Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/86

74 I think we can to some degree and in some cases. In our own familiar dream life we have precisely those conditions realized which we suppose obtain in the subconscious realm of a hysteric. Nearly all sensations and most memories and ideas are withdrawn and the fragments remaining work out their own bizarre results free from the control of the organized system. We shall not be far wrong, I think, if we conceive of these subconscious states as a mere aggregation of very incoherent dreams. They are probably very much more incoherent than most of the dreams which we remember, although not more so than those that we forget. Under the guidance of a hypnotic suggestion, and under some other circumstances into which I can not now enter, they may become coherent to almost any degree.

There is a good deal of direct evidence for this. Prof. Janet found that he could sometimes, by awaking Lucie in the midst of a hallucination which he had suggested to her, get her to recall it, and she always spoke of it as a dream. Prof. Janet once tried some experiments upon a patient whom he had not seen for some months. To his surprise she did not seem to understand him. When he asked why, she told him that she was too far away to understand; that M. X had sent her a month ago to Algiers, and he must bring her back before she could understand. This was found to be true: M. X had told her she was in Algiers, and had forgotten to remove the suggestion.

Another case will serve both to illustrate this point and also to introduce the question as to the relation between the primary and secondary systems. They need not be entirely distinct. Sometimes, as in this next case, the mere existence of the one may seem to disturb the other in some vague fashion, at other times scraps or fragments or consequences of either may appear in the other without their origin being recognized, and in still other cases the two appear to coalesce sufficiently for the one to recall the other while yet they remain dynamically distinct.

One of Mr. Gurney's patients was told to write automatically while reading aloud. The result was that both reading and writing were imperfect and confused. He was then hypnotized again and asked what he had been trying to do. He said, "Trying to write, 'It has left off snowing.' " Then he was asked if he had been reading, and said: "Reading? No, I haven't been reading. Something seemed to disturb me; something seemed to move about in front of me, so that I got back into bed again." "Did not Mr. Gurney hold a book and make you read aloud?" "No. Somebody kept moving about. I did not like the looks of them.