In the cases of true dissociation, there was often a violent emotional shock that started the cleavage. One celebrated case started at 8 years of age, when the subject, a little girl, was thrown to the floor by a drunken father angered by finding the child asleep in his bed. From that moment, it would seem that the frolicsome side of childish behavior was banished from the main personality, and could get into action only when the main personality relaxed its control and became dormant; so that thereafter the child alternated between two states, one very quiet, industrious and conscientious, the other vivacious and mischievous; and the main personality never remembered what was done in this secondary, mischievous state. In such cases, it would appear that the cleavage resulted from a violent thrusting out from the main personality of tendencies inconsistent with the dominant (here serious) attitude of that personality.
The Unconscious, or, the Subconscious Mind
Here at last, it may strike the reader, we have come to the core of the whole subject of psychology; for many readers will undoubtedly have been attracted by the statements [{562}] sometimes made, to the effect that the "unconscious" represents the deeper and more significant part of mental life, and that psychologists who confine their attention mostly to the conscious activities are treating their subject in a very partial and superficial manner. There is a sort of fascination about the notion of a subconscious mind, and yet it will be noticed that psychologists, as a rule, are inclined to be wary and critical in dealing with it. Let as take up in order the various sorts of unconscious mental processes.
In the first place, retention is unconscious. The host of memories that a person possesses and can recall under suitable conditions is carried about with him in an unconscious condition. But there need be no special mystery about this, nor is it just to speak about memories being "preserved in the unconscious". The fact simply is that retention is a resting condition, whereas consciousness is an active condition. Retention is a matter of brain structure, neurone connections, neural mechanisms ready for action when the proper stimulus reaches them but remaining inactive till the stimulus comes. An idea is like a motor reaction, to the extent that it is a reaction; and we retain ideas in the same way that we retain learned motor reactions. Now no one would think of saying that a learned motor reaction was retained in the unconscious. The motor reaction is not present at all, until it is aroused; the neuro-muscular mechanism for executing the reaction is present, but needs a stimulus to make it active and give the reaction. In the same way, an idea is not present in the individual except when it is activated, but its neural mechanism is present, and unconscious just because it is inactive.
Unconscious inactivity is therefore no great problem. But there is such a thing as unconscious activity. Two sorts of such activity are well known. First, there are the [{563}] purely "physiological" processes of digestion, liver and kidney secretion, etc. We are quite reconciled to these being unconscious, and this is not the sort of unconscious activity that gives us that fascinatingly uncanny feeling. Second, there are the "secondarily automatic" processes, once conscious, now almost or quite unconscious through the effect of frequent repetition.
Such unconscious activities occur as side-activities, carried on while something else occupies attention, or as part-activities that go on while attention is directed to the total performance of which they are parts. In either case, the automatism may be motor or perceptive, and the degree of consciousness may range from moderate down to zero. [Footnote: [See pp. 265-267.]]
For example, the letters of your name you write almost unconsciously, while fully conscious of writing your name. When you are reading, the letters are only dimly conscious, and even the words are only moderately conscious, while the whole performance of reading is highly conscious. These are instances of unconscious (or dimly conscious) part-activities. Unconscious side-activities are illustrated by holding your books firmly but unconsciously under your arm, while absorbed in conversation, by drumming with your fingers while puzzling over a problem, and by looking at your watch and reading the time, but so nearly unconsciously that the next instant you have to look again. In all such cases, the unconscious or barely conscious activity has been made easy by previous practice, and there is no special fascination about it, except such as comes through the use of that awesome word, "unconscious".
But now for the real "subconscious mind". You try to recall a familiar name, but are stuck; you drop the matter, and "let your subconscious mind work"; and, sure enough, after a few minutes you have the name. Or, you are all [{564}] tangled up in a difficult problem; you let the subconscious mind work on it overnight, and next morning it is perfectly clear. Just here it is that psychology begins to take issue with the popular idea. The popular interpretation is that work has been done on the problem during the interval when it was out of consciousness--unconscious mental work of a high order. But is it necessary to suppose that any work has been done on the problem during the interval?
The difficulty, when you first attacked the problem, arose from false clues which, once they got you, held you by virtue of their "recency value". [Footnote: [See pp. 390-391.]] The matter laid aside, these false clues lost their recency value with lapse of time, so that when you took the matter up again you were free from their interference and had a good chance to go straight towards the goal.
It is the same with motor acts. On a certain day, a baseball pitcher falls into an inefficient way of handling the ball, and, try as he may, cannot recover his usual form. He has to give up for that day, but after a rest is as good as ever. Shall we say that his subconscious mind has been practising pitching during the rest interval? It is much more likely that here, as in the preceding case, the value of a fresh start lies in freshness, in rest and the consequent disappearance of interferences, rather than in any work that has been done during the interval of rest.