Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia by Isaac G. Briggs
page 17 of 164 (10%)
page 17 of 164 (10%)
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Day-dreaming is dissociation carried further. "Leading lady" and "chorus belle" change places for a while--imaginary success keeps us from worrying about real failure. Dissociation, day-dreaming, and mental epilepsy are but few of the many milestones on a road, the end of which is insanity, or complete and permanent dissociation, instead of the partial and fleeting dissociation from which we all suffer. The lunatic never "comes to", but in a world of dreams dissociates himself forever from realities he is not mentally strong enough to face. The writing of "spirits" through a "medium" is an example of dissociation, and though shown at its best in neuropaths, is common enough in normal men, as can be proved by anyone with a planchette and some patience. If the experimenter puts his hands on the toy, and a friend talks to him, while another whispers questions, he may write more or less coherent answers, though all the time he goes on talking, and does not know what his hand is writing. His mind is split into two smaller minds, each ignorant of the other, each busily liberating memory-prisoners from its own block of cells in the gaol of the subconscious. The writing often refers to long-forgotten incidents, the experiment sometimes being of real use in cases of lost memory. Dreams are dissociations in sleep, while the scenes conjured up by crystal-gazing are only waking dreams, in which the dissociation is caused by gazing at a bright surface and so tiring the brain centres, whereupon impressions of past life emerge from the subconscious, to surprise, not only the onlookers to whom they are related, but also the gazer herself, who has long "forgotten them". |
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