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
Let us take another observation: We have seen that a tactual perception
of the body includes secondary imaginal visual and other sensory images
besides the tactile sensation. Now, of course, if sensation is
dissociated so that one has complete anesthesia, no tactile sensation
can be perceived. Under such conditions an anesthetic person
theoretically might not be able to imagine the dissociated tactile
sensations and the associated visual images included in tactile
perception. If so such a person would not be able to visualize his body.
In other words, in accordance with the well-known principle that the
dissociation of a specific memory robs the personal consciousness of
other elements of experiences synthesized with the specific memory, the
dissociation of the tactile images carries with it the visual images
associated in perception. This theoretical proposition is confirmed by
actual observation. Thus B. C. A. in one hypnotic state has general
anesthesia, so complete that she has no consciousness of her body
whatsoever. She does not know whether she is standing or sitting, nor
the attitude of her limbs, or her location in space; she is simply
thought in space. Now it is found that she can visualize the
experimenter, the room, and the objects in the room although she cannot
visualize any part of her own body. The dissociation of the tactual
field of consciousness is so complete that she cannot evoke imaginal
tactual images of the body, and this dissociation of these images
carries with it that of the associated imaginal visual images. Visual
images of the environment, however, not being synthesized with the
tactual body images, can be still evoked. So we see from observations
based on introspection and experimentation that perception includes,
besides primary simple sensations of an object, secondary imaginal
images of various kinds and in various numbers.
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