SUBCONSCIOUS 



5599 



SUBCONSCIOUS 



cil and writes (planchette), the messages are 

 more fluent, while in automatic writing the 

 hand itself may write elaborate compositions 

 seemingly without the full conscious direction 

 of the writer. In all these cases the subcon- 

 scious is the source of idea and expression. 



Cases of this kind have always attracted at- 

 tention. The most recent is that of "Patience 

 Worth," which is a ouija board revelation. 

 Poems, prose narratives, dialogues of an elab- 

 orate character with distinct literary merit and 

 a quaint phraseology are recorded, and fill a 

 volume of subconscious automatic production. 

 The writer is unaware of the source of the 

 ideas which are "incubated" and reach expres- 

 sion in this roundabout manner. They are as- 

 cribed to a foreign agency, and in most cases 

 have reference to spirit origin (see SPIRITUAL- 

 ISM). Equally striking is the automatic and 

 dramatic action in a trancelike state. The 

 most remarkable of these likewise requires a 

 volume for its record. The subject develops 

 several cycles of impersonation. In one she is 

 an Indian princess; in another an inhabitant 

 of the planet Mars; in a third the reincarna- 

 tion of Marie Antoinette. As a Martian she de- 

 velops a language (founded upon French, which 

 alone she knows) and describes the life on 

 Mars. The interpretations are made through 

 a "medium" (also personified) who is really the 

 means by which the subconscious communi- 

 cates to the conscious self. Upon awakening 

 from this trance the subject is unaware of the 

 drama that she has enacted. 



It is suggestive that in such instances the 

 subconscious, detached procedures do not af- 

 fect the conduct of waking life. When this 

 occurs, the normal life is disturbed, and we 

 have cases of divided personality. One state 

 with one set of memories, of tastes and incli- 

 nations, of desires and habits, is now in the 

 ascendant; and again it falls away and another 

 person with quite opposite character takes her 

 place. Such is hysterical instability. The one 

 state is in ignorance of what the other does; 

 but it can be definitely established that the 

 relation of the two states is such that what is 

 conscious to the one is subconscious to the 

 other. An avenue of communication may be 

 found; and when the two "characters" may be 

 reconciled and merged a cure takes place. The 

 extreme to which states of conflict may be car- 

 ried are almost incredible; but such instances 

 cannot be summarized. 



Cases of a different type are those reported 

 from time to time in which a sudden lapse of 



personality ensues, and a man wanders from 

 home, is unaware of his previous life, settles in 

 a new region, possibly in the same occupation 

 as he formerly exercised, or it may be in a 

 very different occupation, then suddenly comes 

 to himself, unfamiliar with his new surround- 

 ings and oblivious of his recent life. Such di- 

 visions of the personality between functions 

 retained and those lost may afford a clue to 

 the nature of the defect, but as frequently leave 

 unexplained the exact injury that the brain has 

 suffered. It is established that the set of 

 memories in abeyance is really subconsciously 

 retained; the two states react much in the 

 manner of alternating personalities in cases of 

 incomplete fusion. 



Normal characters represent a useful support 

 and relation of conscious and subconscious fac- 

 tors; abnormal characters represent the failure 

 of such relation. Typically these result from con- 

 flict; and such conflict-motives have prompted 

 the view of Freud and others that the subcon- 

 scious is constantly seeking and achieving ex- 

 pression as unfulfilled wishes and incomplete 

 repressions. It *s held that a dream is such a 

 procedure. It has one meaning at its surface 

 in the incidents of the dream; and another 

 deeper and latent in terms of desires that are 

 suppressed and reach expression in disguise by 

 the dream route when the conscious censor is 

 asleep. 



Every one harbors secret wishes, private 

 hopes, imaginative ambitions many of them 

 suppressed by social training and the harsh 

 conditions of existence which form phases of 

 character in conflict with the conscious life that 

 commands. Hysterical cases of divided person- 

 ality and inconsistency are but exaggerated and 

 irregular instances of the same relation. Freud 

 believes also that the lapses of absent-minded- 

 ness express a suppressed intention. The value 

 of his theory lies largely in the search for such 

 inner conflict which it has aroused in cases of 

 nervous and mental trouble; for when once 

 the subconscious source of irritation is found 

 and made conscious, the conflict disappears. 

 The use of the analyses of dreams and other 

 mental states to determine the hidden source 

 of conflict is called psycho-analysis. In a large 

 number of cases the conflicts center about the 

 life of sex, because this is at once a most pow- 

 erful emotional realm and one concerning which 

 society imposes rigid repressions. 



However viewed, the realm of the subcon- 

 scious especially for the emotional life, but 

 hardly less so for the intellectual is of large 



