PROBLEMS OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 769 



between the conscious and the subconscious, for at times what belongs 

 to one passes into the other, and vice versa. The waking self is vary- 

 ing the grouping of its thoughts all the time in such a way as to be 

 continually including and excluding the subconscious thoughts. The 

 personal pronoun " I," or, when spoken to, " you," applied equally 

 to her waking self and to her hypnotic self, but these terms were not 

 applicable to her unconscious thoughts, which were not self-conscious. 

 For convenience of terminology, it was agreed arbitrarily to call 

 the thoughts of which the subject is conscious when awake the 

 waking consciousness, and the thoughts of which when awake she 

 is not conscious the secondary consciousness. In making this di- 

 vision the hypnotic self insisted most positively on one distinction, 

 namely, that the secondary consciousness was in no sense a per- 

 sonality. The pronoun " /" could not be applied to it. In speaking 

 of the thoughts of this second group of mental states alone, she 

 could not say " I felt this," " I saw that." These thoughts were better 

 described as, for the most part, unconnected, discrete sensations, 

 impressions, and emotions, and were not synthesized into a per- 

 sonality. They were not therefore self-conscious. When the wak- 

 ing self was hypnotized, the resulting hypnotic self acquired the 

 subconscious perceptions of the second consciousness, she then 

 could say " 1," and the hypnotic " / " included what were formerly 

 " subconscious " perceptions. In speaking of the secondary person- 

 ality by itself, then, it is to be understood that self-consciousness 

 and personality are always excluded. This testimony was verified 

 by test instances of subconscious perception of visual and auditory 

 images of experiences occurring in my presence. 

 (4) Part played by the secondary consciousness in 

 (a) Normal mentation. The hypnotic self testified that the 

 thoughts of the secondary consciousness do not form a logical chain. 

 They do not have volition. They are entirely passive and have no 

 direct control over the subject's voluntary actions. 



(6) Part played by the secondary consciousness in absentminded- 

 ness. (1) Some apparently absent minded acts are only examples 

 of amnesia. There is no doubling of consciousness at the time. It 

 is a sort of continuous amnesia brought about by lack of attention. 

 (2) In true absentmindedness there does occur a division of con- 

 sciousness along lines which allow a large field to, and relatively 

 wide synthesis of the dissociated states. The personal conscious- 

 ness is proportionately restricted. The subconscious thoughts 

 may involve a certain amount of volition and judgment, as when 

 the subject subconsciously took a book from the table, carried it 

 to the bookcase, started to place it on the shelf, found that par- 

 ticular location unsuitable, arranged a place on another shelf, where 

 the book was finally placed. No evidence, however, was obtained 



