Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology. C. G. Jung

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ personne sera en lui qui agira, pensera, voudra, sans que la conscience, c'est à dire le moi réfléchi conscient, aît la moindre notion."

      Binet[26] says of this term: "Le terme indique la parenté de cet état avec le somnambulisme véritable, et en suite il laisse comprendre que la vie somnambulique qui se manifeste durant la veille est réduite, déprimée, par la conscience normale qui la recouvre."

      Automatisms.

      Semi-somnambulism is characterised by the continuity of consciousness with that of the waking state and by the appearance of various automatisms which give evidence of an activity of the subconscious self, independent of that of consciousness.

      Our case shows the following automatic phenomena:

      (1) Automatic movements of the table.

      (2) Automatic writing.

      (3) Hallucinations.

      

      1. Automatic Movements of the Table.—Before the patient came under my observation she had been influenced by the suggestion of "table-turning," which she had first come across as a game. As soon as she entered the circle there appeared communications from members of her family which showed her to be a medium. I could only find out that, as soon as ever her hand was placed on the table, the typical movements began. The resulting communications have no interest for us. But the automatic character of the act itself deserves some discussion, for we may, without more ado, set aside the imputation that there was any question of intentional and voluntary pushing or pulling on the part of the patient.

      As we know from the investigations of Chevreul,[27] Gley, Lehmann and others, unconscious motor phenomena are not only of frequent occurrence among hysterical persons, and those pathologically inclined in other directions, but they are also relatively easily produced in normal persons who show no other spontaneous automatisms. I have made many experiments on these lines, and can confirm this observation. In the great majority of instances all that is required is enough patience to put up with an hour of quiet waiting. In most subjects, motor automatisms will be obtained in a more or less high degree if contra-suggestions do not intervene as obstacles. In a relatively small percentage the phenomena arise spontaneously, i.e. directly under the influence of verbal suggestion or of some earlier auto-suggestion. In this instance the case is powerfully affected by suggestion. In general, the particular predisposition is subject to all those laws which also hold good for normal hypnosis. Nevertheless, certain special circumstances are to be taken into account, conditioned by the peculiarity of the case. It is not a question of a total hypnosis, but of a partial one, limited entirely to the motor area of the arm, like the cerebral anæsthesia produced by "magnetic passes" for a painful spot in the body. We touch the spot in question employing verbal suggestion or making use of some existing auto-suggestion, using the tactile stimulus which we know acts suggestively, to bring about the desired partial hypnosis. In accordance with this procedure, refractory subjects can be brought easily enough to an exhibition of automatism. The experimenter intentionally gives the table a slight push, or, better, a series of rhythmic but very slight taps. After a short time he notices that the oscillations become stronger, that they continue although he has interrupted his own intentional movements. The experiment has succeeded, the subject has unsuspectingly taken up the suggestion. By this procedure much more is obtained than by verbal suggestion. In very receptive persons and in all those cases where movement seems to arise spontaneously, the purposeful tremulous movements,[28] not perceptible by the subject, assume the rôle of agent provocateur.

      In this way persons who, by themselves, have never obtained automatic movements of a coarse calibre, sometimes assume the unconscious guidance of the table-movements, provided that the tremors are strong and that the medium understands their meaning. In this case the medium takes control of the slight oscillations and returns them considerably strengthened, but rarely at exactly the same instant, generally a few seconds later, in this way revealing the agent's conscious or unconscious thought. By means of this simple mechanism there may arise those cases of thought-reading so bewildering at first sight. A very simple experiment, that succeeds in many cases even with unpractised persons, will serve to illustrate this. The experimenter thinks, say, of the number four, and then waits, his hands quietly resting on the table, until he feels that the table makes the first inclination to announce the number thought of. He lifts his hands off the table immediately, and the number four will be correctly tilted out. It is advisable in this experiment to place the table upon a soft thick carpet. By close attention the experimenter will occasionally notice a movement of the table which is thus represented.

      Fig. 2.

      (1) Purposeful tremors too slight to be perceived by the subject.

      (2) Several very small but perceptible oscillations of the table which indicate that the subject is responding to them.

      (3) The big movements (tilts) of the table, giving the number four that was thought of.

      (ab) Denotes the moment when the operator's hands are removed.

      This experiment succeeds excellently with well-disposed but inexperienced subjects. After a little practice the phenomenon indicated is wont to disappear, since by practice the number is read and reproduced directly from the purposeful movements.[29]

      In a responsive medium these purposeful tremors of the experimenter act just as the intentional taps in the experiment cited above; they are received, strengthened and reproduced, although slightly wavering. Still they are perceptible and hence act suggestively as slight tactile stimuli, and by the increase of partial hypnosis give rise to great automatic movements. This experiment illustrates in the clearest way the increase step by step of auto-suggestion. Along the path of this auto-suggestion are developed all the automatic phenomena of a motor nature. How the intellectual content gradually mingles in with the purely motor need scarcely be elucidated after this discussion. There is no need of a special suggestion for the evoking of intellectual phenomena. From the outset it is a question of word-presentation, at least from the side of the experimenter. After the first aimless motor irrelevancies of the unpractised subject, some word-products or the intentions of the experimenter are soon reproduced. Objectively the occurrence of an intellectual content must be understood as follows:—

      By the gradual increase of auto-suggestion the motor-range of the arm becomes isolated from consciousness, that is to say, the perception of the slight movement-impulse is concealed from consciousness.[30]

      By the knowledge gained from consciousness that some intellectual content is possible, there results a collateral excitation in the speech-area as the means immediately at hand for intellectual notification. The motor part of word-presentation is necessarily chiefly concerned with this aiming at notification.[31] In this way we understand the unconscious flowing over of speech-impulse to the motor-area[32] and conversely the gradual penetration of partial hypnosis into the speech-area.

      In numerous experiments with beginners, as a rule I have observed at the beginning of intellectual phenomena a relatively large number of completely meaningless words, also often a series of meaningless single letters. Later on, all kinds of absurdities are produced, e.g. words or entire sentences with the letters irregularly misplaced or with the order of the letters all reversed—a kind of mirror-writing. The appearance of the letter or word indicates a new suggestion; some sort of association is involuntarily joined to it, which is then realised. Remarkably enough, these are not generally the conscious associations, but quite unexpected ones, a circumstance showing that a considerable part of the speech-area is already hypnotically isolated. The recognition of this automatism again forms a fruitful suggestion, since invariably at this moment the feeling of strangeness arises, if it is СКАЧАТЬ