepting perhaps elementary sensations), the subcortical ganglia and spinal cord continue to perform exceedingly complex actions ordinarily, as we suppose, guided in the normal animal by consciousness. The reptile crawls; the fish swims; indeed the lancet fish has no brain, all its functions being regulated by its spinal cord. The frog hops and swims; the hen preens its feathers, walks and flies; the dog walks and runs. These, however, are the simplest examples of decerebrate behavior. Indeed it may be quite complex. The more recent experiments of Schräder on the pigeon and falcon and Goltz and Rothmann on the dog, not to mention those of earlier physiologists, have shown that the decerebrate unconscious (?) animal performs about all the movements performed by the normal animal.[123] “A mammal such as a rabbit, in the same way as a frog and a bird, may in the complete or all but complete absence of the cerebral hemispheres maintain a natural posture, free from all signs of disturbance of equilibrium, and is able to carry out with success at all events all the usual and common bodily movements. And as in the bird and frog, the evidence also shows that these movements not only may be started by, but in their carrying out are guided by and coordinated by, afferent impulses along afferent nerves, including those of the special senses. But in the case of the rabbit it is even still clearer than in the case of the bird that the effects of these afferent impulses are different from those which result when the impulses gain access to an intact brain. The movements of the animal seem guided by impressions made on its retina, as well as on other sensory nerves; we may perhaps speak of the animal as the subject of sensations; but there is no satisfactory evidence that it possesses either visual or other perceptions, or that the sensations which it experiences give rise to ideas.”[124]

Even _spontaneity_ which at one time was supposed to be lost it is now agreed returns if the animal is kept alive long enough. It “wanders about in the room untiringly the greater part of the day” (Loeb).

Of course there are differences in the animal’s behavior when compared with normal behavior, but these differences are not so easy to interpret in psychological terms. Loeb, apparently following Schräder, does not believe the animal is blind or deaf or without sensation for it reacts to light, to noise, to smell, to tactile impressions, etc. It avoids obstacles and is guided by visual impressions, etc. The falcon jumps at and catches a mouse introduced in its cage; the dog growls and snaps if its paw is pinched and endeavors to get away or bite the offending hand; the pigeon flies and alights upon a bar, apparently visually measuring distance, and so on. But though it is guided by visual and other sensory _impressions_, does it have visual, auditory and other _images_, that is, conscious sensory states? This is not easy to answer. It certainly acts like an animal that is not blind nor deaf nor without tactual sensation, and yet it is conceivable that it is guided simply by sensory mechanisms without conscious sensation. The main reason, apparently, for believing the animal to be without sensation, as some believe (e. g., Morgan) is the absence of the cerebral cortex in which alone sensation is believed to be “localized.” Recently Rothmann[125] has succeeded in keeping alive for three years a dog from which the entire cerebrum was extirpated. It was then killed. Although the dog, like Goltz’ dog, in its behavior exhibited an abundance of functions in the spheres of mobility, sensibility, feeding, barking, etc., Rothmann came to the conclusion that it was blind and deaf.[126] Although apparently without taste for bitter, sweet, sour, and acid, yet the dog reacted differently to edible and non-edible substances, swallowing the former and rejecting the latter (moist sand); raw flesh was eaten preferably to cooked flesh and Goltz’ dog rejected from its mouth food made bitter with quinine. Some kind of gustatory processes (probably purely reflex as in Pawlow’s association experiments) were therefore retained though not necessarily taste as such. But blindness and deafness in the dog cannot negative the retention in birds and other animals of visual and auditory impressions of some kind which guide and originate behavior. But whether such impressions are psychologically sensations or not, the animal certainly does not possess visual or other _perceptions_, because the “sensations” have no “meaning.” Schräder’s falcon, for example, would jump at and catch with its claws a moving mouse in the cage, but there the matter was at an end; it did not devour it as would a normal falcon. Any moving object had for it the same meaning as a mouse and excited the same movement. So the decerebrate dog does not distinguish friend from stranger and other dogs have no meaning for it. All objects are alike to all decerebrate animals. In the popular language of the street “all coons look alike” to them. In other words the main defect is loss of memory for conscious experiences, of what Loeb calls associative-memory, the conscious memory which gives meaning to sensations, transforms them by synthesis into _perception_ of objects and gives still further meaning to the objects. Hence for the pigeon without its cerebrum “Everything is only a mass in space, it moves aside for every pigeon or attempts to climb over it, just as it would in the case of a stone. All authors agree in the statement that to these animals all objects are alike. They have no enemies and no friends. They live like hermits no matter in how large a company they find themselves. The languishing coo of the male makes as little impression upon the female deprived of its cerebrum as the rattling of peas or the whistle which formerly made it hasten to its feeding place. Neither does the female show interest in its young. The young ones that have just learned to fly pursue the mother, crying unceasingly for food, but they might as well beg food of a stone.”[127]

