TELEPATHY AND THE SUBLIMINAL SELF/PART 6

 

CHAPTER VI.

NATURAL SOMNAMBULISM—HYPNOTIC SOMNAMBULISM—DREAMS.

The first of these more accessible conditions to claim attention is natural somnambulism, or sleep-walking. The phenomena of this peculiar state have been observed from time immemorial, and have always been looked upon as one of the most wonderful and interesting subjects in the domain of the old psychology.

In this state the subject, while apparently in ordinary sleep, arises from his bed and proceeds, sometimes to perform the most ordinary, everyday actions—cooking a dinner, washing clothes, sawing wood, or going out to a neighboring market town to transact business; sometimes, on the other hand, he does the most unusual things; he performs perilous journeys in dangerous and unfamiliar places in perfect safety and with unusual ease; sometimes intellectual work of a difficult nature, such as had baffled the student in his waking hours, is easily accomplished, and he finds the solution of his mathematical problem or the needed point in his argument all plainly wrought out and prepared for him when he goes to his desk the following morning; moreover, if the work from any cause should be interrupted, and the same conditions recur upon the following or some subsequent night, it may be resumed at the point where it was interrupted; or if the somnambulist talks, as well as acts, in his sleep the conversation shows that each succeeding occasion is connected with previous ones, all together constituting a chain of memories similar to that of the different personalities which have been presented in the four cases already described.

Sometimes all these different actions are accomplished without light or with the eyes fast closed, or else open and staring, but without vision. Sometimes, however, the new personality developed in the sleep of the somnambulist fails to come into proper relations with his surroundings, when he may also fail to accomplish the dangerous journey, and may walk from an open window or an unguarded balcony with disastrous results.

The second condition which presents analogies to the duplex or multiplex personalities, which are under consideration, is that of the somnambulism which occurs in the hypnotic sleep. While usually the hypnotic subject is passive and unconsciously receives the suggestions which are impressed upon him, not unfrequently a personality comes to the front which acts independently, and presents all the characteristics which we have found pertaining to a distinct personality.

A rare example of this alternating personality brought about by hypnotism is afforded by the French subject, Mme. B., whose acquaintance we have already made as a subject upon whom hypnotism at a distance was successfully carried out by Prof. Janet and Dr. Gibert of Havre. As we have already seen, in her ordinary condition Mme. B. is a stolid, substantial, honest French peasant, about forty years of age, of very moderate intelligence, and without any education or any ambition for notoriety. In this state Prof. Janet calls her Léonie.

Hypnotized, she is at once changed into a bright, vivacious, mischief-loving, rather noisy personality, who considers herself on excellent terms with the doctor, and whom the professor names Léontine. Later, by further hypnotization and a deeper trance, there appears a sedate, sensible personality, intellectually much superior to Léonie, the primary self, and much more dignified than the vivacious Léontine, and this third personality Prof. Janet calls Léonore.

Léontine, the hypnotic or second self, knows Léonie, the original Mme. B., very well, and is very anxious not to be confounded with her. She always calls her “the other one,” and laughs at her stupidity. She says, “That good woman is not I, she is too stupid.” One day Prof. Janet hypnotized Léonie, and as usual at once Léontine was present. Prof. Janet then suggested to Léontine that when she awoke and Léonie had resumed the command, she (Léontine) should take off the apron of Léonie, their common apron, on their one physical personality, and then tie it on again. She was then aroused from her hypnotic condition, and at once Léonie was present without the slightest knowledge of Léontine, for she never knew of this second personality, nor of hypnotic suggestion in any form. Léonie, supposing the professor’s experiment was over, was conducting him to the door, talking indifferently in her slow, dull way, and at the same time unconsciously her fingers were working at her apron-strings. The loosened apron was falling off when the professor called her attention to it. She exclaimed, “Why, my apron is falling off!” and then, fully conscious of what she was doing, she replaced and tied it on again. She then continued her talk. She only supposed that somehow accidentally the apron had come untied and she had retied it, and that was all.

