The clearest statement of this view was given by the late Frederic
Myers; he suggested that the stream of consciousness in which we
habitually lived was not our only one. Possibly our habitual
consciousness might be a mere selection from a multitude of thoughts
and sensations--some, at least, equally conscious with those we
empirically knew. No primacy was granted by this theory to the ordinary
waking self, except that among potential selves it appeared the fittest
to meet the needs of common life. As a rule, the waking life was
remembered in hypnosis, and the hypnotic life forgotten in the waking
state; this destroyed any claim of the primary memory to be the sole
memory. The self below the threshold of ordinary consciousness Myers
termed the "subliminal consciousness," and the empirical self of common
experience the "supraliminal." He held that to the subliminal
consciousness and memory a far wider range, both of physiological and
psychical activity, was open than to the supraliminal. The latter was
inevitably limited by the need of concentration upon recollections
useful in the struggle for existence; while the former included much
that was too rudimentary to be retained in the supraliminal memory of an
organism so advanced as that of man. The recollection of processes now
performed automatically and needing no supervision, passed out of the
supraliminal memory, but might be retained by the subliminal. The
subliminal, or hypnotic, self could exercise over the vaso-motor and
circulatory systems a degree of control unparalleled in waking life.
Thus, according to the Nancy school, the deeply hypnotised subject
responds automatically to suggestion before his intellectual centres
have had time to bring their inhibitory action into play; but, on the
other hand, in the subliminal consciousness theory, volition and
consciousness are recognised to be unimpaired in hypnosis.
_IV.--Curative Value of Hypnotism_
The intelligent action of the secondary self may be illustrated by the
execution of certain post-hypnotic acts. Thus, one of my patients who,
at a later period, consented to become the subject of experiment,
developed an enormously increased power of time appreciation. If told,
during hypnosis, for example, that she was to perform some specific act
in the waking state at the expiration of a complicated number of
minutes, as, for example, 40,825, she generally carried out the
suggestion with absolute accuracy. In this and similar experiments,
three points were noted. (1) The arithmetical problems were far beyond
her normal powers; (2) she normally possessed no special faculty for
appreciating time; (3) her waking consciousness retained no recollection
of the experimental suggestions or of anything else that had occurred
during hypnosis.
It is difficult to estimate the exact value of suggestion in connection
with other forms of treatment. There are one or two broad facts which
ought to be kept in mind.
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