Often, in order to effect a cure, it is not necessary to make use of the roundabout device just described. Direct suggestion—a strongly negative command imposed in the hypnotic state—is frequently sufficient.
Often, besides, it is not necessary to use hypnotism at all, a cure resulting if only the psychopathologist can dig down to the root of the trouble, and, by recalling to conscious recollection the lost memory image, reassociate it with the rest of the contents of the upper consciousness.
Particularly interesting in this connection, as being illustrative also of an ingenious method of “mind tunnelling” nowadays frequently employed to get at forgotten memories, is a case reported by Doctor A. A. Brill, a New York psychopathologist. His patient was a young woman who applied to be treated for extreme nervousness. She had been perfectly well until three months before, when, she said, she had begun to suffer from a complication of disorders, including insomnia, loss of appetite, constant headache, irritability, and stomach trouble. No physical cause for her condition could be detected, and Doctor Brill suspected that it was due to some secret anxiety, but the patient earnestly assured him that she “had nothing on her mind.”
To get at the facts which he suspected she was consciously or unconsciously concealing from him, Doctor Brill decided to make use of what is known as the “association-reaction method of mental diagnosis,” a cumbersome and formidable term for a really simple process.
Everybody knows that if a man is suddenly asked a question bearing on matters which personally concern him and which he is anxious to keep entirely to himself, he is apt to “react” to the question in a way that will betray the true state of affairs. He may blush or stammer before replying, may reply evasively, may find it impossible to reply at all. If he is a man of uncommon self-control, and not to be taken off his guard, the reply may come smoothly enough, and to all appearance without hesitation. Nevertheless, experiment has shown that, even in such cases, there is an appreciable difference in the time, if not in the character, of the replies he makes to emotion-arousing questions, as compared with the time it takes him to reply to questions that have no special significance to him. The same holds good in the case of questions evoking within him memories—albeit perhaps wholly subconscious memories—of happenings that may be no longer, but once were, of keen emotional import to him.
Out of the discovery of this fact the association-reaction method has been evolved. The specialist using it reads slowly to his patient a list of one hundred words or more, and requests him, as he hears each, to respond with the first word that comes into his mind. Seemingly the list of stimulus words is chosen at random; actually it is so constructed that some of the words are likely to stir into activity the subconscious memories of which the physician is in search. If they do this the fact will be disclosed in the time of his reaction-words—the words he utters in reply—as measured by a chronoscope or stop-watch; or in their character, as noted down by the specialist.
Of course, it is necessary for the physician to select words having, or likely to have, emotional significance to the particular patient; and as a guide in the selection, strange though it may seem, nothing is more useful than the patient’s dreams. For it has been definitely established that dreams are far from being the haphazard products of imagination they are generally supposed to be; that on the contrary, no matter how trivial or nonsensical they seem, they always have an emotional foundation corresponding with some present or past reality; and that usually they mask matters of distinct significance to the dreamer.
As a preliminary, then, in the treatment of his nervous patient, Doctor Brill asked her to write out her dreams and bring them to him.
“But,” she said, “I never dream, except when I am troubled by indigestion, and then my dreams are so absurd that they are not worth telling.”
“Never mind,” was his reply. “Whenever you do happen to have a dream, report it to me.”
Laughingly she promised to comply, and one day brought him the following:
“I dreamed that I was in a lonely country place and was anxious to reach my home, but could not get there. Every time I made a move there was a wall in the way—it looked like a street full of walls. My legs were as heavy as lead; I could only walk very slowly as if I were very weak or very old. Then there was a flock of chickens, but that seemed to be in a crowded city street, and they—the chickens—ran after me, and the biggest of all said something like: ‘Come with me into the dark.’”
“There,” she said, “that is my dream, and if you can make head or tail of it, it is more than I can. It is so ridiculous that I am ashamed to tell it.”
But Doctor Brill was already at work drawing up a test list, with the more striking words of the dream sprinkled through it. Twice he read the list to her, noting not only the time of her responses, but also their character.
