THE ORGANISATION OF THE LOWER LEVELS OF THE MIND
In the level of the mind known as the subconscious or unconscious are
stored all the ideas to which we have no direct access.
Some psychologists say that the memory of every impression which
has ever been received by a sense organ is registered here as on a
photographic plate, but this opinion is not universally accepted. We
shall be quite safe in saying, however, that the memory of anything
which has ever made a distinct impression on the mind is stored here
and plays its part in the mental life.
Between the subconscious and the foreconscious is placed the great
main censor-sieve of the mind, and it is this which is meant when the
“censor” is referred to in psychoanalytical literature.
This censor-sieve is of the greatest importance in the mental economy,
for upon its function the health of the mind is largely dependent. If
its meshes are too loose, we get an uprush into consciousness of ideas
which should never be there; and if too tight, the conscious mind is
cut off from the source of its energy, the subconscious.
This sieve is constructed upon the same principles as the two
others which we have already considered, but it has one fundamental
difference, it is not under the control of the will; the dimension of
its mesh is regulated, not by what I, at the moment, may happen to
wish, but by what the main tenor of my character may determine.
The foreconscious, then, may be likened to a reference library, but the
great storehouse of the subconscious is a vault in which the archives
are kept; and although the bulk of them never touch the conscious
mind, it is their indirect influence which determines the tone of the
character.
The remotest level of the mind, whose functioning is purely automatic,
has the control of all the vital functions of the body. Its thought
processes direct the activities of the spinal level of the nervous
system, whereas the other levels of the mind have the brain as their
physical organ of manifestation, as is proved by the fact that a
disease of the brain can throw the reasoning faculties out of gear and
leave the purely physiological nervous functions intact, whereas a
disease of the spinal cord may render inoperative the nervous processes
of the bodily functions, though the mental processes are unimpaired.
The psychic processes of the automatic mind govern all the biochemical
processes of the body; it is this level which controls the involuntary
muscles, regulates the blood supply to any part of the body, controls
the output of the ductless glands, and hence the chemical composition
of the blood. It is these facts which may throw light upon the origin
of many functional disturbances and upon the phenomena of mental
healing.
Although the automatic level is not normally in touch with the
conscious mind, it is enormously affected by the general feeling-tone
of the mentality, and especially by the emotional states of the
subconscious, hence the alterations of physiological function which
take place in nervous disease.
This level of the mind was the first to be organised in the history of
biological development. The dim mentation of the rudimentary beginnings
of life was of the automatic order, being entirely concerned with
physiological processes.
As organisms became more evolved, a higher type of intelligence was
necessary for the carrying out of their life activities, and we get
mentation of the type that is carried on in the subconscious level, the
impulsive mentation of the instincts.
Level by level the mind builds itself up, in the race and in the
individual; and level by level, under the influence of old age, disease
or drugs, the planes of consciousness break down in the inverse order
to that in which they developed, the more recently organised higher
centres going first, and the automatic mind, the oldest and most
stable, with æons of habit behind it, working on to the last, keeping
the bodily mechanism running long after all that made the organism a
man has withdrawn from its dishonoured vehicle.