=Evidence obtained by the method of automatic writing.=—If we take a
suitable subject, one in whom “_automatic writing_”[5] has been
developed, and study the content of the script, we may find that to a
large extent it contains references to, i.e., memories of, experiences
which have long been forgotten by the subject and which cannot even by
the stimulus of memoranda be voluntarily recalled. These experiences may
be actions performed even as far back as _childhood_, _or_ passages read
in books, or fragments of conversation, etc. Thus B. C. A., who suffers
from an intense fear or phobia of cats, particularly _white_ cats, can
recall no experience in her life which could have given rise to it. Yet
when automatic writing is resorted to the hand writes a detailed account
of a fright into which she was thrown, when she was only five or six
years of age, by a white kitten which had a fit while she was playing
with it. The writing also describes in minute detail the furnishings of
the room where the episode occurred, the pattern of the carpet, the
decorative designs of the window shades, the furniture, etc. As this
observation is typical of many others, it may be well to dwell upon it
long enough to describe it in some detail for the benefit of those who
are not familiar with this class of phenomena.
After it had been determined, by a searching examination, that B. C. A.
could not recall any experience that might throw light upon her phobia,
an attempt was made to recover a possible memory in hypnosis. As is well
known, the memory often broadens in hypnosis and events which are
forgotten when “awake” may be recovered. In this instance the subject
was put into two different hypnotic states, but without success. This,
again, is a matter of some importance for the principle of conservation.
Different hypnotic states in the same individual may be distinguished in
that each, among other characteristics, may have different and
independent systems of memories, as we shall see later. The memories
which belong to one state cannot be recalled in another. Hence the fact
that a memory cannot be recovered in one state is not proof that it is
not conserved, nor is a failure to recover the memory of an episode in
all states of hypnosis evidence of failure of conservation, any more
than is the failure to recover a memory in the waking state at any given
moment.
In the experiment with B. C. A., after failing to awaken a possible
memory in either state of hypnosis, a pencil was put in her hand while
she was still hypnotized. The hand then wrote automatically, without the
knowledge of the hypnotized subject, the following account of this
childhood episode that I have just mentioned:[6]
“I think I know about the cats. I can remember myself, a little child,
playing on the floor with a kitten, and it began to run about the room
and had a fit, I think, and it jumped on me, and I was alone, and I
screamed and cried and called my mother, but no one came, and I was very
much frightened. I do not believe I ever told anyone. It was a white
kitten. It ran out of the room and after a bit I went on playing.”
To test the extent of the conserved memories still further the hand was
asked to describe the furnishings of the room and the plan of the house.
It wrote:
“There were two windows on the side of the room. The shades were gray, I
think, with a border of grapes, or something of that color. The carpet
was green or gray with green figures. There was a large old-fashioned
sofa between one window and the door which led into the dining-room. A
bookcase and desk-combination, you know. There was a mantle, I think,
between the windows. It was the ground floor.”
This childhood episode and the furnishings of the room were completely
forgotten by B. C. A. in the sense that they could not be voluntarily
recalled. Even after reading the script she could not remember them. She
had not seen the room since she was six years of age, the family having
removed at that time from the town in which the incident took place. As
to the accuracy of the “automatic” account and the possibility of
fabrication, the description of the room has been corroborated by the
independent and written testimony of an older member of the family. It
was not possible to confirm the incident of the kitten as there were no
witnesses. This portion of the account, therefore, cannot be proved not
to be a fabrication, but I have never known a fabricated statement to be
made in this subject’s automatic script, and I have obtained from her a
large number of statements of different kinds in the course of several
years’ observation.
However that may be, the point is not essential, for the minute
description, by a special technic, of the furnishings of a room which
had not been seen since childhood, a matter of some thirty-five years,
and which were totally forgotten, is a sufficient demonstration of the
principle of conservation of conscious experiences that cannot be
voluntarily recalled. The reproduction of the conscious experience by
automatic writing was, of course, an act of memory effected by a special
device, and this fact compels us to postulate the conservation of the
experience during this long period of time, notwithstanding that the
experience could not be recalled voluntarily. Although the conserved
experience could not be awakened into memory by voluntary processes of
the personal consciousness it could be so awakened by an artificial
stimulus under artificial conditions.
