It is interesting to notice how Kant’s statement might well be substituted for that of Myers’ of his “Subliminal.” It is difficult to understand the peculiar antagonistic attitude of certain theoretical psychologists to the theory of subconscious (coconscious) ideas in view of the history of this theory in philosophy. They seem to have forgotten their philosophy and not to have kept pace with experimental psychology.
[137]. See [footnote] on p. 149.
LECTURE IX
THE ORGANIZATION OF UNCONSCIOUS COMPLEXES
Everyday life.—It will be well at this point to state in orderly fashion a few general principles governing the organization of complexes or syntheses of ideas[[138]] which, as we shall see, play an important part in normal and abnormal life. Although this statement will be little more than descriptive of what is common experience it will be helpful in classifying and obtaining a useful perspective of the phenomena with which we shall deal.
Now, as every one knows, the elemental ideas which make up the experience of any given moment tend to become organized (i.e., synthesized and conserved) into a system or complex of ideas, linked with emotions, feelings and other innate dispositions, so that when one of the ideas belonging to the experience comes to mind the experience as a whole is recalled. We may conveniently term such a system when in a state of conservation, an unconscious complex[[139]] or neurogram, or system of neurograms. If we wish to use psychological terms we may speak of it as a complex or synthesis of dormant ideas. Although we may formulate this principle as the “association of ideas” the formula can have only a descriptive significance pertaining to a relation in time (and not a causal one) unless there be included an unconscious factor by which the association becomes effective in exciting one idea through another—i.e., through a linking of neural dispositions. We cannot conceive of any conscious relation between ideas that can possibly induce this effect. It must be some unconscious dynamic relation[[140]] and be explained in terms of neural dispositions. If this be so, all ideas are dynamically associated and related in a process which does not appear in consciousness and which is essential for organization into a complex. Every system of associated ideas, therefore, implies conservation through an organized unconscious complex.
Complexes may be very feebly organized in that the elemental ideas are weakly conserved or weakly associated; in which case when we try to recall the original experience only a part or none of it is recalled.
On the other hand, a complex may be strongly organized and include a large number of details of an experience. This is usually owing to the fact that the original experience was accompanied by strong emotional tones, or by marked interest and attention, or was frequently repeated.
Emotional Complexes: 1. When the original experience was accompanied by an emotion it may be regarded as having excited one or more of the emotional instincts of anger, fear, disgust, etc. The excitation of the instinct or instincts is in one sense a reaction to the ideas of the experience. The instincts then become organized about one or more of the ideas to form a sentiment (Shand) and the whole is incorporated in a complex which then acquires an affective character. The impulsive force of the instinct thereafter largely determines the behavior of the complex. (To this we shall return later when we consider the instincts.) General observation shows that emotional experiences are more likely to be conserved and also voluntarily recalled. Given such an emotional complex nearly anything associated with some detail of the experience may, by the law of association, automatically or involuntarily revive it, or the emotional reaction with a greater or less number of its associated memories. This tendency seems to be directly proportionate to the intensity of the instinct (fear, anger, etc.) incorporated in the complex. Sometimes, it is true, a strongly emotional experience, even an experience of great moment in an individual’s life, is completely forgotten, so completely that no associated idea avails as a stimulus to awaken it. Usually in all such cases the neurograms are isolated, etc., by dissociation. They still, however, may be strongly organized and conserved as an unconscious complex and sometimes may be excited as a subconscious process by an associated stimulus. In such conditions it very frequently is found that the dissociation is due to conflict between the emotion belonging to the complex and another emotional complex. The impulsive force of the latter dissociates the former complex which then cannot be voluntarily reproduced as memory, nor awakened by any association under normal conditions. We have then a condition of amnesia and often an hysterical condition. To this important phenomenon we shall return when we consider the emotions. Passing over these exceptional conditions of conflicting emotions (which being explained “prove the rule”), it still remains true that in everyday life emotional experiences are not only more likely to be conserved but to be subject to voluntary recall, or awakened involuntarily by an associated stimulus.
If, for instance, we have experienced a railroad accident involving exciting incidents, loss of life, etc., the words “railroad,” “accident,” “death,” or a sudden crashing sound, or the sight of blood, or even riding in a railroad train may recall the experience, or at least the prominent features in it. The earlier events and those succeeding the accident may have passed out of all possibility of voluntary recall. To take an instance commonplace enough, but which happens to have come within my recent observation: a fireman, hurrying to a fire, was injured severely by being thrown from a hose-wagon against a telegraph-pole with which the wagon collided. He narrowly escaped death. Although three years have elapsed he still cannot ride on a wagon to a fire without the memory of substantially the whole accident rising in his mind. When he does so he again lives through the accident, including the thoughts just previous to the actual collision when realizing his situation he was overcome with terror, and he again manifests all the organic physical expressions of fear, viz., perspiration, tremor, and muscular weakness. Here is a well organized and fairly limited complex. It is also plainly an imperative memory, that is to say, any stimulus-idea associated with some element in the complex reproduces the experience as memory whether it is wished or not. Try as hard as he will he cannot prevent its recurrence. The stimulus that excites such involuntary memories may be a spoken word (as in the psycho-galvanic and other associative experiments which we shall consider in a later lecture), or it may be a visual perception of the environment—of a person or place—or it may be a repetition of the circumstances attending the original experience, however induced. The phenomenon may also be regarded as an automatism or automatic process. As the biological instinct of fear is incorporated in the complex it is also a phobia.
Why our fireman suffered the intense terror that he did at the time of the accident, why he experienced the thoughts which surged into his mind, why he suffered this emotional experience, while another man going through the same accident suffers no more than the physical injury (if any) at the time, and why the experience continues to recur as an imperative memory are problems which we are not considering now. The fact is that he did suffer the terror and its agonizing thoughts, and, this being the case, their constant recurrence, i.e., the reproduction of the experience, is a memory. And this memory consists of a well organized complex of ideas, feelings, and physiological accompaniments. I emphasize this point because an imperatively recurring mental experience of this sort is a psychosis, and, so far as the principle of memory enters into it, so far memory becomes a part of the mechanism of obsessions.