Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 32.djvu/684

664 while composing a reply which should set the matter straight, and awoke with an instantaneous certainty that an erroneous punctuation had obscured the writer' s meaning, which in reality coincided with my intention and required no answer. Evidently, the mental accuracy was greater when asleep than when awake—very humiliating."

12. Mrs. P, of Omaha, writes: "I have many times heard remarks, the significance of which I did not fully comprehend at the time, and weeks afterward have had them flash suddenly into my mind with all their import."

The statistical result is as follows: About eighty-five per cent of those answering claim to have arrived at definite results of work begun in consciousness and left unfinished—at results of a finished logical nature—at results that could come only by bridging the gap between the beginning and partial continuation in consciousness, and the perfected conclusion by predicating the existence and operation of unconscious intellectual effort as the necessary cause of the known result. Fifteen per cent state that they have no experience concerning the phenomena inquired about. Of those answering affirmatively, nearly fifty per cent give examples to corroborate their assertions.

Fourth. The fourth division is of intellectual activity producing new ideas, creations, and inventions, when there has been no conscious beginning. Does such work proceed in unconsciousness? Some of the facts brought to light by the circular are as follow:

1. Miss P, of New York city: "While reading the 'Evening Post' I happened to observe an anagram offered for solution. The anagram was, 'Got a scant religion.' I read the paragraph aloud to a friend sitting near me, and then turned to something else, a novel in which I was interested, and which quite absorbed me, and gave the anagram no further thought. I never consciously thought of the anagram until the following morning, when, as I was walking and trying to recall a dream, the word 'Congregationalist' flashed through my mind. The word had no connection with my dream, and came to me so suddenly and involuntarily on my part, that I was obliged to think for a moment before I could connect it with anything, and then it occurred to me that it was the solution of the anagram which I had read the evening before."

2. Mr. P, of Omaha: "I had to perform endless multiplications at school as a task, and suddenly became conscious of a law governing the process which enabled me to attain the result almost instantaneously; discovery flashed into consciousness as a clear conception."

3. Mrs. H, of Bergen Point, New Jersey: "Have often awakened with a part of an essay all ready, with a letter wholly prepared once or twice, with a few stanzas composed on subjects that I had endeavored to treat in rhyme; once or twice also on subjects that I had not attempted or thought to write upon in verse; example, 'The