Adventurings in the Psychical

by H. Addington Bruce

Even when our consciousness is for the moment completely in abeyance—as when we are asleep—the subconscious continues operant. Many of my readers have doubtless had the experience of vainly endeavoring for hours, perhaps for days, to solve some important problem, and then awaking one morning with a luminously clear idea of its correct solution. While they slept, their subconsciousness had been at work disentangling the threads of their conscious reasoning, stripping away and discarding unessentials, and finally presenting them with, so to speak, a ready-made understanding of that which had previously been so perplexing to them.

In all such cases the action of the subconscious is more vividly evident when, as often happens, the desired solution is gained during sleep itself, in the form of a dream. An excellent example is found in an episode narrated by a business man, who says:

“I had been bothered since September with an error in my cash account for that month, and, despite many hours’ examination, it defied all my efforts, and I almost gave it up as hopeless. It had been the subject of my waking thoughts for many nights, and had occupied a large portion of my leisure hours. Matters remained thus unsettled until the eleventh of December. On this night I had not, to my knowledge, once thought of the subject, but I had not been long in bed and asleep, when my brain was as busy with the books as though I had been at my desk.

“The cash book, banker’s pass books, etc., etc., appeared before me; and, without any apparent trouble, I almost immediately discovered the cause of the mistakes, which had arisen out of a complicated cross entry. I perfectly recollect having taken a slip of paper in my dream, and made such a memorandum as would enable me to correct the error at some leisure time; and, having done this, that the whole of the circumstances had passed from my mind.

“When I awoke in the morning I had not the slightest recollection of my dream, nor did it once occur to me throughout the day, although I had the very books before me on which I had apparently been engaged in my sleep. When I returned home in the afternoon, as I did early, for the purpose of dressing, and proceeded to shave, I took up a piece of paper from my dressing table to wipe my razor, and you may imagine my surprise at finding thereon the very memorandum I fancied I had made during the previous night. The effect on me was such that I returned to our office and turned to the cash book, when I found that I had really, while asleep, detected the error which I could not detect in my waking hours, and had actually jotted it down at the time.

“I have no recollection whatever as to where I obtained the paper and pencil with which I made the memorandum. It certainly must have been written in the dark, and in my bedroom, as I found both paper and pencil there the following afternoon. The pencil was not one which I am in the habit of carrying, and my impression is that I must either have found it in the room, or gone down-stairs for it.”[32]

Illustrative of the same subconscious mechanism, and doubly interesting because of the light it throws on the true nature of many dreams frequently regarded as supernatural, is a singular experience that once befell Professor H. V. Hilprecht, the well-known archæologist of the University of Pennsylvania.

At the time, Professor Hilprecht was trying to decipher the inscriptions on two small fragments of agate from the temple of Bel in ancient Babylonia, and believed by him to be portions of the finger rings of some wealthy Babylonian. He had already published a preliminary report on the collection of which they formed a part, but, despite weeks of earnest effort, had utterly failed to get at the meaning of the words inscribed on them.

One Saturday night, after working on the fragments until nearly twelve o’clock without any satisfactory result, he went to bed weary and exhausted, and was soon in a deep sleep. He then dreamed that he was transported to the temple of Bel, where a venerable priest, whose dress showed that he belonged to a pre-Christian epoch, conducted him into the treasure chamber of the temple. It was a small, low room, without windows, and contained a large wooden chest, around which were scattered pieces of agate and other valuable stones. While Professor Hilprecht stood looking at these, the priest said to him: