=Absent-minded acts.=—In a study made some time ago I recorded the reproduction, as a crystal vision, of an absent-minded act, i.e., one which had not fully entered the focus of consciousness during deep concentration of the attention. It is a type of numerous experiments of this kind that I have made. Miss B. is directed to look into a crystal. She sees therein a vision of herself walking along a particular street in Boston in a brown study. She sees herself take out of her pocket some bank notes, tear them up, and throw them into the street. Now this artificial hallucination, or vision, was a picture of an actual occurrence; in an absent-minded reverie the subject had actually performed this very act under the circumstances portrayed in the vision and had retained no memory of it.[27] Similarly I have frequently recovered knowledge of the whereabouts of articles mislaid absent-mindedly. Sometimes the method used has been, as in the above examples, that of crystal gazing or artificial hallucinations; sometimes hypnotism, sometimes automatic writing, etc. By the last two methods not only the forgotten acts but the ideas and feelings which were outside the focus of attention, but in the fringe of consciousness, and prompted the acts are described. It is needless to give the details of the observations; it suffices to say that each minute detail of the absent-minded act and the thoughts and feelings that determined it are described or mirrored, as the case may be. The point of importance is that concentration of attention is not essential for conservation, and, therefore, among the vast mass of the conserved experiences of life may be found many which, though once conscious, only entered the margin of awareness (not the focus of attention) and never were subject to voluntary recollection. In the absence of attentive awareness at the time for such an experience (and therefore of recollection), we often can only be assured that it ever occurred by circumstantial evidence. When this assurance is wanting we are tempted to deny its occurrence and our responsibility, but experiment shows that the process of conservation, like the dictagraph, is a more faithful custodian of our experiences than are our voluntary memories.