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
B. C. A., in a dream, had a visual hallucination of a flash of light
which revealed a scene in a cave and which was followed by blindness
such as would physiologically follow a tremendous flash. In the dream
she is warned that if she looks into the cave, she will be blinded. She
looks; there is a blinding flash and loss of vision follows; after
waking she was still partially blind, but she continued from time to
time to see momentary flashes of light revealing certain of the objects
seen in the dream in the cave, and these flashes would be succeeded
temporarily by absolute blindness as in the dream. She had no memory of
the dream. Now psychological analysis disclosed the meaning of the
dream; it was a symbolical representation of certain conserved
(subconscious) previous thoughts—thoughts apprehensive of the future
into which she dared not look, thinking she would be overwhelmed. _While
in a state of conservation_ the residua of _these_ antecedent thoughts
had translated themselves into the symbolical hallucination of the dream
and the loss of vision. Similarly after waking, although she had no
memory of the dream, the conserved residua of the same thoughts
continued to translate themselves into visual hallucinations and to
induce blindness.[49] It would take too long for me to enter here into
the details of the analysis which forces this conclusion.[50]
Similarly, as is well known, convulsions resembling epilepsy, paralysis,
spasms, tics, contractures, etc., may be caused directly or indirectly
by ideas, after they have passed out of consciousness and ceased to take
part in the conscious processes of thought. At least that is the
interpretation which the facts elicited by the various methods of
investigation seem to require.
There is an analogous class of phenomena which ought to be mentioned
among the possible data bearing upon the theory of memory, although too
much weight cannot be placed upon them as their interpretation is not
wholly clear. I will discuss them in detail later in connection with the
phenomena of the emotions. They are certain _emotional phenomena_ which
are attributed by some writers to ideas in a state of conservation. It
has been demonstrated that ideas to which strong feeling tones are
attached are accompanied by such physiological effects as disturbance of
respiration, of the heart’s action, of the vaso-motor system, of the
secretions, etc., and also by certain _galvanic phenomena_ which are due
to the diminution of the electrical resistance of the body, probably
caused by increased secretion of sweat.[51]
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