Manifestations of the Higher Consciousness in Phenomena of Double Consciousness.
The "strata of memory" met with in many cases also prove the existence of the second vehicle of consciousness which we are trying to demonstrate.
Certain dreams continue night after night, beginning again just where they stopped the previous night; this is noticed in the case of those who talk in their sleep and in spontaneous or forced somnambulism.
The memory of one intoxicated, or in a state of fever delirium is lost when consciousness returns from the astral to the physical body; it comes back on the return of the delirium or the intoxication.
The same thing takes place in madness; at the termination of a crisis, the patients take up the past just where they left it. (Wienholt's Heilkraft.) Kerner relates that one of these unfortunate persons, after an illness lasting several years, remembered the last thing he did before the crisis happened, his first question being whether the tools with which he had been cutting up wood had been put away. During the whole of the interval he had been living in his higher consciousness.
Ribot (Maladies de la Mémoire p. 63) has noted the fact that the same thing happens with those who fall into a state of coma after having received a hurt or wound.
Manifestations of the Higher Consciousness, Indicating not only that it Extends Farther than Normal Consciousness, but Dominates, and Is Separated from it, Recognising that its Vehicle—the Body—is Nothing More than an Instrument.
The Soul functioning in the finer body sees the physical body in a state of coma. Dr. Abercrombie relates the case of a child aged four, who was trepanned as the result of fracture of the skull, and whilst in a stale of coma. He never knew what happened. At the age of fifteen, during an attack of fever, the higher consciousness impressed itself upon the brain, and he remembered every detail of the accident; he described to his mother where he had felt the pain, the operation, the people present, their number, functions, the clothes they wore, the instruments used, etc. (Kerner, Magikon, vol. 3, p. 364.)
The Soul, in the finer body, during somnambulism, is separated both from the physical body and from normal consciousness, it calmly foresees the illness or the death of the denser body on which it sometimes imposes serious operations. Such facts were numerous in the case of magnetisers in olden days.
Deleuze (Hist. crit. du magn. animal, vol. 2, p. 173) had a patient who, in a state of somnambulism, held moral, philosophical, and religious opinions quite contrary to those of his waking state.
Charpignon (Physiol., médecine et métaphys. du magnétisme, p. 341) tells of a patient who, when awake, wished to go to the theatre, but during somnambulism refused to do so, saying: "She wants to go, but I don't want." On Charpignon recommending that she should try to turn her aside from her purpose, she replied: "What can I do? She is mad!"
Deleuze (Inst. pratiq. s. le magét. anim., p. 121) says that many somnambulists look into their body when the latter is ill; that they are often indifferent to its sufferings, and sometimes are not even willing to prescribe remedies to cure it.
Chardel (Esquisse de la nat. humaine expliq. p. le magn. anim., p. 282) relates that many somnambulists are unwilling to be awakened so as not to return to a body which is a hindrance to them.
There are many madmen who speak of their body in the third person. (Ladame, La Névrose, p. 43). They function in the non-externalised finer vehicle. Some explain their use of the third person as follows:—"It is the body; it is I who am the spirit."