One of the chief utilities of conscious memory is the means it offers the psycho-physiological organism to make use of past experiences to adapt present conduct to a present situation. This the brainless animal cannot do. Hence it is a mindless physiological automaton. All the actions performed by it, however complex they may be, are unquestionably performed and primarily conditioned by inherited neural arrangements and dispositions. They may be even regarded as complexly compounded reflex processes similar excepting in complexity, as Sherrington has held, to the mechanisms of the spinal cord. The behavior of the animal is therefore by definition instinctive. But even so this fact in no way throws light upon the intrinsic nature of the physiological process, but only upon the conditions of its occurrence. Acquired behavior is also conditioned—conditioned by acquired dispositions. The difference physiologically between the two is that in instinctive behavior the neural processes are confined to pathways established by evolutionary development, and in acquired behavior to pathways established by experience. Both must be conditioned by pathways, and the process in its inner nature must be the same in both. Many cortical processes, to be sure, are conscious—i.e., correlated with consciousness—but probably not all. And this quality of consciousness permitting of conscious memory is of great utility in the organization of acquired dispositions that provide the means for the adaption of the animal to each new environmental situation.

Furthermore, it is not at all certain that the behavior of the decerebrate animal is not in part determined by _secondarily acquired dispositions_. In the normal animal instinctive actions become modified and perfected after the very first performances of the act by conscious experience[128] and it is not at all certain that dispositions so acquired and essential for these modifications are not conserved and incorporated in the unconscious neural arrangements of the subcortical centers. So far as this may be the case the acquired modifications of instinctive behavior may be manifested in the actions of the decerebrate animals. In other words, the unconscious processes of the lower nervous centers motivating movements (and visceral functions) may include _acquired dispositions or physiological memories_.

That the subcortical centers are capable of memory seems to have been shown for the first time by Rothmann’s dog. This mindless animal proved to be capable of a certain amount of education. It learned to avoid hitting against objects, and to do certain tricks—jumping over a hurdle and following on its hind legs a stool upon which its fore feet were placed as the stool was dragged forward. “In the perfection of all these performances the influence of practice was easily recognized.” This means, if the interpretation given is correct, that new dispositions and new connections may be acquired within the lower centers _without the intervention of the integrating influence of the cortex_ or conscious intelligence.[129] This is an important contribution for apparently the attempt to educate brainless animals had not been previously made, and their capability for education demonstrated.

The important bearing which this fact has upon this discussion is that it shows that unconscious processes are capable of memory, that is physiological memory. It may be said that this statement needs some modification if the sensory “impressions” guiding the decerebrate animal are to be interpreted as true psychological, however elementary, “sensations.” It would seem to me on the contrary only to accentuate the fact that the processes of the brainless animal are on a transition level between the purely unconscious processes of the spinal animal and the purely (if ever wholly so) conscious processes of the normal animal, and that intrinsically all are of the same nature. If sensation enters into the complex reflex reactions of the brainless animal it would seem that it can only be an elemental conscious factor in a complicated unconscious physiological mechanism. In this mechanism it can have no more specific importance in determining behavior, because of the fact of its being a psychological state, than if it were a receptor “impression” intercalated in the arc of an innate process. It is not linked with any associative memories of the past or foresight into the future; it does not constitute conscious intelligence. As a conscious experience it cannot have that kind of “meaning” which in the normal animal modifies instinctive processes and determines conduct. It probably plays simply the same part in the whole process, which otherwise is wholly unconscious, that the associative sensory image plays in determining the flow of thick or thin saliva in Pawlow’s dogs—simply a single link in a chain of associated reflex processes.