An observation like this, dealing with the conservation of long
forgotten childhood or other experiences, is not unique. Quite a
collection of recorded cases might be cited. Mr. C. Lowe Dickinson has
put on record[7] one of a young woman (Miss C.), who, in an hypnotic
trance, narrated a dream-like fabrication of a highly imaginative
character. On one occasion, through the imaginary intermediation of the
spirit of a fictitious person, who was supposed to have lived in the
time of Richard II, she gave a great many details about the Earl and
Countess of Salisbury, “and other personages of the time, and about the
manners and customs of that age. The personages referred to, the details
given in connection with them, and especially the genealogical data,
were found on examination to be correct, although many of them were such
as apparently it would not have been easy to ascertain without
considerable historical research.” Miss C. after coming out of the
hypnotic trance was in entire ignorance of how she could have obtained
this knowledge and could not recall ever having read any book which
contained the information she had given. Through automatic writing,
however, it was discovered that it was to be found in a book called _The
Countess Maud_, by E. Holt. It then appeared—and this is the point of
interest bearing on the conservation of forgotten knowledge—that this
book had been read to her by her aunt _fourteen years previously, when
she was a child about eleven years old_. Both ladies had so completely
forgotten its contents that they could not recall even the period with
which it dealt. Here were conscious experiences of childhood which, if
voluntary recollection were to be made use of as a test, would be
rightly said to have been extinguished, but that they had only lain
fallow, conserved in some unconscious fashion, was shown by their
reproduction in the hypnotic trance.[8]
In this connection I may instance the case of Mrs. C. D., who suffers
from a fixed fear of fainting. She cannot recall, even after two
prolonged searching examinations, the first occasion when this fear
developed, or why she has it, and is, therefore, ignorant of its
genesis. Yet put into abstraction or light hypnosis she recalls vividly
its first occurrence as the effect of an emotional scene of twenty years
ago. The details of its psychological content come clearly into
consciousness, and its meaning, as a fear of death, is remembered as a
part of the original episode. That the fixed idea is a recurrence or
partial memory of the original complex becomes logically plain and is
recognized as such.
Instances of the reproduction in automatic script of _forgotten passages
from books_ are to be found in Mrs. Verrall’s[9] elaborate records of
her own automatic writings. Investigation showed that numerous pieces of
English, Latin, and Greek script were not original compositions but only
forgotten passages from authors previously read.
Mrs. Holland’s script records, as investigation seemed to show, the
exact words expressing a personal sentiment contained in a letter
written to her _twenty years_ before and long forgotten. The letter
proving this was accidentally discovered.[10]
The following instance of a forgotten experience is, in itself, common
enough with everybody, but its recovery by automatic writing illustrates
how conservation of the thousand and one simply _forgotten acts of
everyday life_ may still persist. It forces, too, a realization of the
reason why it is possible that though an act may be forgotten at any
given moment it may later at any time flash into the mind. It is still
conserved.
B. C. A. had been vainly hunting for a bunch of keys which she had not
seen or thought of for four months, having been in Europe. One day, soon
after her return, while writing a letter to her son she was interrupted
by her hand automatically and spontaneously writing the desired
information. The letter to her son began as follows: “October 30, 19—.
Dear Boy: I cannot find those keys—have hunted everywhere”.... [Here the
hand began to write the following, automatically.] “_O, I know—take a
pencil_” [Here she did as she was bidden] “_you put those keys in the
little box where X’s watch is._”
In explanation B. C. A. sent me the following letter: “The keys were
found in the box mentioned. I had hunted for them ever since coming
home, October 4th. One key belonged to my box in the safety deposit
vault and I had felt very troubled and anxious at not being able to find
them. I have no recollection now of putting them where I found them.”
[Nor was recollection subsequently recovered.]
I could give from my own observation if it were necessary as many
instances as could be desired of “automatic” reproductions of forgotten
experiences of one kind or another the truth of which could be verified
by notebook records or other evidence. By a forgotten experience of
course is meant something more than what cannot for the moment be
voluntarily recalled. I mean something that cannot be remembered at any
moment nor under any conditions, _even after the memory has been prodded
by the reproduction in the script_—something that is apparently
absolutely forgotten. The experience may not only be of a trivial nature
but something that happened long in the past and of the kind that is
ordinarily absolutely forgotten. I have often invoked the automatic
writing (memories) of the subject to recover data elicited in the past
in psychological examinations but which both I and the subject had
forgotten. Reference to notes always verified the automatic memories.
The records of automatic writing to be found in the literature are rich
in reproductions showing conservation of forgotten experiences. In fact,
given a good subject who can write automatically it is easy to obtain
experimentally evidence of this kind at will.
=Evidence from abstraction.=—One of the most striking of artificial
memory performances is the recovery of the details of inconsequential
experiences of everyday life by inducing simple states of _abstraction_
in normal people. It is often astonishing to see with what detail these
experiences are conserved. A person may remember any given experience in
a general way, such as what he does during the course of the day, but
the minute details of the day he ordinarily forgets. Now, if he allows
himself to fall into a passive state of abstraction, simply
concentrating his attention upon a particular past moment, and gives
free rein to all the associative memories belonging to that moment that
float into his mind, at the same time taking care to forego all critical
reflection upon them, it will be found that the number of details that
will be recalled will be enormously greater than can be recovered by
voluntary memory. Memories of the details of each successive moment
follow one another in continuous succession. This method requires some
art and practice to be successfully carried out. In the state of
abstraction attention to the environment must be completely excluded and
concentrated upon the past moments which it is desired to recall. For
instance, a young woman, a university student, had lost some money
several days before the experiment and desired to learn what had become
of it. She remembered, in a general way, that she had gone to the bank
that day, had cashed some checks, made some purchases in the shops of
the town, returned to the university, attended lectures, etc., and later
had missed the money from her purse. Her memory was about as extensive
as that of the ordinary person would be for similar events after the
lapse of several days. I put her into a state of abstraction and evoked
her memories in the way I have just described. The minuteness and
vividness with which the details of each successive act in the day’s
experiences were recovered were remarkable, and, to the subject, quite
astonishing. _As the memories arose she recognized them as being
accurate, for she then remembered the events as having occurred_, just
as one remembers any occurrence.[11] In abstraction, she remembered with
great vividness every detail at the bank teller’s window, where she
placed her gloves, purse, and umbrella, the checks, the money, etc.;
then there came memories of seating herself at a table in the bank, of
placing her umbrella here, her purse there, etc.; of writing a letter,
and doing other things; of absent-mindedly forgetting her gloves and
leaving them on the table;[12] of going to a certain shop where, after
looking at various articles and thinking certain thoughts and making
certain remarks, she finally made certain purchases, giving a certain
piece of money and receiving the change in coin of certain
denominations; of seeing in her purse the exact denominations of the
coins (ten and five-dollar gold pieces and the pieces of subsidiary
coinage) which remained; then of going to another shop and similar
experiences. Then of numerous details which she had forgotten; of other
later incidents including lectures, exercising in the gymnasium, etc.
