The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)James, William
Philosophy
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
Our insensibility to habitual noises, etc., whilst awake, proves that
we can neglect to attend to that which we nevertheless feel. Similarly
in sleep, we grow inured, and sleep soundly in presence of sensations
of sound, cold, contact, etc., which at first prevented our complete
repose. We have learned to neglect them whilst asleep as we should
whilst awake. The mere _sense-impressions_ are the same when the sleep
is deep as when it is light; the difference must lie in a _judgment_
on the part of the apparently slumbering mind that they are not worth
noticing.
This discrimination is equally shown by nurses of the sick and mothers
of infants, who will sleep through much noise of an irrelevant sort,
but waken at the slightest stirring of the patient or the babe. This
last fact shows the _sense-organ_ to be pervious for sounds.
Many people have a remarkable faculty of registering when asleep the
flight of time. They will habitually wake up at the same minute day
after day, or will wake punctually at an unusual hour determined upon
overnight. How can this knowledge of the hour (more accurate often than
anything the waking consciousness shows) be possible without mental
activity during the interval?
Such are what we may call the classical reasons for admitting that the
mind is active even when the person afterwards ignores the fact.[200]
Of late years, or rather, one may say, of late months, they have been
reinforced by a lot of curious observations made on hysterical and
hypnotic subjects, which prove the existence of a highly developed
consciousness in places where it has hitherto not been suspected at
all. These observations throw such a novel light upon human nature that
I must give them in some detail. That at least four different and in
a certain sense rival observers should agree in the same conclusion
justifies us in accepting the conclusion as true.
_'Unconsciousness' in Hysterics._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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