The next point to which I would direct attention is that from an objective point of view the behavior of the decerebrate animal may be in nature _intelligent_ in the empirical sense of that word. The dog that growls and snaps when his foot is pinched, tries to draw it away, and, failing that, bites at the offending hand; the “educated” dog that jumps over a hurdle, and walks on his hind legs, following a stool supporting his front legs, to my way of thinking performs intelligent actions whether it has a brain or not. If intelligence is arbitrarily limited to actions performed by conscious processes, then intelligence becomes a mere question of terms.[130] There arises also the practical difficulty that certain types of behavior, which by common assent and common sense are regarded as purely automatic and unintelligent, must be termed intelligent because guided by consciousness. I cannot help thinking that “intelligence” is a pragmatic question, not a biological or psychological one. It would be much more conducive to a clear understanding of biological problems to use intelligence only as a convenient and useful expression, like sanity or insanity, to designate certain behavior which conforms to a type which, without strictly defining its limits, popular language has defined as intelligent. Sanity and insanity have ceased to be terms of scientific value because they cannot be defined in terms of specific mental conditions and much less in terms of mental processes. So intelligence cannot be defined in terms of conscious and unconscious processes. Any attempt to do so meets with insuperable difficulties and becomes “confusion worse confounded.” When we say then that the behavior of the decerebrate dog may be intelligent, all that is meant is that the animal exhibits behavior identical with that which in the normal animal we would empirically call intelligent. In this sense unconscious processes may exhibit intelligence. It was from this viewpoint, I think, that Foster concluded: “In short, the more we study the phenomena exhibited by animals possessing a part only of their brain, the closer we are pushed to the conclusion that no sharp line can be drawn between volition and lack of volition, or between the possession and absence of intelligence. Between the muscle-nerve preparation at one limit, and our conscious willing selves at the other, there is a continuous gradation without a break; we cannot fix on any linear barrier in the brain or in the general nervous system, and say ‘beyond this there is volition and intelligence, but up to this there is none.’”[131]

It has already been pointed out (Lecture V) that, in man, complicated actions which have been volitionally and perhaps laboriously acquired may be afterwards involuntarily and unconsciously performed.[132] In other words, after intelligent actions have been acquired by conscious processes, they may be performed by subconscious processes for which there is no conscious awareness and probably these may be either coconscious or entirely unconscious. There is no sharp dividing line between the activities of the unconscious, coconscious, and conscious.

When we descend in the scale of animal life to the insects (bees, ants, etc.,) we observe motor activity of a highly complex character of a kind that is termed intelligent, but we are forced to conclude, from various considerations, that the elements of consciousness have dwindled away to what can be nothing more than mere sensibility. In other words consciousness is reduced to its lowest terms, but behavior and the neural processes are maintained at a high level of complexity. Accordingly there is a disproportion between the complexity of the motor behavior and the inferred simplicity of consciousness, for in the higher animals the former would be correlated with complex psychological processes. If this be so, the motor activities must be determined by processes which are mostly unconscious.

In still lower forms of life the motor activities can be referred to simple tropisms, and thus necessarily are wholly unconscious.

Between the most complex unconscious physiological processes performed by the nervous system and the simpler cerebral processes accompanied by consciousness there is not as wide a step as might seem when superficially viewed. The physiological process may, as we have seen, manifest itself in acts of quite as intelligent a character as those exhibited by the conscious process, and indeed more so; for the conscious act may be little more than a limited reflex. On the other hand a psychological process may be so elementary that it contains nothing of awareness of self, of intelligence, or of volition in the true sense—nothing more, perhaps, than an elementary sensation without even perception. But it may be said that the presence of the most rudimentary state of consciousness makes all the difference and renders the gulf between the two impassable.

We are not called upon to discuss that question here. It is one which involves the ultimate nature of physical processes. A distinction should be made between psychological and psychical, these not being coextensive and always interchangeable terms. Psychological pertains to the empirical data of consciousness, (thoughts, ideas, sensations, etc.) while psychical pertains to the inner or ultimate nature of these data. Though the data as given in consciousness are psychical, that which is psychical may not be solely manifested as psychological phenomena. It may be manifested as physical phenomena and perhaps be identified with the energy of the universe. Hence the doctrine of panpsychism. And so it may be that in its ultimate analysis an unconscious process is psychical (monism) although not psychological and not manifesting itself as a datum of consciousness. Certain it is that, _objectively_ viewed, there is nothing to distinguish physiological from psychological intelligence. If the extraordinary instinctive habits exhibited by insects, such as bees and ants and by still lower forms of animal life, can rightly be interpreted as, in large part at least, manifestations of physiological processes, as is quite possible, the distinction between the conscious and the unconscious in respect to intelligence and adaptability to environment would be reduced to one only of degree. That some of the lowest forms of life are endowed with consciousness, in any sense in which the word has psychological meaning, seems incredible, though they manifest instinctive intelligence of no mean order. The fact probably is, as I have just intimated, that those processes we call physiological and those we call psychological are in their inner nature identical, and the former are quite capable of functioning, incredible as it may seem, in a fashion that we are accustomed to believe can only be the attribute of conscious intelligence. This does not mean, of course, that the physiological intelligence can reach the same degree of perfection as that reached by conscious intelligence, though conversely, the latter may be of a lower order than physiological intelligence.[133] From this point of view we are logically entitled to regard physiological processes, even of the lower nervous centers and even though they are not acquired but due to congenital structural and functional arrangement, as phases of the unconscious.

