The Problems of Psychical Research by Hereward Carrington (best books to read non fiction TXT) 📕

One can quite appreciate the tangled state of our Arab's mind on awakening under such peculiar circumstances, and, from the point of view of common sense and common experience, such an awakening would be an utter impossibility—fit only for fairy tales and the traditions of savage tribes. Yet, in our own day, here in civilized New York and London, similar cases have been recorded and studied by experts! Under peculiar circumstances, patients have gone to sleep one person and awakened another; and they have remained another, not only during the first temporary moments of bewilderment, but sometimes for days, weeks, and months at a time; and in some cases even whole years have elapsed before the first "self" returned to tenant the body, to look out of the eyes it had looked out of years before; to take up the self-conscious life it had lain down in sleep. And to this there may be the added horror that, during the intervening period of oblivion (for this Self) the same external body, actuated by another "Self," may have performed actions and lived a course of life utterly at variance with the tastes and desires of the primary "Self." The other Self may even have married the common body in the interval—to a man whom the original self had never known—does not know now! There may even have been children; friends, environment, all, all may have been changed in the interim. Like Rip van Winkle, the setting of life may be found to have altered; but in some of these cases, the awakening must be the greater nightmare. The unfamiliarity, even horror, of the situation can be imagined. Yet many such cases exist; and the two Selves alternately usurp and manipulate a common body; the Real Self and the Stranger. Who and what is this Stranger? Apparently it is an alien spirit—another soul, perchance, entangled miserably in the body of some equally unhappy mortal! Yet modern psychology contends that such cases represent, for the most part, mere splits or dislocations or dissociations of the normal personality; and that the two or more Selves we see before us, at such times, are none of them a real self; but mere fragments of the primary self, dissociated from it, owing to some shock or accident or disease. Let us see if we can penetrate a little deeper into this mystery of being; and lay bare the secrets of this alien Self, as well as the original Self which owned the body from birth.

The older psychology held that the mind was a unit; that it was a separate thing or entity, a sort of sphere, which, if it could ever be caught, would reveal all the secrets of True Being. Accordingly, they tried to catch this sphere-of-being, by inward reflection or "introspection." But it was never caught! There are many reasons why this should be so, the chief reason being that a subject cannot be an object also; it is as impossible for a thought to catch itself as it would be to turn a hollow rubber ball inside out without tearing the cover.[20] But the newer psychology studies the mind objectively, from the outside, by means of recording instruments, and does not depend upon introspection for its results. Further, the very conception of the nature of the "self" is different; it is not now considered an entity, as of old; but rather a compound thing, a product, a complex, composed of a variety of elements. Instead of being considered a single gossamer thread, it is now thought to be rather a rope, composed of innumerable, interwoven elements—and these, in turn, of still finer threads, until the subdivision seems endless. The mind, in other words, is thought to be compounded of innumerable separate elements; but held together, or compounded into one, by the normal action of the will, of attention, and the grip upon the personality of the true Self. When this will is weakened; when the attention is constantly slackened, when the mind wanders, this single strand of rope separates and unravels. The "threads" branch out in various directions, no longer in control of the central, governing will; the Self has become dissociated or split-up into various minor Selves—all but parts of the real, total self; yet separate and distinct, nevertheless. And if enough of these threads become joined together, or interwoven, one with another, it can easily be imagined that this second strand of rope might become a formidable opponent to the original strand; it might become so large and strong, in fact, by the constant addition of new threads, and the dissociation of these from the first, true strand, that it would assume a more important rôle, and become stronger, and finally even control the whole. What was originally but a single fine, divergent thread has become, in course of time, a successful rival to the original strand of rope.

Now let us apply the analogy. The mind as a whole represents the rope; its elements or component parts are the threads; and, under certain abnormal conditions, these can become torn away from the original Self—like little rivulets, branching off from the main stream of consciousness, forming independent selves. This is an abnormal condition; a splitting of the mind, a dissociation of consciousness. Another fragment of consciousness, distinct in itself, has been formed. Thus we have a case of so-called double consciousness, of alternating personality; or, if there are three or more such splits or cleavages, of multiple personality.[21]

Now we are in a better position to understand the nature of this alien self which has been formed, and which alternately usurps the common body. It is no foreign spirit; it is not a demon or fiend which has entered into the subject; it is merely a portion of the patient's own mind, acting independently a life of its own. It is a portion of the real Self, functioning independently. Let us now see how these splits or dissociations take place.

Often they are the result of some shock to the emotional nature. In one of Dr. Morton Prince's cases, the patient happened to look up and saw in the window the face of a man whom she had known years before, and with whom she had tragic emotional associations. It was storming at the time, and a lightning flash revealed the face in the window. It was a highly dramatic scene, and the shock to the patient's emotional nature caused her consciousness to split-up or become dissociated into various selves; and thenceforward for years these separate "selves" lived independent lives, each ignorant of the life of the other. In this case, there were several such personalities which alternated; and they were only finally unified and the real Self again restored by means of hypnotic suggestion, after a careful analysis of the various selves. This synthesis of the various streams of consciousness, and their ultimate unification into one primary normal self, is one of the most startling, as it is one of the most interesting and suggestive, feats of modern psychological medicine.

The principle upon which many of these cures rest, and the efficacy of suggestion, is thus apparent. By its aid the skilled specialist in abnormal psychology is enabled to gather up the "loose ends" of conscious life, as it were,