TEE LAPSES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 499 



blowing of a whistle, suddenly thinks of the high school which he had 

 attended and is able to trace the connection in that the school stood 

 next to the engine-house that announced all fires by a similar whistle. 

 B., while listening to a certain aria, finds himself visualizing a face 

 that becomes definite and recognizable, and proves to be that of the 

 friend who frequently played this air. C. awakens from a nap and, 

 in the brief languor before rising from his couch, is able to arrest the 

 association of the moment's waking reverie: his eyes rested upon the 

 outlines of the window panes which presented a series of oblongs with 

 the long side horizontal; he appreciated that the panes were really 

 higher than broad, and that the effect was due to the crossing of the 

 bars of the one sash with those of the other; reflected that the effect 

 was pleasing, that he had seen it in old houses and in new ones built 

 on old models ; then visualized a window containing these broad panes ; 

 then thought how easily in ordering window panes of such shape, a 

 carpenter might make a mistake and set them with the long side ver- 

 tical instead of horizontal; speculated whether such an error would 

 require the job to be done over again; then visualized a fireplace show- 

 ing the color and design and setting, in a house which he had built 

 fourteen years before, in which the faulty drawing of the architect had 

 resulted in a badly proportioned opening, an irreparable mistake; then 

 visualized the face of the culprit architect; and at this stage entered 

 a wide-awake condition wondering why this face should be present, 

 and was just able to resurrect by a reverse memory the aforesaid series 

 of uncontrolled subconscious associations. D. emerges from a brown 

 study, vaguely aware of a misty medley of flitting faces, is able to 

 revitalize but one of them which, much to his surprise, proves to be his 

 own reflection as he sees it in his glass while shaving; and is able to 

 trace the appearance (a probable but not demonstrable source for others 

 of the faces as well) to the series of illustrations scattered among the 

 advertisements in a popular magazine which he had been perusing, one 

 of them, on the open page before him, setting forth the excellence of a 

 certain make of soap by picturing the foamy lather on the shaven cheek. 

 And ail of us meet with such unexpected sequences in trains of uncon- 

 trolled thought, of which we recall only the more striking and account- 

 able. Towards the great majority of these we do not, and could not 

 if we would, assume a successful introspective attitude; they are far too 

 elusive to be caught in the resurrecting process that attempts to draw 

 them from their submerged retreat. Depending, as such instances do, 

 for their record upon favoring circumstances coupled with a some- 

 what skilled introspection, it is not surprising that my casual collection 

 contains few of them. When, however, the elaborative processes are 

 carried on, not in momentary lowering of attention, but in the vivid 

 projection of a dream, we obtain a different though equally convincing 