=Psycho-physical parallelism and monism.=—According to the doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism every mental process is correlated with (accompanied by) a brain process. As brain processes thus viewed are “unconscious” (in the sense of not having the attribute of consciousness) we may express this in other terms and say: every “conscious” process is accompanied by an “unconscious” process. I have no intention of entering here into the question of the validity of the doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism. I wish merely to point out that if parallelism is a true formulation of the mind-brain problem, as I have just stated it, the converse ought to hold true, namely, that every brain process of a certain kind involving intelligence ought to be correlated with consciousness. But if some subconscious processes manifesting what is equivalent to thought, reasoning, judgment, imagination, volition, etc., are unconscious—as seems likely if not probable—then this converse does not hold true. This has some bearing on the validity of the doctrine; for if physical processes can perform substantially the same function as conscious intelligence it is difficult to reconcile this fact with what I may call naïve psycho-physical parallelism.

It is reconcilable, however, with psychic monism. According to this doctrine it is not a question of parallelism at all. There is only one process—the psychical. The physical brain process is only an aspect or special mode of apprehending this one. All is psychical but not psychological. That which we apprehend in the form of the unconscious is really psychical and hence is capable of performing the same _kind_ of function as it performs when it becomes psychological. It is not at all certain that unconscious processes may not comprise an intelligence possessing faculties identical in kind with those of conscious intelligence and indistinguishable from the latter. Subconscious processes may exhibit perception, cognition, reason, imagination, conation (will), feeling, etc., and it is possible that some of these processes may be correctly interpreted as unconscious. At any rate, from the point of view of monism, whether the real psychical process or, probably more correctly, how much of it shall emerge as a psychological state of consciousness depends upon intrinsic conditions. Though we cannot penetrate within them it is quite conceivable that it is a matter of complexity of synthesization and coöperative activity of psychical energies. This is a most interesting problem closely related to that of awareness and self-consciousness.

=The meanings of the unconscious, subconscious, and coconscious.=—Though the term “unconscious” is in general use it has so many connotations derived from its various meanings in metaphysics, psychology, and physiology that its use has given rise to considerable confusion of thought, particularly, I am compelled to believe, in the interpretation of specific psycho-physiological phenomena. Nevertheless, it has been so well established in our nomenclature that we could not replace it if we would. Nor is it wholly desirable to do so. It is a good and useful term, but I believe that with each advance in the precision of our knowledge we ought, so far as accumulative data permit, to give precision to the concept for which it stands. Just as in physical science we attempt to give precision to our concept of electricity in conformity with new data accumulated from time to time, so our psychological concepts should be defined and limited in accordance with the advance in knowledge. Some do not like to define the term, not being quite willing to commit themselves unreservedly to the complete acceptance of the physiological theory of memory and to cut adrift from the metaphysical concept of a subliminal mind. If the psycho-physiological theory of memory, which is now generally accepted, is sound, we have one meaning of the unconscious which is a very definite concept, namely, the brain residua, physiological “dispositions” or neurograms in which the experiences of life are conserved. These terms become, therefore, synonyms for the unconscious. That, under certain conditions, the passive neurograms may, under stimulation, become active and function unconsciously (i.e., without corresponding psychological equivalents being introduced into the personal consciousness), need not invalidate the concept. We are then dealing with an unconscious and dynamic process. The effects of such functioning are simply the manifestations of the unconscious and may be recognized either in modifications of the stream of consciousness or in bodily disturbances. The term unconscious is an appropriate and descriptive term to characterize that which is devoid of the attributes of consciousness. This use of the term has been sanctioned by common usage.

Unfortunately, however, the term has been also employed to characterize another and distinct class of facts, namely _Co-[or Sub-]conscious Ideas_. We shall have occasion to study these psychological phenomena in other lectures.[134] We have seen examples in many of the phenomena I have cited. It is sufficient to say here, that as conceived of, and as we have seen, they are very _definite states of coconsciousness—a coexisting dissociated consciousness or coconsciousness of which the personal consciousness is not aware_, i.e., of which it is “unconscious.” Hence they have been called “unconscious ideas” and have been included in the unconscious, particularly by German writers. But this is plainly using the term in a different sense—using it as a synonym for the longer phrase, “ideas we are unaware of,” and not as a characterization of that which is physiological and non-psychological.

