Type B: In this class the subject is afflicted with attacks of conscious emotion, most conspicuously and commonly fear, plus the same physical disturbances as in type A, but without any specific idea in consciousness to which the emotion is related. When we examine certain favorable subjects like Miss B., B. C. A., H. O. and O. N., in whom memories of subconscious processes can be obtained by technical procedures, specific coconscious ideas can be demonstrated during the attacks of fear. These ideas are those of fear of some specific object. The emotion pertaining to these ideas alone emerges into consciousness, the subject remaining unaware of the ideas themselves. In the case of Miss B. numerous observations of this kind were recorded.[[178]] When the obsessing fear constantly recurs it is a so-called “anxiety neurosis,”[[179]] as I interpret the phenomena.
A typically perfect example of anxiety neurosis was the recurring attacks of intense anxiety accompanied by a feeling of suffocation and oppression of the chest experienced by one of my subjects. Investigation disclosed that the first attack immediately followed a dream which was forgotten, but recovered in hypnosis. It appeared that in the dream she was accused by a certain person of certain delinquencies and threatened with exposure. At this point in the dream she was overcome with fear and anguish as in the after attacks. It also appeared that previously she had been and still was apprehensive of this person’s loyalty. By inference and analogy with the well-established after-phenomena of dreams (p. 101), we must assume that the dream process still functioned subconsciously and produced the anxiety attacks.[[180]]
In this connection it is well to notice that it is a common observation that not only the affect of emotion but that of feeling also may emerge from the subconscious into consciousness and color the attitude of the personal consciousness. This may be demonstrated by hypnotic procedures. When in hypnosis complexes of ideas with strong feeling tones, whether of pleasure or displeasure, of exaltation or depression, are suggested, the subject after awakening experiences these same feeling tones which dominate the personality. The subject then feels pleasantly exalted or unpleasantly depressed, as the case may be, without knowing the reason why. In alternating personalities the same phenomena may sometimes be observed. In the case of Miss B. the feeling tones which dominated the one personality invaded the consciousness of the other personality, often causing considerable distress after the alternation had occurred and although there was amnesia for all that had gone before.[[181]] Thus BIV complained of the feelings of depression from which BI shortly before had suffered, although her own ideas were far from being of a depressing nature. This depression welled up from the unconscious. It was in consequence of this phenomenon that BIV wrote: “BI’s constant grieving wears on my nerves. It is harder to endure than one would believe possible. I would rather give and take with Sally—a thousand times rather.” Likewise when a subject has feelings of unpleasantness and depression which he cannot explain it is easy in certain subjects to demonstrate the concurrence of coconscious ideas with these feeling tones. The affect in such cases emerges into consciousness, though the subject is unaware of the coconscious ideas. Correspondingly the feelings may be those of pleasantness and exaltation. The demonstration of coconscious processes as the sources of the conscious feelings of course can only be made in subjects in whom memories of coconscious processes can be evoked. In such subjects I have observed the phenomena on almost numberless occasions. But it can be provoked in almost any good hypnotic subject. To awake pleasurable and exalting feelings, to substitute them for their opposite when such are present, belongs to therapeutic art. The skillful therapeutist endeavors to provoke the former by the various procedures at his command. The important principle underlying such procedures is that the feeling tones pertaining to ideas may still invade the personal consciousness after the ideas have become dormant in the unconscious.
This principle, it seems to me, is of far-reaching application. The persistence of the feeling tone in a pleasant or unpleasant mental attitude after the experience giving rise to it has become dormant is observed in everyday life and can be explained on this principle. We have an exalting experience, engage in a spirited game of tennis, watch an exciting football match, or take part in an exhilarating dance. For the remainder of the day or the next day we still experience all the stimulating pleasurable feeling, even though in the cares of our vocation the memories of the previous experiences have remained dormant, not having once been called to mind. The only difference between such experiences of everyday life and those of hypnosis is that in one case we can, if we will, recall the origin of the feeling and in the other we cannot. In both we do not.[[182]]
Dormant dream complexes may give rise to similar phenomena. In a minor way everyone, probably, has experienced the persistence of the emotional effects of a dream after waking and after the memory of the dream has vanished. More commonly, of course, the dream is remembered, but in the cases of people who do not remember their dreams the phenomenon is precise. B. C. A., for example, does not as a rule remember her dreams, but nevertheless frequently awakes in a state of anxiety or exaltation which has considerable persistency. In hypnosis the dream which gives rise to the emotional state is recovered.
In pathological conditions these post-hypnotic, hysterical, dream, and other phenomena suggest, among other questions, whether in depressive and excited psychoses the affective element is not derived from submerged unconscious complexes. Melancholias, for example, may in some cases at least derive their feeling tone from such complexes.
[171]. Janet: The Mental States of Hystericals, pp. 289-290. Prince: The Dissociation, pp. 132-5, 262, 297–8, 324-5, 497.
[172]. The Unconscious, Journal Abnormal Psychology, April-May, 1909.
[173]. Morton Prince: (Psychotherapeutics; A Symposium. Richard G. Badger, Boston, 1910.) Also The Unconscious, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, April-May, and June-July, 1909.