He was immediately impressed by the fact that certain of the dream words—such as “chicken,” “street,” and “dark” had caused a noticeable time variation; and that she had also given in her responses words that would not ordinarily be associated with the test words. Especially peculiar was the association of “mystery” and “marriage” with the word “dark.” The suspicion formed in his mind that a disappointment in love might be at the bottom of all her disease symptoms. But he did not at once give voice to this idea; instead, he sought to obtain corroboration from her own lips without her appreciating his purpose, by means of another method of “mind tunnelling” known as the method of free association.
“I want you,” he said to her, “to concentrate your attention on the word ‘chicken,’ and state the thoughts that come to you in connection with it.”
Her reply, given after a few moments of silent meditation, was:
“I remember now that I could see only the biggest chicken; all the others seemed blurred; it was unusually big and had a very long neck and it spoke to me. The street in which I saw it recalls where I used to go to school—the block was always crowded with school children.”
She paused, and began to blush and laugh.
“Go on,” said Doctor Brill encouragingly. “What next?”
“Why, it recalls the happy school days when I was young and had no worries. I even had a beau, a boy who attended the same school. We used to meet after school hours and walk home together. He was lanky and thin, and the girls used to tease me about him. Whenever they saw him coming, they said: ‘Belle, here comes your chicken.’ That was his nickname among the boys.”
Stopping suddenly, she exclaimed:
“Doctor Brill, it couldn’t be possible that the chicken with the long neck, that I saw in my dream, was my old beau!”
“It begins to look very much like it,” he smiled. “Have you seen him lately?”
“Not for months.”
“And before then?”
Little by little the whole story came out. They had kept up their acquaintance after the school days were long gone. Three times he had asked her to marry him, but each time she had refused, because although she “liked” him she was not at all sure that she “loved” him. At last she had decided that the next time he proposed she would accept. But he had not proposed again. And shortly before she became ill she had heard that he was paying attentions to another young lady.
“I take it,” interposed Doctor Brill, “that he is not so well off as he might be, and that this had something to do with your refusing to marry him.”
“What makes you say that?”
“In your dream I note that you state: ‘Every time I made a move there was a wall in the way; it looked like a street full of walls.’ A street full of walls might easily signify Wall Street—hence money. That has been the real obstacle, has it not?”
She confessed that he was right.
He then explained that the one great cause of her ills was her insistent, if subconscious, brooding over the disappointment she had experienced, and that her cure depended upon her ability to overcome this mental attitude. Realizing for the first time, as a result of the dream analysis, that she was really in love with the man she had three times declined to wed, she soon solved the problem. Only a hint was needed to transform him into a suitor once more, and within a very few months they were happily married.[41]
Sometimes direct questioning is sufficient to enable the physician to get at the underlying mental cause of trouble. Take, for example, another case successfully treated by Doctor Donley.
The patient was a woman of thirty-five who was troubled by a constant and involuntary hacking, which sounded as though she were trying to clear her throat. Drugs, local applications, and electricity had been tried at intervals during more than four years, but to no purpose. On inquiry, it was found that the trouble had set in about five years before, when the patient, who was a mill hand, had suffered from a sore throat. The physician whom she then consulted told her that she had a bad case of tonsilitis, and that her tonsils would have to be burned out.
Greatly frightened, she had hurried home, refusing to submit to the operation. In a few days the tonsilar symptoms disappeared, and she returned to work. But she was attacked a second time three weeks later, and visited another doctor, to be informed that her tonsils were so badly diseased that it would be well to have them removed by cutting.
Again she refused to submit to an operation, but the fear of cutting, added to her previous fear, now revived, of burning out her tonsils, threw her into a highly nervous state. She then began to experience an unpleasant stinging, tickling feeling in her throat, which she tried to remove by hacking. As the tickling continued, the hacking became more and more frequent, and by the time she came under Doctor Donley’s observation had taken on the character of a “tic,” or uncontrollable muscular movement.
These facts in the early history of the case, the patient herself remembered only vaguely. But she confessed that she was still tormented by a haunting fear of a possible future burning or cutting of her tonsils. Finding her exceedingly suggestible, Doctor Donley made no attempt to hypnotize her. He merely requested her to close her eyes, remain perfectly passive, and listen attentively to him.
