Adventurings in the Psychical

by H. Addington Bruce

“Some years ago my brother was employed on, and had charge as conductor and engineer of, a work train on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, running between Buffalo and Erie. I often went with him to the gravel bank, where he had his headquarters, and returned on his train with him.

“On one occasion I was with him, and after the train of cars was loaded, we went together to the telegraph office to see if there were any orders, and to find out if the trains were on time, as we had to keep out of the way of all regular trains. After looking over the train reports, and finding them all on time, we started for Buffalo.

“As we approached Westfield station, running about twelve miles per hour, and when within about one mile of a long curve in the line, my brother all of a sudden shut off the steam, and, quickly stepping over to the fireman’s side of the engine, he looked out of the cab window, and then to the rear of his train. Not discovering anything wrong, he put on steam, but almost immediately again shut it off, and gave the signal for brakes, and stopped.

“After inspecting the engine and train, and finding nothing wrong, he seemed very much excited, and for a short time he acted as if he did not know where he was or what to do. I asked what was the matter. He replied that he did not know; then, after looking at his watch and orders, he said that he felt that there was some trouble on the line of the road. I suggested that he had better run his train to the station and find out. He then ordered his flagman to go ahead around the curve, which was just ahead of us, and he would follow with the train.

“The flagman started and had barely time to flag an extra express train, with the general superintendent and others on board, coming full forty miles an hour. The superintendent inquired what he was doing there, and if he did not receive orders to keep out of the way of the extra. My brother told him that he had not received orders, and did not know of any extra train coming; that we had both examined the train reports before leaving the station. The train was then backed to the station, where it was found that no orders had been given.”[38]

Incidents such as this are of not infrequent occurrence. By the superstitious they are regarded as weird and uncanny, and savoring of the spiritistic. In reality they are only exceptional exemplifications of a process which is ceaselessly taking place in all of us. There is no one who does not, every day, perform acts which he cannot consciously account for, and which, if closely inquired into, would be found similarly to take their rise in unnoticed subconscious impressions. For the matter of that, it is possible to train one-self to subconscious attention to selected impressions, even in sleep.

A familiar illustration is the mother who, undisturbed by other sounds, awakens at the least cry of her infant. The same phenomenon is observable in the case of the conscientious medical nurse, who, no matter how profound her sleep, responds instantly to any movement by her patient. And, in the course of conversation not long ago, a physician said to me:

“As you know, my house is on a car line, and, besides the cars, there is much automobile and carriage traffic on my street for a large part of the night. Nothing of this breaks my rest. I sleep so soundly that a thunderstorm does not arouse me. Yet let the telephone bell begin to ring, and I am out of bed and have the receiver at my ear before the bell has ceased ringing.”

I have myself, like a good many other people, found it possible to make the subconscious do the work of an alarm clock. That is to say, if, on going to bed, I mentally determine to wake at a certain hour, I invariably do so, and this although I am one of the deepest of sleepers. It matters not what hour I select, nor how late I retire the previous night, the mental sentinel whom I have placed on guard punctually notifies me when the appointed time arrives.

This goes to show, of course, that the subconscious is, to a certain extent, at any rate, amenable to conscious control and direction. That such control is highly desirable is evinced not merely by the facts reviewed above, but by others which we must next take under consideration—facts of altogether different import. For if, as we have seen, the subconscious is in many ways a docile and helpful auxiliary of the upper consciousness, it also contains within itself dire possibilities of unhappiness, suffering, disease, and even death.