Through it all ran the successive fortunes of her purse until the moment
came when, looking into it, she found one of the five-dollar gold pieces
gone. It became pretty clear that the piece had disappeared at a moment
when the purse was out of her possession, a fact which she had not
previously remembered but had believed the contrary. The hundred and one
previously forgotten details which surged into her mind as vivid
conscious recollections would take too long to narrate.
(I have made quite a number of experiments of this kind with similar
results. That the memories are not fabrications is shown by the fact
that, as they arise, they become recollections in the sense that the
subject can then consciously recall the events and place them in time
and space as one does in ordinary memory, and particularly by the fact
that many of them are often capable of confirmation.
I would here point out that the recovery of forgotten experiences by the
method of _abstraction_ differs in one important psychological respect
from their recovery by _automatic writing_. In the former case the
recalled experiences being brought back by associative memories enter
into the associations and become true conscious recollections, like any
other recollections, while in automatic writing the memories are
reproduced in script without entering the personal consciousness at all
and while the subject is still in ignorance. Often even after reading
the script his memory still remains a blank. It is much as if one’s
ideas had been preserved on a phonographic record and later reproduced
without awakening a memory of their original occurrence.[13] The
significance of this difference for the theory of conservation I will
point out later after we have considered some other modes of
reproduction.)
Among the conserved forgotten experiences are often to be found fleeting
thoughts, ideas, and perceptions, so insignificant and trifling that it
would not be expected that they would be remembered. Some of them may
have entered only the margin or fringe of the content of consciousness,
and, therefore, the subject was only dimly aware of them. Some may have
been so far outside the focus of awareness that there was no awareness
of them at all, i.e., they were subconscious. Instructive examples of
such conserved experiences may be found in persons who suffer from
attacks of phobia, i.e., obsessions. The experiences to which I refer
occur immediately before and during the attacks. After the attack the
ideas of these periods are usually largely or wholly forgotten,
particularly the ideas which were in the fringe of consciousness and the
idea which, according to my observation, was the exciting cause of the
attack. By the method of abstraction I have been able to recover the
content of consciousness during the periods in question, including the
fringe of consciousness, and thus discover the nature of the fear of
which the patient was unaware because the idea was in the fringe.
Mrs. C. D., whom I have mentioned as having suffered intensely from
attacks of fear, and Miss F. E., who is similarly afflicted with such
attacks accompanied by the feeling of unreality, are instances in point.
As is well known such attacks come on suddenly in the midst of mental
tranquillity, often without apparent cause so far as the patient can
discover. While in the state of abstraction the thoughts, perceptions,
and acts of the period just preceding and during the attack, as they
successively occurred, could be evoked in these subjects in great detail
and with striking vividness. The recovery of these memories has been
always a surprise to the patient who, a moment before, had been utterly
unable to recall them, and had declared the attack had developed without
cause. In the case of Mrs. C. D. it was discovered in this way the real
fear was of fainting and death, and in that of Miss F. E. of insanity.
These ideas having been in the fringe of consciousness, or background of
the mind, the subjects were at the time scarcely aware of them and,
therefore, were ignorant of the true nature of their phobias,
notwithstanding the overwhelming intensity of the attacks. Among the
memories recovered in these and other cases I have always been able to
find one of a thought or of a sensory stimulus from the environment
which immediately preceded and which through association occasioned the
attack. When this particular memory was recovered the patient, who had
declared that the attack had developed without cause, at once recognized
the original idea which was the cause of the attack, just as one
recognizes the idea which causes one to blush. The idea sometimes has
been a thought suggested by a casual and apparently insignificant word
in a sentence occurring in a conversation on indifferent matters, or by
a dimly conscious perception of the environment, sometimes an idea
occurring as a secondary train of thought perhaps bearing upon some
future course of action, and so on.
