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
It must not be thought that because we are only dimly aware of the
contents of this twilight zone therefore the individual elements lack
definiteness and positive reality. To do so is to confuse the awareness
of a certain something with that something itself. To so think would be
like thinking that, because we do not distinctly recognize objects in
the darkness, therefore they are but shadowy forms without substance.
When, in states of abstraction or hypnosis, the ideas of this fringe of
attention are recalled, as often is easily done, they are remembered as
_very definite, real, conscious elements_, and the memory of them is as
vivid as that of most thoughts. That these marginal ideas are not
“vivid” at the time of their occurrence means simply that they are not
in such dynamic relations with the whole content of consciousness as to
be the focus of awareness or attention. What sort of relations are
requisite for “awareness” is an unsolved problem. It seems to be a
matter not only of synthesis but of dynamic relations within the
synthesis.
However that may be, outside that dynamic synthesis which we distinguish
as the focus of attention we can at certain moments recognize or recall
to memory (whether through technical devices or not) a number of
different conscious states. These may be roughly classified as follows:
1: Visual, auditory, and other sensory impressions to which we are not
giving attention—(e. g., the striking of a clock; the sound of horses
passing in the street; voices from the next room; coenæsthetic and other
sensations of the body.
2: The secondary sensory images of which I spoke in the last lecture as
taking part in perception.
3: Associative memories and thoughts pertaining to the ideas in the
focus of attention.
4: Secondary independent trains of thought not related to those in the
focus of attention. (As when we are doing one thing or listening to
conversation and thinking of something else. Very likely, however, what
appear to be secondary trains of thought are often only alternating
trains. I have, however, a considerable collection of data showing such
concomitant secondary trains in certain subjects (cf. Lecture VI). Such
a train can be demonstrated to be a precisely differentiated “stream” of
consciousness in absent-minded conditions, where it may constitute a
veritable doubling of consciousness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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