To the now submerged Léontine, however, this was not enough; her mission had not been completed, and at her silent prompting Léonie again fumbled at the apron-strings; unconsciously she untied and took off the apron, and then put it on again without her attention having been drawn to what she had now the second time done. The next day Prof. Janet again hypnotized Léonie and Léontine made her appearance.

“Well,” said she, “I did what you told me yesterday. How stupid ‘the other one’ looked while I took her apron off? Why did you tell her that her apron was falling off? Just for that, I had to do the job all over again.”

Here the hypnotic or secondary self, as in my own reported case, appears as a persistent entity, remembering and reasoning, while the primary self was at the same time in command of their common body. Léontine not only caused Léonie to untie and retie her apron, but she enjoyed the fun, remembered it, and told it the next day.

Again Léonore was as much ashamed of Léontine’s flippancy as Léontine was of Léonie’s stupidity.

“You see well enough,” she said, “that I am not that prattler, that madcap. We do not resemble each other in the least.”

In fact, she sometimes gave Léontine good counsel in regard to her behavior, and in a peculiar manner—by producing the hallucination of hearing a voice, thus again showing the conscious activity of the submerged self while a primary self was at the same time dominant and active. As Dr. Janet relates the incident, Léontine was one day in an excited, hysterical condition, noisy and troublesome with her chatter, when suddenly she stopped her senseless talk and cried out with terror:

 

“Oh! Who is it there talking to me like that?”

“No one was speaking to you.”

“Yes, there on the left.” And she opened a closet door in the direction indicated, to see that no one was hidden there.

“What is it that you hear?” asked the professor.

“I hear a voice on the left there which keeps saying to me: ‘Enough, enough; be quiet. You are a nuisance!’” which, the professor remarks, was exactly the truth.

Léonore, in her turn, was then brought to the surface.

“What was it that happened,” asked Prof. Janet, “when Léontine was so frightened?”

“Oh, nothing,” she replied. “I told her she was a nuisance and to keep quiet. I saw she was annoying you. I don’t know why she was so frightened.”

I may be pardoned for mentioning one other fact regarding the relationship of these singular personalities, because it illustrates more pointedly if possible than anything else their entire duplex and separate character. Léonie or Madame B. is married, but Léontine is not. Madame B. however, was hypnotized at her accouchements, and became Léontine. So Léontine was the presiding personality when the children were born. Léontine therefore considers herself the mother of two children, and would be greatly grieved were any doubts expressed regarding her right of motherhood in them.

The analogies between the mental conditions presented respectively in ordinary somnambulism and the somnambulism of the hypnotic trance, and the mental conditions presented in the four cases previously recited are numerous and obvious; in fact, they seem as indeed they are, like the same conditions differently produced and varying in the length of time they occupy, and it is evident that in them there is brought to view a mental state of sufficient uniformity, as well as of sufficient interest and importance, to be worthy of serious consideration.

The facts thus far brought into view are these: That in a considerable number of persons there may be developed, either spontaneously or artificially, a second personality different in character and distinct in its consciousness and memories from the primary or original self; that this second personality is not a mere change of consciousness, but in some sense it is a different entity, having a power of observation, attention and memory not only when the primary self is submerged and without consciousness or volition, but also at the same time that the primary self is in action, performing its usual offices, and in its turn it is equally capable of managing the affairs and performing the offices properly pertaining to the common body whenever needed for that purpose.

Reckoning these different personalities as No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, etc., No. 1 has no knowledge of No. 2, nor of any succeeding personality, nor of their acts, but the time occupied by them is to No. 1 a blank, during which it is without volition, memory, or consciousness. No. 2 has a distinct consciousness and chain of memories of its own, but it also knows more or less perfectly the history and acts of No. 1—it knows this history, however, only as pertaining to a third person; it knows nothing of No. 3, nor of any personality subsequently coming into activity. No. 3 has also its distinct personality, and knows both No. 1 and No. 2, but knows them only as separate and distinct personalities; it does not know any personality coming into activity after itself.