As instances of such dimly-conscious perceptions of the environment
which I have found I may mention a gateway through which the subject was
passing, or a bridge about to be crossed; these particular points in the
environment being places where previous attacks had occurred. The
perceptions which precipitated the attack may have been entirely
subconscious and yet may be brought back to memory. With the
pathogenesis of the attacks we are not now directly concerned. The point
of interest for us lies in the fact that such forgotten casual ideas and
perceptions, some of which had been actually subconscious and some had
only entered the margin of the focus of attention may, notwithstanding
the amnesia, be conserved; and the same is true of any succession of
trivial ideas occurring at an inconsequential moment in a person’s life.
However that may be, if you will try to recall in exact detail the
thoughts and feelings which successively passed through your mind at any
given moment say three or four weeks ago—or even days ago—and their
accompanying acts, and then (if you can do this, which I very much
doubt) try to give them in their original sequence, I think you will
realize the force of these observations and appreciate the significance
of the conservation of such minute experiences and of their reproduction
in abstraction.
=Evidence furnished by the method of hypnosis.=—It is almost common
knowledge that when a person is hypnotized—whether lightly or deeply—he
may be able to remember once well-known events of his conscious life
which he has totally forgotten in the full waking state. It is not so
generally known that he may also be able to recall conscious events of
which he was never consciously aware, that is to say, experiences which
were entirely subconscious. The same is true, of course, of forgotten
experiences which originally had entered only the margin of the content
of consciousness and of which he was dimly aware. Among the experiences
thus recalled may be perceptions of minute details of the environment
which escape the attentive notice of the individual, or they may be
thoughts which were in the background of the mind and, therefore, never
in the full light of attention. You must not fall into the common error
of believing every hypnotized person can do this, or that any person can
do it in any state of hypnosis. There are various “degrees” or states of
hypnosis representing different conditions of dissociation and
synthesis. One person may successively be put into several different
states; many persons can be put into only one, but the degree of
dissociation and capacity for synthesis in each state and in every
person varies very much, and, indeed, according to the technical devices
employed. Each state is apt to exhibit different systems of memories,
that is, to synthesize (recall) past conserved experiences in a
different degree. What cannot be recalled in one state may be in
another. We may say as a general principle that _theoretically_ any
experience that has been conserved can be recalled in some state, and,
conversely, there is theoretically some state in which any conserved
experience can be recalled. Practically, of course, we can never induce
a state which synthesizes all conserved experiences, nor always one in
which any given experience is synthesized. I shall later, in connection
with particular types of conscious states, give examples of hypnotic
memories showing conservation of such experiences as I have just
mentioned. The point you will not lose sight of is that we are concerned
with hypnotic phenomena only so far as they may be evidence of the
conservation of forgotten experiences.
There is a class of hypnotic memory phenomena which acquire additional
importance because of the bearing they have upon the _psycho-genesis_ of
certain pathological conditions. They show the conservation of the
details of an episode in their original chronological order with an
exactness that is beyond the powers of voluntary memory to reproduce.
These phenomena consist of the realistic reproduction of certain
emotional episodes which as a whole may or may not be forgotten. The
reproduction is realistic in the sense that the episodes are acted over
again by the individual as if once more he were actually experiencing
them. Apparently every detail is reproduced, including the emotion with
its facial expressions and its other physiological manifestations, and
pathological disturbances like pain, paralysis, anesthesia, movements,
etc. I will cite the following three examples:
M——l, a Russian, living in this country, suffers from psycholeptic
attacks dating from an episode which occurred seven years previously and
_which he has completely forgotten_. At that time he was living in
Russia. It happened that after returning from a ball he was sent back
late at night by his employer, a woman, to look for a ring which she had
lost in the ballroom. His way led over a lonely road by a graveyard. As
he was passing this place he heard footsteps behind him and became
frightened. Overcome with terror he fell, partially unconscious, and his
whole right side became affected with spasms and paralysis. He was
picked up in this condition and taken to a hospital. Each year since
that time he has had recurring attacks of spasms and paralysis.[14]
In _hypnosis_ he remembers and relates a dream. This dream is one which
recurs periodically but is _forgotten after waking from sleep_. This is
the dream: He is back in his native land; it is the night of the ball;
he sees his employer with outstretched hand commanding him to go search
for the ring. Once more he makes his way along the lonely road; he hears
footsteps; he becomes frightened, falls, and then awakes, with entire
oblivion for the dream, to find his right side paralyzed and in spasms.
The following experiment is now made. By suggestion in hypnosis he is
made to believe that he is fifteen years of age. As a consequence in his
hypnotic dream he is once more living in Russia before he had learned
English. It is now found that he has spontaneously lost all knowledge of
the English language and can speak only Russian. He is told it is the
night of the ball and, as in a dream, he is carried successively through
the different events of that night. Finally he returns in search of the
ring, passes again over the lonely road, hears the footsteps and becomes
frightened. At this point his face is suddenly contorted with an
expression of fright, the whole right side becomes paralyzed and
anesthetic, and the muscles of face, arm, and leg affected with clonic
spasms. At the same time he moans with pain which he experiences in his
side, which he hurt when he fell. Though consciousness is confused he
answers questions and describes the pain which he feels. On being
awakened all passes off.
