THE SUBCONSCIOUS

THE explanation of certain experiences as due to the action of the subconscious plays a very prominent part in modern psychological discussions, and in none more than in discussions of psychic research. For only a little more than a century has anything been definitely known about subconsciousness. Leibnitz seems to have been the first who distinctly recognized it, though he gave it no technical name beyond that of "insensible perceptions." Sir William Hamilton first called attention to it in England in his doctrine of "latent mental modifications." He was followed by Carpenter with the theory of "unconscious cerebration." In Germany, Schopenhauer gave the idea currency as an important influence on human actions; he was followed by Hartmann, who was inclined to explain everything by the action of the unconscious. But the term was not accurately defined, though there could be no doubt of the existence of mental processes below the threshold of normal consciousness.

I shall not go at length into a very large and complex problem. Indeed I should not have to allude to the subconscious, but for the use which has been made of it as an alternative explanation to the spiritistic interpretation of certain phenomena.

There are three terms more or less synonymous in this connection. They are the "unconscious," the "subconscious," and the "subliminal." For the general purposes of psychical research they all denote the same thing. There is sometimes need of a distinction between the "unconscious" and the "subconscious," but there is no real difference between the "subliminal" and the "subconscious," and for our present purpose there is no need to insist upon technical differences. Occurrences whose cause lies within the subject of the experiences, and which show no satisfactory evidence of the activity of spirits, may be said to be caused by the subconscious mind of the subject.

Though the three terms are practically synonymous, they are more or less equivocal. In their relation to normal consciousness the terms indicate every function of the mind and body that is excluded from the ken of normal consciousness. In a positive sense they denote certain mental states for which we have indirect evidence, and which may have characteristics much like those of conscious processes. Normal consciousness includes those mental states of which we have direct knowledge, such as sensation, self-consciousness, reasoning, emotion, pleasure and pain, and volition. Hence, in a negative sense, the terms "subliminal," "subconsciousness" and often the "unconscious" refer merely to experiences that are not subject to direct introspection. In the widest import of such a negative meaning, intelligence would be wholly excluded from subconscious phenomena. Harmoniously with this view many persons actually maintained for a long time that such phenomena were wholly mechanical or non-intelligent. But they were confronted by the fact that certain phenomena not within the ken of normal introspection show all the characteristics of intelligent ability except that of being directly known. In other words, there is overwhelming evidence of intelligent action beyond the compass of introspection. That sufficed to give standing to the use of such terms as "subconscious" and "subliminal" mentality.

 While we may regard them as purely negative terms—that is, as denoting the mental states of which we are not conscious, we cannot deny that the processes thus included have the characteristics of intelligent action, which is so fundamental an element in self-consciousness. Hence it becomes necessary in the discussion of the psychological problem to define the term more accurately than by its purely negative import.

 Some people regard the subconscious as equivalent to a "secondary personality," something apart from and independent of the subject. These people suppose that secondary personality is like a spirit foreign to the body in which the phenomena manifest themselves. This is a natural view for those who think of it as excluded from the normal personality and yet as having an intelligence of its own. But only untrained minds take this view. For psychologists the subconscious or subliminal comprises mental processes occurring in the same organism with those normally introspected, but not within the ken of consciousness. That is, they are dissociated from normal consciousness. "Split consciousness," "dissociation," "alternating personal­ity...secondary or multiple personality," and similar terms denote that portion of the mental life that is not directly known to the subject. But these states are mental functions like the normal in all respects save that of accessibility to introspection.

 The subconscious, therefore, is a name for mental phenomena dissociated from those directly or introspectively known. It does not denote separate or new functions of the mind, but the same functions or activities as those of normal consciousness. That is to say, the mind is one, though its processes are many. We have not yet distinctly defined the area of this subconscious. We know that it extends beyond the scope of normal action, but where it ceases we do not know. I do not mean by this that it is unlimited, for there is evidence enough to the contrary. In fact, it shows evidence of being at least as limited as normal consciousness in its reach, though it performs feats impossible to the normal mind.

 That the subconscious or subliminal exists is clearly proved by somnambulism and hypnosis. In these conditions a man acts exactly as if normal; but, in his normal state, he remembers nothing that he has done while asleep, unless the somnambulism or hypnosis is very light. This state is probably similar to that of dreaming. We are aware of our ordinary dreams, which evidently occur in a transitional state between normal consciousness and true sleep or total unconsciousness. But we have evidence through the study both of somnambulism and hypnosis and of instances of dissociation that some mental activities do not emerge either in dreams or in normal consciousness. They are true subliminal activities.