So distinct are these personalities that No. 2 not only may not possess the acquirements, as, for instance, the book knowledge, trade, or occupation of No. 1, but may possess other capabilities and acquirements entirely foreign to No. 1, and of which it possessed no knowledge.

Ansel Bourne was a farmer and preacher, and knew nothing of storekeeping. A. J. Brown, the second personality, was a business man, neither farmer nor preacher. Louis V., as No. 2, was a tailor, and a very good boy; as No. 3, he was a private of marines, and knew nothing of tailoring, and he was a moral monster; while, in what might be called his No. 5 condition, he was again an undeveloped child, as he was before his fright.

Still another fact which comes prominently into view in examining these cases is that the No. 2 personality may not, by any means, be inferior to the No. 1, or original self. In none of the cases cited has the intellectual capacity of the later developed personality been inferior to that of the original self, and generally it was notably superior; only in the No. 3 personality of Louis V. was the moral state worse than in No. 1, and, in general, the moral standing of No. 2 or No. 3 was fully equal to the primary self.

The emergence and dominance of a secondary personality, therefore, does not by any means imply that the general standing of the individual dominated by this second personality, as judged by disinterested observers, is in any way inferior to the same individual dominated by the primary self, but, on the contrary, a superior personality is rather to be expected, and especially is this true when the secondary personality is intelligently sought and brought to view by means of hypnotism.

It is, however, quite impossible by any á priori reasoning, or from the character of the primary self, to form any definite estimate concerning the character or general characteristics of any new personality which may make its appearance, either spontaneously or through the aid of hypnotism.

Having become to a certain degree familiarized with the idea that in some persons, at least, and under some peculiar circumstances, a second personality may come to the surface and take the place for a longer or shorter time of the primary self, it may be asked whether, after all, these comparatively few persons in which this unusual phenomena has been observed are essentially different in their mental constitution from other people.

When those best acquainted with the slender and melancholy Félida N., or the ordinary, quiet, well-behaved Louis V.; the industrious and respected evangelist Ansel Bourne, or the large-brained, intellectual leader of women, Alma Z., saw them in their ordinary state, before any subliminal personality had emerged and made itself known, no one of those most intimate acquaintances, no expert in character-reading, no student of mental science could have given any reasonable intimation that any one of them would develop a second personality, much less give any trustworthy opinion as to the character which the new personality would possess.

A few months ago I was called in haste to see a patient, a large, strong man of one hundred and eighty pounds weight, who had been thrown down and trampled upon by his nineteen-year-old son during an attack of somnambulism, and had received such serious injuries as to require immediate surgical aid. The next day this son came to consult me regarding his unfortunate habit of sleep-walking, which has often got him into trouble before, and has now resulted in serious injury to his father. He is a slight youth of one hundred and twenty pounds weight, light hair, gray eyes, and a bright, frank face, expressive of good health and good nature—“a perfect gentleman,” as his father expressed it, “when himself, but ten men cannot manage him when he gets up in his sleep; he will do what he sets out to do.”

Who would ever imagine that this slender, good-natured, gentlemanly lad, sooner than any other lad, would in his sleep develop somnambulism and a second personality, or that when it came that second personality should prove a stubborn Samson?

Little could Prof. Janet imagine that beneath the surface consciousness of that serene and stupid Léonie dwelt the frisky, vivacious, fun-loving Léontine, waiting only the magic key of hypnotism to unlock and bring her to the surface to reign instead of the heavy Léonie.

The people who, in various ways, develop second personalities may not differ, it seems, in any perceptible manner from other people; is it not quite possible, then, that other normal, ordinary people, possess a second personality, deep-down beneath their ordinary, everyday self, and that under conditions which favor a readjustment, this hidden subliminal self may emerge and become for a longer or a shorter time the conscious, acting one; and not only so, but may prove to be the brighter and better organized of the two?