Mrs. W. on her return to Boston after an absence in Europe happened to
pass by a certain house on her way to her hotel; the house (a private
hospital) was one with which she had very distressing associations. On
leaving the steamer she took a street car which she left a block distant
from the hotel. She walked this distance and as she passed the house she
was seized with a sudden attack of fear, dizziness, palpitation, etc.
Although it is beside the point I may say that she had not noticed the
locality and did not consciously recognize the house until the attack
developed. The attack was, therefore, induced by a subconscious
perception.[15] She recalls the incident and describes the attack,
remembers that it occurred at this particular spot, but without further
detail.
Now in hypnosis she is taken back to the day of her arrival on the
steamship. In imagination, as in a sort of dream, she is living over
again that day; she disembarks from the ship, enters the street car in
which she rides a certain distance; she leaves the car at the point
nearest her destination and proceeds to walk the remainder of the
distance; suddenly her face exhibits the liveliest emotion; she becomes
strongly agitated and her respiration is short and quick; her head and
eyes turn toward the left and upward, as if in search of a cause, and
she exclaims, “Yes, that’s it, that’s it,” as she recognizes in
imagination the house which had been the scene of her previous distress.
Then the attack subsides as she passes by, continuing her way toward her
hotel.
Mrs. E. B. suffers from traumatic hysteria as the result of a slight but
emotional accident—a fall—when alighting from a railway train. The
accident resulted in a sprained shoulder and neuritis of the arm. She
fully remembers the accident and describes it as any one might.
When put into hypnosis, however, the memory assumes a different
character. She is taken back in imagination to the scene of the
accident. Once more the train is entering the station; she leaves the
car, steps from the platform upon a truck; then, unawares, steps off the
truck and falls to the ground. As she falls her face suddenly becomes
distorted with fear; tears stream down her cheeks, which become
suffused; her heart palpitates; she suffers again acute pain in her arm,
and so on. Her physical and mental anguish is painful to look upon.
Though I try to persuade her that she is not hurt and that the accident
is a delusion my effort is not very successful.
In this experiment, as in the others, there is substantially a
reproduction in all its details of the content of consciousness which
obtained at the time of the accident, and also of the emotion and its
physiological manifestations—all were faithfully conserved. Further,
each event follows in the same chronological sequence as in the original
experience.
But in these observations the reproduction differs somewhat from that of
ordinary memory. It is in the form of a dream, hypnotic or normal, and
the subject goes back to the time of the experience, which he thinks is
the present, and actually lives over again the original episode. Unlike
the conditions of ordinary memory the whole content of his consciousness
is practically limited to that which originally was present, all else,
the present and the intervening past, being dissociated and excluded.
The original psychological processes and their psycho-physiological
accompaniments (pain, paralysis, anesthesia, spasms, etc.) repeat
themselves as if the present were the past. Plainly, for such a
reproduction, the original episode must have left conserved dispositions
of some kind which when excited were capable of reënacting the episode
in all its psycho-physiological details. From a consideration of such
phenomena it is easy to understand how certain psycho-neuroses may be
properly regarded as memories of certain past experiences. The
experiences are conserved and under certain conditions reproduced from
time to time.
I may cite one other experiment dealing with the conservation of the
details of a day’s experiences after the lapse of several months. The
subject was a little girl who suffered from hysterical tics. Hoping to
discover the exciting cause of her nervous disturbance, I put her into
deep hypnosis, and evoked the memories of the events of the day on which
her disease developed, _about six months previously_. It was astonishing
to hear her recall a continuous series of precise thoughts and acts,
many of them trivial, of the kind that would be transient and forgotten
by anybody. She began with the events of the early morning, giving her
own thoughts and acts; the remarks of her father and mother, describing
exactly the location in the house at the time of each member of the
family; her arrival at school; the several lessons of the day; the
remarks of the teacher; the happenings during recess; her final entry
into the laboratory; and the sudden onset of the tic. Everything was
given in chronological order. The memories were vivid and, as they came
up into her mind, were recognized as true recollections.[16] All this
was forgotten when she was awake, that is to say, although conserved, it
could not be reproduced. There was no way, of course, of determining the
accuracy of these memories and, therefore, their correctness lacks
scientific proof. On the other hand, the facts, which are in entire
correspondence with similar results obtained under conditions where
confirmation is possible, have value as cumulative evidence.[17]
It is not difficult to arrange experiments which will test the accuracy
with which the minute details of experiences may be conserved when
reproduction is at fault. A simple test is to have a suitable subject
endeavor to repeat _verbatim_ the contents of a letter written by him at
some preceding time—one week, two weeks, a month, or more. Few people,
of course, can do this. If, now, the subject is a suitable one for the
abstraction or hypnotic method it may be that he will be able to
reproduce by one or the other method the test letter, word for word; a
comparison of the reproduction with the letter will, of course,
determine the accuracy of the memory. In such an experiment I have
succeeded in getting two subjects, Miss B.[18] and B. C. A., to repeat
_verbatim_ the contents of fairly long letters, and this even, on
certain occasions, when, on account of the subject being a dissociated
personality, there was no recollection of the letter at all, not even
that it had been written. Such minute reproduction affords further
evidence that the conservation of experiences may be much more complete
and exact than ordinary conscious memory would lead us to suppose.