 In the margin of normal consciousness we may find traces of the subconsciousness, for example in abstraction and reverie. In these states we narrow the field of direct attention so that, though the mind may be distinctly aware of some objects or events in the narrower field of attention, it may not notice other incidents, even while it acts on the supposition of their presence and influence. Here the fields of normal and subliminal consciousness interpenetrate.

If we read a book and become absorbed in it, any excitement of the mind will produce effects in the hand holding a pencil, though the reader may be unaware of any motion in the hand. Freud has shown that our dreams may reflect long-lost memories in symbolic forms, though we cannot ourselves explain their meaning or recall the facts until the psycho-analyst deciphers them and reminds us of them. In cases of secondary personality, like those of Ansel Bourne, Charles Brewin, and Doris Fischer, there is a perfect simulation of real and distinct personalities, of which the normal self knows nothing. They may be caused by foreign influences, but there is no internal evidence of such a source.

 The recognition of the subconscious is important as a limitation to the application of spiritistic explanations. Before the discovery of subliminal activities, philosophers and laymen alike sought the explanation of phenomena not known to normal consciousness in causes outside the mind. The Cartesian philosophy regarded consciousness as the necessary property or function of the mind, and any fact not known by it was regarded as caused by something else than the mind. Hence this system offered good excuse for appealing to the spiritistic explanation wherever intelligent activity was manifested, which could not be referred to the normal consciousness of the subject. But the discovery of subconscious mental activities made it necessary to limit the number of cases in which the hypothesis of foreign influences was needed to explain the phenomena. The theory of the subconscious was, therefore, a very useful and convenient means for restraining hasty speculation. It explained phenomena which the untrained mind had been accustomed either to make more mysterious than they were or to refer to foreign intelligences, when their meaning or content was to be found within the experience of the organism in which they appeared.

 But having once found a way to avoid resorting to explanation of the facts as due to spirits, many minds began unduly to extend the meaning of the subconscious. It was endowed with powers for which there was either very inadequate evidence or no evidence at all. The term lost much of its definiteness in the extension and became a catch-all of explanation for people who refused to believe in the existence of spirits. It is not a universal explanation. There is one thing about it on which all scientific psychologists are agreed—its content is acquired either through the normal channels of sense or through stimuli that act in the same way as known stimuli, though they may not be immediately known. Only a few writers like Mr. Myers ascribe supernormal "faculties" to the subconscious, and regard it is in rapport with a transcendental world by virtue of those faculties. While this theory contains a germ of truth, it involves what the psychologist does not admit; namely, new and transcendent "faculties" which are conceived as wholly independent of any stimulus. For the orthodox psychologist, the subconscious is simply the mind acting without awareness of the stimulus, and supernormal "faculties" or functions are denied or ignored. But those who wished to limit or eliminate the appeal to spirits ascribe supernormal functions to the subconscious, by which it is endowed with ability directly to perceive the transcendental.

 As a result of the discussion, we shall probably find that the subconscious or subliminal includes the same functions of the mind as those of normal consciousness, acting in response to a different kind of stimulus. For instance, Mr. Myers ascribed telaesthesia and telepathy to supernormal functions of the mind. But the psychologist will probably come to believe that the functions are normal, although the stimuli are different. He will then discriminate among the facts with reference to their evidential or non-evidential value in support of any special explanation. This view can be taken, perhaps, without setting aside what Mr. Myers and his colleagues really had in mind. The term "faculties" may be more elastic than at first appears; but it is an unfortunate term. In order to avoid confusion, the present writer thinks that it might be cast aside in favor of the theory that the subconscious is identical with normal consciousness in function, though its contents may not be identical with those of the normal mind. This theory conceives it as having definite limits, such as we now apply to normal intelligence. We have now only to ascertain what stimuli affect the normal consciousness and what stimuli affect the subliminal. In this way the whole problem of estimating the supernormal becomes one of rapport, and not of new "faculties." That is, normal rapport with the physical world gives us purely physical knowledge, while rapport with a transcendental world gives us transcendental knowledge. The difference between the two is merely that between kinds of stimulus and not between endowments of the mind, though the two points of view may ultimately be unified or reconciled. What I want here to emphasize is the importance of the living mind in determining the form of the knowledge which is derived from either type of stimulus.

 The value of this conception of the subconscious is, that it reconciles subconscious activity with spirit agencies while it admits that the evidence for the action of spirits is limited. The ordinary view of the subliminal is that it is necessarily a substitute for spirits as an explanation. The two hypotheses are supposed to be mutually exclusive, though, in the opinion of the present writer, both may be applicable to the phenomena. The subliminal functions of the mind may be absolutely necessary for securing messages from spirits, instead of vitiating the reality of such messages. That, at least, is the view taken by the present writer. He fully recognizes that many phenomena by the subconscious are not evidence of the influence of spirits, but may be traced to subjective sources, or to ordinary physical stimuli not normally perceived; but he also insists that the subconscious may be the instrument for the receipt and transmission of foreign, transcendental stimuli. That is to say, the hypothesis of the subconscious does not deny the reality of spirits, but only limits the kind of facts which may be taken as evidence of their action.

