When, however, in the expenditure of energy, the border line or
margin is crossed, dynamic and reserve energies are used up. In
crossing KA the ordinary normal energies of everyday life are
exhausted, and reserve energy has to be drawn upon. If this reserve
energy is not accessible, the static energy is used, or in case
the reserve energy is exhausted, then once more the static energy
has to be drawn upon; in either case the individual enters the
domain of the abnormal, of the pathological.
When the upper levels of static energy are used, the symptoms are
of a psychopathic or neurotic character. When the use of energy
reaches the lower levels of static energy, affecting the very
nutrition of the neuron, neuropathic manifestations are the result.
When the neuron itself is affected, that is the organic structure
is being dissolved, then organopathies result. It means the death
of the nerve cell.
FOOTNOTE:
[16] The principle of reserve energy was developed independently by
my friend, William James, and myself.
CHAPTER XXXIV
DYNAMIC ENERGY
Whenever the dynamic energy is exhausted and the levels of
reserve energy are reached, the individual affected begins to
feel restless, and if there is no access to the levels of reserve
energy, the individual gets scared. The fear instinct becomes
awakened, giving rise, after repeated unavailing attempts, to the
states of psychopathic neurosis. In states of depression, such as
hypochondria and more especially in states of melancholia, the
fear instinct is potent. The fear instinct is brought about in
the darkness of the night, when the individual is fatigued from
his day’s labor, when the external stimuli are at a minimum, and
reserve energy is not available. The fear instinct rises from the
subconscious regions to the surface of conscious activities.
Convalescent states as well as exhaustion from pain and disease,
such as fever or a shock from some accident, war-shock,
shell-shock, surgical shock predispose to the manifestation of the
fear instinct. Hence the caution of surgeons in the preparation
of the patient for a serious operation. For the result may be a
shock to the system due to the subconscious activities of the fear
instinct present in subconscious mental life, no longer protected
by the guardianship of the upper consciousness. And it may also
be shown, both by experiment and observation, that during the
subconscious states when the lower strata of dynamic energy are
reached, such as hypnoidal, hypnoid states, and sleep, that the
individual is more subject to fear than during the waking states.
We know how a sudden noise, a flash of light during drowsy states
or sleep startles one, and the same holds true of any stimulus. I
have observed the same condition of fright during hypnoidal states.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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