=Evidence from hallucinatory phenomena=.—I may mention one more example
of conservation of a forgotten experience of everyday life as it is an
example or mode of reproduction which differs in certain important
respects both from that of ordinary memory and that observed under the
artificial methods thus far described. This mode is that of a _visual_
or an _auditory hallucination_ which may be an exact reproduction in
vividness and detail of the original experience. It is a type of a
certain class of memory phenomena. One of my subjects, while in a
condition of considerable stress of mind owing to the recurrence of the
anniversary of her wedding-day, had a vision of her deceased husband,
who addressed to her a certain consoling message. It afterwards
transpired that this message was an actual reproduction of the words
which a friend, in the course of a conversation some months previously,
had quoted to her as the words of her own husband just before his death.
In the vision the words were put into the mouth of another person, the
subject’s husband, and were actually heard as an hallucination. Under
the peculiar circumstances of their occurrence, however, these words
awakened no sense of familiarity; nor did she recognize the source of
the words until the automatic writing, which I later obtained, described
the circumstances and details of the original episode. Then the original
experience came back vividly to memory. On the other hand, the
“automatic writing” not only remembered the experience but recognized
the connection between it and the hallucination. (The truth of the
writing is corroborated by the written testimony of the other party to
the conversation.)
Although such types of hallucinatory memories are not actual
reproductions of an experience but rather translated representations,
yet they show the experience must have been conserved in order to have
determined the representation. The actual experience, as we shall see
later, is translated into a visual or auditory form which pictures or
verbally expresses it, as the case may be. This type of hallucination is
common. That which is translated may be previous thoughts, or
perceptions received through another sense. Thus Mrs. Holland records a
visual hallucination which pictured a verbal description previously
narrated to her by a friend, but forgotten. The hallucination included
“the figure of a very tall thin man, dressed in gray, standing with his
back to the fire. He had a long face, I think a mustache—certainly no
beard—and suggested young middle age.”... On a second occasion “the tall
figure in gray was lying on the bed in a very flung-down, slack-jointed
attitude. The face was turned from me, the right arm hanging back across
the body which lay on the left side. I started violently and my foot
seemed to strike an empty bottle on the floor.”
There is very little doubt that these visions of Mrs. Holland’s
represented Mr. Gurney, who had died from an accidental dose of
chloroform. Mrs. Holland “took very little interest” in Mr. Gurney,
hence she had entirely forgotten that the main facts of his death had
been told to her a few months previously by the narrator, Miss Alice
Johnson.[19]
In an hallucination of this sort we have a dramatic pictorial
representation of previous though forgotten knowledge which must have
determined it. In order to have determined the hallucination the
knowledge must have been conserved somehow. I have frequently observed a
similar reproduction of a forgotten experience, which was not visual,
through translation into a newly created _visual_ representation in the
form of an artificial hallucination. The following is of this kind: Miss
B., looking into a crystal,[20] saw a scene laid in a wood near a lake,
etc. Several figures appeared in this scene, which was that of a murder.
Although she had no recollection of anything that could have given rise
to the hallucination, investigation showed that the original experience
was to be found in one of Marie Correlli’s novels which she had read but
forgotten. The vision was a correct representation of the scene as
described in the book.
In suitable subjects almost any past experience, whether forgotten or
not, can be reproduced in this way if conserved, and observation shows
that the number which are conserved is enormous. I shall have occasion
to cite further examples in other connections. The phenomenon of
translation we shall find when we come to study it, as we shall do in
another lecture, throws light upon the nature of conservation for here
we are dealing with something more than simple reproduction; what is
conserved becomes elaborated into a new composition.
=Evidence obtained from dreams.=—Another not uncommon mode in which
forgotten experiences are recovered is through dreams. The content of
the dream may, as Freud has shown, be a cryptic and symbolical
expression or representation of the experience,[21] or a visualized
representation or obvious symbolism, much as a painted picture may be a
symbolized expression of an idea,[22] or it may be a realistic
reproduction in the sense that the subject lives over again the actual
experience. A relative of mine gave me a very accurate description of a
person whom she had never seen from a dream in which he appeared. After
describing his hair, eyes, contour of face, mouth, etc., she ended with
the words, “He looks like a cross between a Scotchman and an Irishman.”
After she had most positively insisted that she had never seen this
person or heard him described—against my protest to the contrary—I
reminded her that I had myself described him to her only a few days
before in the identical words, ending my description with the remark,
“He looks like a cross between a Scotchman and an Irishman.” Even then
she could not recall the fact. Von Bechterew has recorded the case of a
man who frequently after hearing an opera dreamed the whole opera
through.[23] One subject of mine frequently dreamed over again in very
minute detail, after an interval of eight or nine months, the scenes
attending the deathbed of a relative. Indeed, in the dream she
realistically lived them again in a fashion similar to that of hypnotic
dreams such as I have related. Although she had not forgotten these
scenes it is highly improbable that she could have voluntarily recalled
them, particularly after the lapse of so long a time, without the aid of
the dream, so rich was it in detail, with each event in its
chronological order.