 This theory assumes a closer relation with a transcendental world than the orthodox view of the subconscious implies, and at the same time provides the means for distinguishing between the functions of the subconscious and its contents. In the first place, I have explained that its functions are those of the normal mind; in my conception of its relation to the transcendental world, I assume that its functions remain the same, and that its objects of knowledge differ only as the stimulus differs from that of normal impressions. Our normal isolation from a transcendental world is only the inability to be stimulated by it; and a psychic is simply a person who can overcome that isolation and come into rapport with a transcendental stimulus. Then, in accordance with well known laws of normal experience, this transcendental stimulus will be represented in the reaction of the living mind according to its nature and habits. Hence the influence of the subconscious on the form of the messages. We do not yet know the nature of that foreign stimulus. If it be instigative, it is like any physical stimulus which merely sets mental functions in operation, and the result will be determined by the nature or experience of the subject affected. For instance, a blow on the head will make us see "stars." Normally visual reactions take the form of responses to luminous stimuli; but when the stimulus is tactual and the reaction or response is visual, there is an abnormal phenomenon or a reaction, as we would say, inappropriate to the stimulus. An overloaded stomach produces nightmare or hallucinations in sleep. In these cases the stimulus is only instigative. But a transmissive stimulus produces results less symbolical. The thought of the foreign agent seems to be transferred intact and literally. In some cases the form may be symbolical, but the transmission may nevertheless be direct. At any rate the transmission often seems to be exactly like that of the telephone or telegraph, in which the very language of the communicator is reported. In such cases the subconscious seems to have no part in the process.

 But the fact is, that the subconscious is still the vehicle of transmission. Its functions are employed, while its contents, normal knowledge and expression, are suppressed or inhibited. It becomes a more or less passive instrument for the conveyance of knowledge rather than an agent for the interpretation of stimuli or the expression of its own reaction aroused by an instigative stimulus. In this way we keep the subliminal as a necessary means of intercommunication between the two worlds, while we provide an explanation for the variety in the products of the connection.

 This conception is not simple. The part played by the subliminal should be consistent with the actual complexity of the phenomena, and the view just taken of it provides that very desideratum. It shows the complexities to consist in the variety of connections made between the two worlds, and at the same time relates these realms in a manner suggested by the law of continuity in evolution, which shows that many things are more closely related than is at first apparent. The slightest examination of the facts will show that the dividing line between normal and supernormal experience is often hard to draw; it is in that borderland that we should seek to discover the causes which will explain the experiences, though we must demand a radically different type of phenomena as definitive evidence of those agencies. Thus, for instance, the evidence to prove the existence of telepathy must be facts clearly exceptional in their nature; that is, obviously inexplicable by ordinary causes. But the explanation of such facts must be found in processes that will at least articulate with known causes. These known causes will be such as lie on the borderland of the totally new, and the totally new must find some point of contact with the old, before it can be satisfactorily explained. Hence while evidence must be found in the new, explanation must be found in the already known.

 Now the subconscious lies on the border between the normal and the supernormal realms, and may serve to bridge what seems to many people to be an impassable chasm; namely, that between normal and supernormal experience. Its functions, so far as a transcendental world is concerned, are latent, like the body and mind of the infant before it is born, developed in a prenatal condition for action in a postnatal life. With powers of appreciating stimuli that the grosser senses do not perceive, it may, on favorable occasions, be percipient of stimuli from a spiritual world, whether that world be constituted by individual minds or by a general reality capable of making impressions, like matter, on delicate sense­organs. The subconscious is thus intermediate between a purely physical and a purely spiritual existence.

 We must not suppose that the recognition of the subliminal deprives us of the right to consider the spiritistic hypothesis in its proper place. The concept of the subconscious legitimately enough limits the nature of the evidence for the activity of spirits; but, like telepathy, it does not define the character of the explanation to be accepted. Indeed, if we regard the subconscious after the analogy above mentioned—namely, as latent functions waiting for expression after the dissolution of the body, we may find in it a clue to what the spiritual life after death may be. The functions of the body are foreshadowed by conditions latent before birth; so the subconscious, with its present activities in dreams, delirium, hallucinations, and even normal imagination, may forecast the larger exercise of the same functions after death in the creation of apparent reality.