Collected Papers on Analytical PsychologyJung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Science
Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Psychoanalysis
is really separate from II., there seems no reason why
he should not speak automatically at the same time that II. appears,
and be present with II. in the ecstasy. Although this might have been
supposed possible, as a matter of fact it was never observed. How is
this dilemma to be resolved? At all events there exists an identity
of I. and II., but it does not lie in the region of the personality
under discussion; it lies in the basis common to both; that is, in
the personality of the subject which in deepest essence is one and
indivisible. Here we come across the characteristic of all hysterical
dissociations of consciousness. _They are disturbances which only
belong to the superficial, and none reaches so deep as to attack the
strong-knit foundation of the ego-complex._
In many such cases we can find the bridge which, although often
well-concealed, spans the apparently impassable abyss. For instance, by
suggestion, one of four cards is made invisible to a hypnotised person;
he thereupon names the other three. A pencil is placed in his hand with
the instruction to write down all the cards lying there; he correctly
adds the fourth one.[101]
In the aura of his hystero-epileptic attacks a patient of Janet's[102]
invariably had a vision of a conflagration, and whenever he saw an
open fire he had an attack; indeed, the sight of a lighted match was
sufficient to bring about an attack. The patient's visual field on the
left side was limited to 30°, the right eye was shut. The left eye was
fixed in the middle of a perimeter whilst a lighted match was held at
80°. The hystero-epileptic attack took place immediately. Despite the
extensive amnesia in many cases of double consciousness, the patients'
behaviour does not correspond to the degree of their ignorance, but it
seems rather as if a deeper instinct guided their actions in accordance
with their former knowledge. Not only this relatively slight amnesic
dissociation, but the severe amnesia of the epileptic twilight-state,
formerly regarded as _irreparabile damnum_, does not suffice to cut
the inmost threads which bind the ego-complex in the twilight-state to
the normal ego. In one case the content of the twilight-state could be
grafted on to the waking ego-complex.[103]
Making use of these experiments for our case, we obtain the helpful
hypothesis that those layers of the unconscious beyond reach of the
dissociation endeavour to present the unity of automatic personality.
This endeavour is shattered in the deeper-seated and more elemental
disturbance of the hysterical attack,[104] which prevents a more
complete synthesis by the tacking on of associations which are to a
certain extent the most original individual property of supraliminal
personality. _As the Ivenes dream emerged it was fitted on to the
figures accidentally in the field of vision, and henceforth remains
associated with them._
RELATIONSHIP TO THE UNCONSCIOUS PERSONALITY.
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