[49]. Prince: Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams, Jour. of Abn. Psych., October-November, 1910.
[50]. If, lacking this knowledge of the data, any one chooses to insist that it was not the conserved residua of previous thoughts, but of the dream itself (the only alternative entertainable explanation) which induced, after waking, the hallucinatory phenomena and blindness, we still fall back upon the same principle, namely, that of the subconscious functioning of conserved residua of a conscious experience producing a physiological (and psychological) effect.
[51]. According to recent researches of Sidis in conjunction with Kalmus, and later with Nelson (The Nature and Causation of the Galvanic Phenomenon, Psychological Review, March, 1910) similar galvanic phenomena under similar conditions may be caused by the generation of an electric current within the body.
[52]. The test word (e. g., boat, stone, hat, etc.) of course represents an idea which may have various associations in the mind of the subject.
[53]. Morton Prince and Frederick Peterson: Experiments in Psycho-Galvanic Reactions from Coconscious (Subconscious) Ideas in a Case of Multiple Personality, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, April-May, 1908.
LECTURE V
NEUROGRAMS
We have got as far as showing that the phenomena of memory to be intelligible require that ideas which have passed out of mind must be conserved through some sort of residuum left by the original experience. But this as a theory of memory is incomplete; the question remains, How, and in what form, manner, or way, are they conserved? In other words, What is the nature of the residuum? Is it psychical or physical?[[54]] As we have seen, from the fact that something outside of the personal consciousness can manifest memory of a given experience at the very same moment when the personal consciousness has amnesia for that experience, we are compelled to infer that conservation must be by a medium, psychological or physiological, capable of being excited as a specific secondary process. Now this medium must be either an undifferentiated “Psyche” or specific differentiated residua. In the former case we postulate a concept of a transcendental something beyond experience and of which, like the soul after death, we have and can have no knowledge. To this concept of an undifferentiated Psyche we shall return presently.
If the second alternative—specific differentiated residua—be the medium by which experiences are conserved, then the residua must be either specific psychological states, i.e., the original psychological experience itself as such; or neural residua (or dispositions) such as when excited are ordinarily correlated with a conscious memory. In either case the medium would be such as to permit of the experiences manifesting themselves, while so conserved outside of the personal consciousness, as a very specific secondary process, not only reproducing the original experience as memory, but elaborating the same and exhibiting imagination, reasoning, volition, feeling, etc. Unless the doctrine of the undifferentiated Psyche be accepted it is difficult to conceive of any other mode in which conservation can be effected so as to permit of the phenomena of memory outside of consciousness.
Conservation considered as psychological residua.—It is hypothetically possible that our thoughts and other mental experiences after they have passed out of mind, out of our awareness of the moment, may continue their psychological existence as such although we are not aware of them. Such an hypothesis derives support from the fact that researches of recent years in abnormal psychology have given convincing evidence that an idea, under certain conditions, after it has passed out of our awareness may still from time to time take on another sort of existence, one in which it still remains an idea, although our personal consciousness of the moment is not aware of it. A coconscious idea, it may be called. More than this, in absent-mindedness, in states of abstraction, in artificial conditions as typified in automatic writing, and particularly in pathological conditions (hysteria), it has been fairly demonstrated, as I think we are entitled to assert, that coconscious ideas in the form of sensations, perceptions, thoughts, even large systems of ideas, may function and pursue autonomous and contemporaneous activity outside of the various systems of ideas which make up the personal consciousness. It usually is not possible for the individual to bring such ideas within the focus of his awareness. Therefore, there necessarily results a doubling of consciousness,—two consciousnesses, one of which is the personal consciousness and the other a coconsciousness. These phenomena need to be studied by themselves. We shall consider them here only so far as they bear on the problem of conscious memory. Observation has shown that among ideas of this kind it often happens that many are memories, reproductions of ideas that once belonged to the personal consciousness. Hence, on first thought, it seems plausible that conservation might be effected by the content of any moment’s consciousness becoming coconscious after the ideas have passed out of awareness. According to such an hypothesis all the conscious experiences of our lives, that are conserved, would form a great coconscious field where they would continue their existence in specific form as ideas, and whence they could be drawn upon for use at any future time.
Various difficulties are raised by this hypothesis. In the first place, there is no evidence that coconscious ideas have a continuous existence. The technical methods of investigation which give evidence of such ideas functioning outside of the awareness of the personal consciousness do not show that at any given moment they are any more extensive than are those which fill the field of the personal consciousness. Indeed, usually, the coconscious field is of very limited extent. There remains an enormous field of conserved experiences to be accounted for. So far then as coconscious ideas can be discovered by our methods of investigation they are inadequate to account for the whole of the conservation of life’s experiences.