(I) In the waking state the upper, controlling consciousness predominates over the subconscious. In other words, in the waking state the conscious is more responsive and more active than the subconscious which as a rule under such conditions may be regarded as partially dormant.
(II) In sleep both the conscious and the subconscious are reduced in activity, often even inhibited in function. Motor consciousness is arrested; motor control is paralyzed. The personality is disintegrated.
(III) In hypnosis the upper, controlling consciousness is diminished in activity, while the subconscious activities are increased in extensity and intensity. In hypnosis the relationship of the conscious and subconscious is interchanged,—the conscious becomes subconscious, and vice versa. The habitual type of character may become changed by suggestion, giving rise to double and multiple personality, according to the crystallization of various association systems, while the habitual, critical attitude is reduced in intensity.
(IV) In the hypnoidal state both conscious and subconscious functions are lowered in activity with no decrease in the intensity of critical attitude, and with no change of personality.
The hypnoidal state is therefore not a light hypnosis, but rather a light sleeping state, a twilight state. The hypnoidal state is a primitive rest-state out of which sleep and hypnosis have arisen in the course of animal evolution.
[CHAPTER XV]
EGOTISM AND FEAR
As we have pointed out, the fear instinct is the arousal of the impulse of self-preservation. Psychopathic conditions are at bottom fear states interrelated with hypnoidal states and with an abnormal, pathological condition of the impulse of self-preservation. This is manifested in the fundamental trait of extreme selfishness characteristic of psychopathic patients. The patient is entirely absorbed in himself, and is ready to sacrifice every one to his terrors.
For many years, day after day and night after night, I lived with patients who were under my care, observation, and treatment. One trait always revealed to me the predominant characteristic under the constantly changing psychopathic symptom-complex and that is the extreme selfishness of the patients. There is no greater egotism to be found than in the typical cases of psychopathic disorders. This egotism runs parallel to the condition of the psychopathic state. This does not mean that every egotist is necessarily psychopathic, but every psychopathic case is essentially egotistic.