The unconscious : $b The fundamentals of human personality, normal and abnormalPrince, Morton
Science
The unconscious : $b The fundamentals of human personality, normal and abnormal
Prince, Morton
Psychology, Pathological; Subconsciousness
The subject, Miss B., was in the state known as BIVa, an hypnotic state,
_her eyes closed_. While she was conversing with me on a subject which
held her attention I whispered in her ear with the view of communicating
with coconscious ideas as above explained. While I was whispering, she
remarked, “Where have you gone?” and later asked why I went away and
what I kept coming and going for. On examination it then appeared that
it seemed to her that during the moments when I whispered in her ear I
had gone away. That is to say, she could no longer visualize my body,
the secondary imaginal visual images being dissociated with my whispered
words. At these times, however, she continued the conversation and was
not at all in a dreamy state. Testing her tactile sense it was found
that there was no dissociation of this sense during these moments. She
felt tactile impressions while she was not hearing my voice, but she
explained afterwards [while whispering, of course, I could not ask
questions regarding sensations aloud] that when I touched her, and when
she held my hand, palpating it in a curious way as if trying to make out
what it was, she felt the tactile impressions, or tactile sensations,
but not naturally. It appeared as the result of further observations
that this feeling of unnaturalness and strangeness was due to a
dissociation of the secondary visual images which normally occur with
the tactile images. (She described the tactile impressions of my hand as
similar to those she felt when she lifted her own hand when it had “gone
to sleep”; it felt dead and heavy as if it belonged to no one in
particular.
Testing further it was found that, _before abstraction_, while she held
my hand she could definitely visualize my hand, arm, and even face.
While she was thus visualizing I again abstracted her auditory
perceptions by the whispering process. At once the secondary visual
images of my hand, etc., disappeared. As with the auditory perceptions
she could not obtain these visual images, although a moment before she
could visualize as far as the elbow.
Desiring now to learn whether these dissociated visual images were
perceived coconsciously I whispered, at the same time holding her hand,
“Do you see my hand, arm, and face?” She nodded (automatically) “Yes.”
“Does _she_ [meaning the personal consciousness] see them?” (Answer by
nod) “No.” (The personal consciousness (BIVa) was unaware of the
questions and nodding; the latter was performed subconsciously.)
This experiment was repeated several times. As often as she ceased to
hear my voice she ceased to visualize my hand, though she could feel it
without recognizing it. It follows, therefore, that the dissociation of
the auditory perceptions of my voice having also robbed the subject’s
personal consciousness of all visual images of my body, her previous
tactual perception of my hand lost thereby its visual images and ceased
to be a perception.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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