Having now, as it were, a chart, imperfect though it be, of this outlying region, having some idea what to look for, and in what direction to look for it, it is possible that glimpses of this subliminal personality which each one unconsciously carries with him may be obtained under ordinary conditions and in everyday life, more frequently and more easily than we had imagined; for, as Ribot expresses it, the ordinary conscious personality is only a feeble portion of the whole psychical personality.

One example of this more usual form of double personality is afforded in ordinary dreaming. The dream country, like most of this outlying territory, has for the most part been studied without chart or compass. There is scarcely a point connected with the discussion of the subject upon which the most eminent authorities are not divided; it is Locke against Descartes, Hamilton against Locke, and Hobbes against the field.

If there be any one point, however, on which there is tolerable unanimity among all writers, ancient and modern, great and small, it is the absence in dreams of the normal acts and processes of volition, and, especially, of the faculty of attention. Now, this is exactly the condition which is conducive to the more or less perfect emergence and activity of the subliminal self, under whatever circumstances it occurs.

There is first, loss of consciousness from catalepsy, fright, depressing illness, hypnotism, or natural sleep, that is to say, the power of attention or volition in the primary self is abolished; then comes a readjustment of personalities, varying in completeness according to the ease with which, in different persons, this readjustment may be effected, and according to the completeness of the abolition of the power of attention and volition.

In sleep the conditions are favorable for this readjustment, and the subliminal self comes more or less perfectly to the surface; then appears that most peculiar and interesting series of pictures and visions which we call dreams; sometimes the rearranged, or rather unarranged, impressions and perceptions of the waking hours brought together, possibly just before the power of attention is entirely lost; sometimes the Puck-like work of the subliminal personality, the Léontines of the dream-country influencing the unconscious or semi-conscious primary self; sometimes the veridical or truth-telling dreams, which have been the wonder of all ages, and sometimes giving complete and active supremacy to the subliminal self as in natural somnambulism. Another portion of the field in which it might be profitable to look for evidence of the existence of a subliminal personality is in the eccentric work of genius; and still another, in the unexpected and often heroic actions of seemingly ordinary persons under the stress and stimulus of a great emotion, as of joy, sorrow, or anger, or of intense excitement, as for instance, the soldier in battle, the fireman at the post of danger, or the philosopher or astronomer on the eve of a new discovery; in all these cases the ordinary personality with its intense self-consciousness and self-considering carefulness is submerged—it disappears—the power of voluntary attention to mental states or physical action is lost; a new and superior personality comes to the surface and takes control. The supreme moment passes, and the primary self resumes sway, scarcely conscious of what has been done or how it was accomplished; even sensation has been abolished, and it is only now that he discovers the bleeding bullet-wound, the charred member, or the broken bone.

In physical science, whenever some new fact or law or principle has been discovered, it is at once seen that many things which before were obscure, or perhaps could only be accounted for by a theory of chance, or of direct interference by an omnipotent Deity, are now illuminated by a new light, and order reigns where before only confusion and darkness were visible. Something of the same sort is beginning to be recognized in the world of mental and psychical phenomena. If the mathematical exactness which measured the force of gravity, or placed the sun in one of the foci of an ellipse instead of the centre of a circle cannot be applied here, it is only on account of the vast complexity of the problem presented, and of which we know so few of the elements.

When matter alone is concerned we know exactly how it will act under given conditions. When life is added, the problem becomes more complex. The general law of evolution and the special law of natural selection in the development of species are accepted facts, although we cannot with success apply to them mathematical formulæ. When mind is added to life, the problem becomes still more complicated and mathematical exactness still less likely to be attained. Many facts, however, are being ascertained in psychical science, and some principles are being established which help to bring order out of confusion and shed light on some dark places.

The recognition of a subliminal self as forming a part of the psychical organization of man will throw light upon many obscure mental phenomena and bring order out of seemingly hopeless confusion. Placed before us as a working hypothesis, many other facts, before errant and unclassified, group themselves about it in wonderful clearness and harmony.