“She was then told, with much emphasis,” he says, in describing the treatment, “that her tonsils were perfectly healthy, that no cutting or burning ever was or ever would be required; that the tickling sensation in her throat arose from the constant fixation of attention upon this part; that she would feel no more desire to hack because her supposed reason for hacking had ceased to exist, and finally, that when she should open her eyes she would feel better than she had in a good many years.
“Much emphasis was placed upon this feeling of health, because it was desired to leave her on the crest of a pleasurable emotion, which of itself has a very great suggestive value. What had been predicted in her regard actually occurred. When she sat up, her tic had disappeared, and she expressed herself as feeling quite grateful and happy. The treatment lasted an hour, and except for two slight recurrences easily removed by waking suggestion, this patient has had no further difficulty.”[42]
Unfortunately, such an easy solution of problems like this is comparatively rare, particularly when, as in this instance, a physical trouble is superadded to the mental. Often—a fact which cannot be emphasized too strongly—it happens that, in dissociational cases, physical symptoms so far predominate as to lead to totally wrong diagnosis, even by experienced physicians. This results, as was hinted above, from the power inherent in subconscious “fixed ideas” of producing an endless variety of disturbances simulating true organic diseases, it may be diseases remediable only through surgical operations.
As a consequence, innumerable operations have been performed on patients who should have been given, not surgical but psychopathological treatment. I have in mind as I write a case of this kind that was called to my attention by a friend who participated in the lamentable affair.
A middle-aged woman entered one of the Boston hospitals and complained of severe abdominal pains, which she attributed to cancer of the stomach or intestines. She was obviously greatly frightened, and suffering intense agony. A diagnosis of appendicitis was made, and an immediate operation deemed imperative.
But, to the surprise of the surgeons, the appendix was found to be in a normal condition. At once they directed their attention to the other abdominal organs, examining them one by one. None showed any sign of disease. Finally, with a rueful smile, one of the surgeons straightened up, and, touching a finger to his head, said:
“The trouble with this poor woman, gentlemen, is here, not in the region that we have been exploring. But we should not undeceive her. We will remove the appendix, on general principles, and that will probably be all that is needed to cure the trouble in her head.”
Under the circumstances, it was excellent advice. But how much better it would have been for the unfortunate woman, whose life was thus endangered by the surgeon’s knife, if it had been recognized from the beginning that her malady was only a “hysterical simulation” of the symptoms of appendicitis. Some day, when physicians generally make themselves acquainted with the diagnostic methods of psychopathology, blunders like this will be, as they ought to be, most exceptional.
In point both of diagnosis and treatment, again, psychopathological knowledge is indispensable to the correct handling of such cases as the following, reported by Doctor Janet.[43] It is, I am ready to concede, an unusual case, but it is unusual only because it presents a complex of symptoms commonly found singly or in simpler combination.
It would be impossible to estimate with any accuracy the number of persons who, afflicted only in scant degree like this poor Marcelle, have been obliged to drag out an existence worse than death, either in the care of their friends or immured in an institution, simply because their medical attendants, ignorant of the workings of the law of dissociation, have been unable to fathom the true nature of their ills and adopt adequate curative measures.
Marcelle, as Doctor Janet calls her, was only nineteen years old when she began to astonish her relatives by developing what they were at first disposed to regard as nothing but an eccentric form of laziness. She would constantly ask them to give her objects—a book, her crochet work, a plate—which she could easily have got for herself by stretching out her hand and picking them up. To all expostulations, she would calmly reply:
“I can’t help it. I can’t use my hands as I once did, and that’s all there is to it.”
“You can’t use your hands! What nonsense! You can use them to eat with, well enough, and you are crocheting most of the time.”
“Oh, but that’s different.”
“What’s the difference? Tell us.”
But Marcelle could not, or would not, tell them, and from joking with her the family soon passed to a state of wrath, endeavoring in every way to overcome her “stupid obstinacy.” Their anger in turn gave way to fear, when, one night, noticing a glimmer of light in her room, they entered, and found her standing, fully dressed, before the bed.
“But what is this!” they exclaimed, in amazement. “Why don’t you get your clothes off and go to bed?”