Dream reproductions, whether in a symbolic form or not, are too common
to need further statement. I would merely point out that the frequency
with which childhood’s experiences occur in dreams is further evidence
of the conservation of these early experiences. The symbolic dream,
cryptic or obvious, deserves, however, special consideration because of
the data it offers to the problem of the nature of conservation which we
shall later study. In this type of dream, if the fundamental principle
of the theory of Freud is correct, the content is a symbolical
continuation in some form of an antecedent thought (experience) of the
dreamer.[24] When this thought, which may be forgotten, is recovered the
symbolic character of the dream, in many cases, is recognized beyond
reasonable doubt.[25] If this principle is well established, and nearly
all investigators are in accord on this point, though we need not always
accept the given interpretation of individual dreams—if the principle is
sound, then it follows that symbolism includes memory of the original
experience which must be conserved. So that even this type of dream
offers evidence of conservation of experiences for which there may be
total loss of memory (amnesia).
Before closing this lecture I will return to the point which I
temporarily passed by, namely, the significance of the _difference in
the form of reproduction_ according as whether it is by automatic
writing or through associative memories in abstraction. In the latter
case, as we have seen, the memories are identical in form and principle
with those of everyday life. They enter the personal consciousness and
become conscious memories in the sense that the individual personally
remembers the experience in question. Abstraction may be regarded simply
as a favorable condition or moment when the subject remembers what he
had at another previous moment forgotten. We have seen also that the
same thing is true of remembering in hypnosis (excepting those special
realistic reproductions when the subject enters a dream-like or
somnambulistic state and lives over again the past experience in
question). In automatic writing, on the other hand, the reproduction is
by a secondary process entirely separate and independent of the personal
consciousness. In the examples I cited the latter was in entire
ignorance of the reproduction which did not become a personally
conscious memory. At the very same moment when the experiences could not
be voluntarily remembered, and without a change in the moment’s
consciousness, something was tapped, as it were, and thereby they were
graphically revealed without the knowledge of the subject, without
memory of them being introduced into the personal consciousness, and
even without the subject being able to remember the incident after
reading the automatic script. Even this stimulus failed to bring back
the desired phase of consciousness. It was very much like
surreptitiously inserting your hand into the pocket of another and
secretly withdrawing an object which he thinks he has lost. What really
happened was this: a secondary process was awakened and this process (of
which the principal or personal consciousness was unaware) revealed the
memory lost by the personal consciousness. At least this is the
interpretation which is the one which all the phenomena of this kind
pertaining to subconscious manifestations compel us to draw.[26] At any
rate the automatic script showed that somehow and somewhere _outside the
personal consciousness_ the experiences were conserved and under certain
conditions could be reproduced.
We now also see that the same principle of reproduction by a secondary
process holds in hallucinatory phenomena whether artificial or
spontaneous, and in many dreams. When a person looking into a crystal
sees a scene which is a truthful pictorial representation of an actual
past experience which he does not consciously remember, it follows that
that visual hallucination must be induced and constructed by some
secondary subconscious process outside of and independent of the
processes involved in his personal consciousness. And, likewise, when a
dream is a translation of a forgotten experience into symbolical terms
it follows that there must be, underlying the dream consciousness, some
subconscious process which continues and translates the original
experience into and constructs the dream.
This being so we are forced to two conclusions: first, in all these
types of phenomena the secondary process must in some way be closely
related to the original experience in order to reproduce it; and,
second, a mental experience must be conserved in some form which permits
of a subconscious process reproducing the experience in one or other of
the various forms in which memory appears. Further than this I will not
go at present, not until we have more extensively reviewed the number
and kinds of mental experiences that may be conserved. This we will do
in the next lecture.
-----
Footnote 5:
Automatic writing is script which has been produced unconsciously or
involuntarily, although the writer is in an alert state, whether it be
the normal waking state or hypnosis. The hand writes, though the
subject does not consciously direct it. Ordinarily, though not always,
the subject is entirely unaware of what the hand is writing, and often
the writing is obtained better if the attention is diverted and
directed toward other matters. The first knowledge then obtained by
the subject of what has been written, or that the hand has written at
all, is on reading the script. Some persons can cultivate the art of
this kind of writing. Mrs. Verrall and Mrs. Holland, for example,
deliberately educated themselves to write automatically, and each
published a volume of her records. In other normal people automatic
writing seems to develop accidentally or under special circumstances.
In certain types of hysteria it is very easily obtained. “Planchette,”
which many years ago was in vogue as a parlor game, was only a
particular device to effect automatic writing.
Footnote 6:
In this particular experiment, when the hand wrote “automatically,”
the second _hypnotic consciousness vanished_ and the subject went into
a _trance_ state, or what is equivalent to a third hypnotic state.