Granting, then, provisionally at least, the reality of the secondary self, what are its relations to the primary self and their common physical organization, and how came it to occupy these relations? Mr. Frederick W. H. Myers, to whom I have already referred, whose acute intellect and scholarly attainments have been of the highest value to the society in every department of its investigations, has also taken up this subject with his usual skill and judgment. He looks upon it from the standpoint of evolution, commencing with the earliest period of animal life. He compares the whole psychical organization, together with its manifesting physical organization, to the thousand looms of a vast manufactory.

The looms are complex and of varying patterns, for turning out different sorts of work. They are also used in various combinations, and there are various driving bands and connecting machinery by which they may severally be connected or disconnected, but the motive power which drives the whole is constant for all, and all works automatically to turn out the styles of goods that are needed.

“Now, how did I come to have my looms and driving-gear arranged in this particular way? Not, certainly, through any deliberate choice of my own. My ancestor, the ascidian, in fact, inherited the business when it consisted of little more than a single spindle; since his day my nearer ancestors have added loom after loom.”

Changes have been going on continually; some of the looms are now quite out of date, have long been unused, and are quite out of repair or fallen to pieces. Others are kept in order because the style of goods which they turn out is still useful and necessary. But the class of goods called for has greatly changed of late. For instance, the machinery at present in operation is best adapted to turning out goods of a decidedly egoistic style, for self-preservation, persistence in the struggle for life, and for self-gratification; but a style is beginning to be called for of the altruistic pattern. For this kind of goods the machinery is not well adapted. It is old-fashioned, and changes are necessary. If there are any looms in the establishment unknown and unused which can be turned to account, or any way of modifying such as we have to meet the demand, it is for our interest to know it.

But the methods of adjustment, and arrangements for bringing new looms into operation are hidden and difficult of access, so we observe factories where spontaneous readjustments are going on and new looms, not known to have been in the establishment, are being brought automatically into action and are found to work fairly well. Such instances are found in the establishment of Félida X. or Louis V., from which valuable hints are obtained regarding changes and readjustments.

Furthermore, in hypnotism, we find a safe and, at the same time, powerful lever, for readjustment, by means of which in some establishments new looms can be brought into play and shut off again almost at will; and often while the new looms are at work doing good service we are able to get at the old ones, repair and modernize them so as to make them useful, and the immense value of hypnotism in this educational and reformatory work has hardly begun to be known or appreciated. A single instance out of many must suffice for illustration.

In the summer of 1884 there was at the Salpêtriére a young woman of a deplorable type, Jeanne S., who was a criminal lunatic, filthy, violent, and with a life history of impurity and crime. M. Auguste Voisin, one of the physicians of the staff, undertook to hypnotize her May 31st. At that time she was so violent that she could only be kept quiet by a strait-jacket and the constant cold douche to her head. She would not look at M. Voisin, but raved and spat at him. He persisted, kept his face near and opposite to hers, and his eyes following hers constantly. In ten minutes she was in a sound sleep, and soon passed into the somnambulistic condition. The process was repeated many days, and gradually she became sane while in the hypnotic condition, but still raved when she awoke.

Gradually, then, she began to accept hypnotic suggestion, and would obey trivial orders given her while asleep, such as to sweep her room, etc.; then suggestions regarding her general behavior; then, in her hypnotic condition, she began to express regret for her past life and form resolutions of amendment, which she fully adhered to when she awoke. Two years later she was a nurse in one of the Paris hospitals, and her conduct was irreproachable. M. Voisin has followed up this case by others equally striking.

Such is an imperfect sketch of the discoveries, experiments, and studies which have been made in the domain of human personality. It is merely a sketch, and certainly it is in no spirit of dogmatism that it is presented; but as a collection of facts relating to human nature and the constitution and action of the human mind, it is at least curious.

It need not destroy our convictions regarding the essential unity of personality, but it must necessarily enlarge our conceptions of what constitutes an individual, and how under various circumstances that individual may act.

From many points of view, and in relation to many departments of study and of human development—legal, moral, social, and educational—the subject presents important bearings; and, furthermore, in the solution of other psychological problems it will be found to possess the greatest possible interest and value.