Telepathy and the Subliminal Self

by R. Osgood Mason

“What is it that you hear?” asked the professor.

“I hear a voice on the left there which keeps saying to me: ‘Enough, enough; be quiet. You are a nuisance!’” which, the professor remarks, was exactly the truth.

Léonore, in her turn, was then brought to the surface.

“What was it that happened,” asked Prof. Janet, “when Léontine was so frightened?”

“Oh, nothing,” she replied. “I told her she was a nuisance and to keep quiet. I saw she was annoying you. I don’t know why she was so frightened.”

I may be pardoned for mentioning one other fact regarding the relationship of these singular personalities, because it illustrates more pointedly if possible than anything else their entire duplex and separate character. Léonie or Madame B. is married, but Léontine is not. Madame B. however, was hypnotized at her accouchements, and became Léontine. So Léontine was the presiding personality when the children were born. Léontine therefore considers herself the mother of two children, and would be greatly grieved were any doubts expressed regarding her right of motherhood in them.

The analogies between the mental conditions presented respectively in ordinary somnambulism and the somnambulism of the hypnotic trance, and the mental conditions presented in the four cases previously recited are numerous and obvious; in fact, they seem as indeed they are, like the same conditions differently produced and varying in the length of time they occupy, and it is evident that in them there is brought to view a mental state of sufficient uniformity, as well as of sufficient interest and importance, to be worthy of serious consideration.

The facts thus far brought into view are these: That in a considerable number of persons there may be developed, either spontaneously or artificially, a second personality different in character and distinct in its consciousness and memories from the primary or original self; that this second personality is not a mere change of consciousness, but in some sense it is a different entity, having a power of observation, attention and memory not only when the primary self is submerged and without consciousness or volition, but also at the same time that the primary self is in action, performing its usual offices, and in its turn it is equally capable of managing the affairs and performing the offices properly pertaining to the common body whenever needed for that purpose.

Reckoning these different personalities as No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, etc., No. 1 has no knowledge of No. 2, nor of any succeeding personality, nor of their acts, but the time occupied by them is to No. 1 a blank, during which it is without volition, memory, or consciousness. No. 2 has a distinct consciousness and chain of memories of its own, but it also knows more or less perfectly the history and acts of No. 1—it knows this history, however, only as pertaining to a third person; it knows nothing of No. 3, nor of any personality subsequently coming into activity. No. 3 has also its distinct personality, and knows both No. 1 and No. 2, but knows them only as separate and distinct personalities; it does not know any personality coming into activity after itself.

So distinct are these personalities that No. 2 not only may not possess the acquirements, as, for instance, the book knowledge, trade, or occupation of No. 1, but may possess other capabilities and acquirements entirely foreign to No. 1, and of which it possessed no knowledge.