There was no consciousness present, excepting that which was
associated with the writing hand. At other times, in experiments of
this class with this same subject, the hypnotic or the waking
consciousness, as the case might be, persisted _alert_ while the hand
wrote. For the purpose of the experiment in recovering memories this
change in the psychological condition is not of importance, the
principle remains the same.
Footnote 7:
_Journal of the S. P. R._, July, 1906. A fuller account of this case
was later published in the same journal, August, 1911.
Footnote 8:
A remark made by the subject in the trance state, though passed over
in the report as apparently inconsequential, has really much meaning
when interpreted through that conception of the unconscious memory
process which will be developed in succeeding chapters. The subject,
while in the trance, claimed to be in a mental world wherein “is to be
found, it is said, not only everything that has ever happened or will
happen, but all thoughts, dreams, and imagination.” In other words, in
that psychical condition into which she passed, all the conserved
conscious experiences of her life could be awakened into memory.
Footnote 9:
_Proceedings of the S. P. R._, October, 1906, Chap. XII.
Footnote 10:
In the automatic script, which purported to be a spiritistic message
from a dead friend named Annette, occurred the enigmatical sentence:
“Tell her this comes from the friend who loved cradles and cradled
things.” The meaning of this was revealed by the above-mentioned
letter to Mrs. Holland, written twenty years previously. It was from a
friend of Annette’s, and quoted an extract from Annette’s will, which
ran, “because I love cradles and cradled things.” When Mrs. Holland
was tearing up some old letters she came across this one. (“On the
automatic writing of Mrs. Holland,” by Miss Alice Johnson:
_Proceedings of the S. P. R._, June, 1908, pp. 288, 289.)
Footnote 11:
It would have required a stenographer, whom I did not have, to record
fully all these recovered memories. They would fill several printed
pages, and I can give only a general résumé of them. Some weeks later
the experiment was repeated and a record taken as fully as possible in
long hand.
Footnote 12:
Later in the day she discovered the loss of her gloves and, not
remembering where she had left them, was obliged to retrace her steps
in search of them.
Footnote 13:
Of course the memories recovered by either method may be fabrications
as with ordinary voluntary memory, and the automatic script may
stimulate the conscious memory to recollect the experiences in
question. Nevertheless, while the memories are being recorded by the
script, no “conscious” memory is present with subjects who are unaware
of what the hand is writing.
Footnote 14:
Sidis, Prince, and Linenthal: A contribution to the Pathology of
Hysteria, _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, June 23, 1904.
Footnote 15:
The Dissociation of a Personality, by Morton Prince. (New York;
Longmans, Green & Co., 1906.) P. 77. Hereafter, when this work is
referred to, the title will be indicated simply by “The Dissociation.”
Footnote 16:
Undoubtedly much was forgotten and, therefore, there must have been
hiatuses of which she was not aware; but the remarkable thing is that
not only so much, but so much that was inconsequential and evanescent
was recalled. If additional technical methods had been employed
probably more memories could have been recalled.
Footnote 17:
The objection will probably be made that the memories and statements
of hypnotized persons are unreliable on several grounds, chiefly
suggestibility, liability to illusions and, in some cases, tendency to
fabrications. This criticism is more likely to come from those who
have had a special rather than a wide experience with hypnotism.
Footnote 18:
Miss B., in these pages, always refers to Miss Beauchamp, an account
of whose case is given in “The Dissociation.” In this connection cf.
pp. 501, 81 and 238 of that work.
Footnote 19:
_Proceedings of the S. P. R._, June, 1908.
Footnote 20:
Crystal or artificial visions are hallucinatory phenomena which, like
automatic writing, can be cultivated by some people. The common
technic is to have a person look into a crystal, at the same time
concentrating the mind, or putting himself into a state of
abstraction. Under these conditions the subject sees a vision, i.e.,
has a visual hallucination. The vision may be of some person or place,
or may represent a scene which may be enacted. Because of the use of a
crystal such hallucinations are called “crystal visions,” but a
crystal is not requisite; any reflecting surface may be sufficient, or
even the concentration of the attention. The crystal or other object
used of course acts only by aiding the concentration of attention and
by force of suggestion.—_The subconscious is tapped._
Footnote 21:
Freud: Traumdeutung, 2 aufl. 1909.
Footnote 22:
Morton Prince: The Mechanism and Interpretation of Dreams. _The
Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, October-November, 1910.
Footnote 23:
Zentralblatt für Nervenheilkunde und Psychiatrie; 1909, Heft 12.
Footnote 24:
According to Freud and his school it is always the imaginary
fulfilment of a suppressed wish, almost always sexual. For our
purposes it is not necessary to inquire into the correctness of this
interpretation or the details of the Freudian theory.
Footnote 25:
For an example, see p. 98.
Footnote 26:
If the physiological interpretation be maintained, i.e., that the
script was produced by a pure physiological process, this phenomenon
would be a crucial demonstration of the nature of conservation, that
it is in the form of physical alterations in nervous structure. I do
not believe, however, that this interpretation can be maintained.
LECTURE III
CONSERVATION OF FORGOTTEN EXPERIENCES OF NORMAL, ARTIFICIAL, AND
PATHOLOGICAL LIFE