“Unconscious ideas” in this sense (the equivalent of coconscious ideas) would include conscious states that we are not aware of simply because not in the focus of attention but in the fringe of the content of consciousness. The term would also include pathologically split-off and independently acting coconscious ideas or systems of ideas such as occur in hysteria, reaching their apogee in coconscious personalities and in automatic writings. Here we have a series of facts essentially different from the conceptual facts of physical residua, the form in which experiences are conceived to be conserved. Manifestly it is confusing and incorrect to define both by “the unconscious.” And to speak of the former as “unconscious ideas” and of the latter as “unconscious,” although technically correct, leads to confusion from using the term “unconscious” in two different senses.[135]

As a concept in a scheme of metaphysics, “unconscious ideas”—i.e., ideas of which we are not conscious, have long been recognized. Leibnitz was the first to maintain, on theoretical grounds and by _a priori_ reasoning, the existence of ideas of which we are not aware, as did likewise Kant, influenced by Leibnitz, and later Schilling, and Herbart; while Hartmann evolved the unconscious into a biological and metaphysical system.[136]

By most American, English, and French psychologists such ideas, as conceived at least by Leibnitz, Kant, and Herbart, would to-day be called subconscious or coconscious ideas. Hartmann included all physiological processes of the nervous system in the Unconscious and ascribed to them special attributes (will, purpose, etc.). The Unconscious accordingly has connotations from which it is not easy to rid ourselves in dealing with it. It is generally agreed that it is desirable to have a term which shall cover all classes of facts—coconscious ideas, conserved experiences, and physiological processes—without committal of opinion as to interpretation.[137]

It does not follow, however, that the term “unconscious” is the one that should be chosen. On the contrary, as unconscious has two distinct and different meanings (that pertaining to unawareness and that which is non-psychological) it is a very undesirable term if we wish to be precise in our terminology. That we should have a term which shall precisely define ideas which are not in awareness and which shall distinguish them from physiological processes is necessitated by the fact that such ideas in themselves form a distinct field of investigation.

The term “subconscious” is commonly used, excepting by German writers, to characterize these coconscious ideas. In fact, by some French medical writers, particularly Janet, it is very precisely limited to such ideas. By other authors it is employed in this sense and also to include the physical residua of experiences, and sometimes with the additional meaning of unconscious physiological neurograms, or processes, which it defines—in fact, to denote any conserved experience or process outside of consciousness. On the other hand, among these authors, some do not admit the validity of the concept of coconscious ideas, but interpret all so-called subconscious manifestations as the expression of the physiological functioning of physiological neurograms in which the experiences of life are conserved. Subconscious and unconscious are, therefore, quite commonly, but not always, employed as synonyms to define two or three different classes of facts. For practical reasons, as already stated, it is desirable to have a term which shall embrace all classes of facts, and of the two terms in common use, subconscious and unconscious, the former is preferable, as it is not subject to the double meaning above mentioned. I, therefore, use the term subconscious in a generic sense to _include_ (_a_) _coconscious ideas or processes_; (_b_) _unconscious neurograms, and_ (_c_) _unconscious processes_. Of course it is only a matter of terminology. The conceptual facts may then be thus classified:

{ (synonym: subconsciousideas.)
{ The coconscious {
{ { {a: Conserved dormant
{ { {neurograms or neural
{ { {dispositions.
The subconscious {
{ { {b: Active functioning
{ The unconscious { {neurograms or neural
{ { processes.
{ { (synonym: unconscious
{ { processes.)

Subconscious as an adjective used to qualify ideas is plainly equivalent to coconscious ideas. This terminology I have found useful in keeping the different classes of conceptual facts separate in my mind and I believe it will prove to be equally useful to others. With the conceptual facts clearly differentiated it will be generally easy to recognize the various senses in which the terms are used when found in the writings of others.

=The unconscious as a fundamental of personality.=—A survey of all the facts and their relations, which I have outlined in the preceding lectures, brings into strong relief the important principle that no matter in what state complexes of ideas are formed, so long as they are conserved, they become a part of our personality. They become dormant, but, being conserved, they may under favorable conditions be awakened and enter our conscious life. It matters not whether complexes of ideas have been formed in our personal consciousness, or in a state of hypnosis, in dreams, in conditions of dissociated personality, in coconsciousness, or any other dissociated state. They all become parts of ourselves and may afterwards be revived under favoring conditions, whether volitionally, automatically, by artificial devices, by involuntary stimuli, or other agencies. They may or may not be subject to voluntary recall as recollections, but, so long as they form part of our dormant consciousness as physiological neurograms, they belong to the personal self. “After all,” as Miss B. used to say, and correctly, referring to her different dissociated personalities, BI, B III, and BIV, “after all, they are all myself.” It makes no difference in what state an experience has occurred. A potential memory of it may persist and may, in one way or another, be revived, no matter how or when it originated.