“Because,” she cried, “I can’t undress!”
And, all arguments proving vain, it was necessary for her sister to disrobe her as though she were a tiny child. Next day a consultation was held, and it was decided to take her to the Salpêtrière.
“She doesn’t seem insane,” her mother explained, when applying to have her admitted. “She talks sensibly about most things. Can it be that she is really suffering from some kind of paralysis?”
“Most assuredly,” was the reply, “and we will do our best to discover what it is and cure it.”
This turned out to be no easy matter. Doctor Janet, into whose care she came, had no difficulty in determining that the specific malady which afflicted her was an extreme form of “aboulia,” a disease involving temporary paralysis of the will, and thereby preventing all muscular movement. But it was one thing to make a diagnosis, and another to effect a cure.
Presently, too, indications of mental disturbance developed. Doctor Janet had discovered that by distracting her attention he could induce her to rise, extend her hands, and perform other acts that were impossible to her when she concentrated her attention on them. He utilized this as an argument to try and persuade her that she could always control her limbs if she only made sufficient effort.
“But you are quite wrong,” she calmly informed him. “I have not left my chair, I have not put out my hand.”
“Most assuredly you have. You know very well I did not give you that piece of crochet work. How, then, does it come into your hands?”
“I did not pick it up.”
“Who did, then?”
“Somebody else—somebody acting in me.”
A little later arose another complication. She refused to eat, and it became necessary to administer food to her forcibly. She kept saying to herself:
“You must die, you must die as soon as possible. You must not eat, you have no need of eating. You must not speak, you have no voice, you are paralyzed.”
“Why do you say this?” Doctor Janet one day asked her.
“Why do I say what?”
He repeated her words.
“But I have said nothing of the sort.”
“Oh, yes, you have.”
“No, no, no—it was not I; it was somebody else acting in me.”
Again that phrase—“somebody else acting in me.” Greatly impressed, Doctor Janet threw her into deep hypnosis. Now, an unexpected and most pathetic passage of personal history came to light. A year before, Marcelle had had a secret love affair, her lover had deserted her, she had determined to commit suicide. Failing to do this, she had, none the less—overwhelmed by the shock of the desertion, and giving herself wholly to grief and chagrin, which she felt obliged to allow no one to perceive—gradually passed into a dissociated, dreamlike state, in which she subconsciously pictured herself to herself either as no longer existing or as about to perish.
Hence her “aboulia,” hence the “somebody else acting in me,” hence the refusal to take food. To Doctor Janet the situation was now almost as clear as the light of day—so, likewise, was the course which he would need to follow to restore the sufferer to her “real self,” and rid her of all disease symptoms.
The dissociation, to put it briefly, had in this case been so complete as to cause an actual disruption of the sense of personality. Nor is this malady of “loss of personality” as rare as one might be tempted to think. I could mention many cases not unlike that of Marcelle’s, and some far surpassing it in astounding developments. There is, for example, the singular case of BCA. But this is so remarkable, so weirdly fascinating, and so instructive that it deserves to be treated, as I shall treat it in the next chapter, entirely by itself.
During his long career as a specialist in the treatment of nervous and mental diseases, Doctor Morton Prince, the celebrated Boston psychopathologist, has been called upon to deal with many puzzling human riddles, and to solve mysteries which, in their way, have been quite as complicated and baffling as any that ever taxed the ingenuity of that most ingenious of story-book detectives, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. In fact, some of the problems laid before the New England specialist surpass even the most astonishing of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, thus proving once more that truth is stranger than fiction. This particularly applies to the BCA affair.
In the beginning, however, there was nothing in the BCA affair to suggest to Doctor Prince that it had features which would test to the utmost his psychopathological skill. It opened in a prosaic, matter-of-fact way, with the arrival at his office of a young woman who wished to be treated for what she described as a “nervous breakdown.” The story she told was a sad one, but he had heard many quite like it before, and it did not impress him as involving anything out of the ordinary.
“My trouble,” she said, in describing the evolution of her malady, “began when my husband was attacked with an incurable disease. For four years my life was altogether given up to caring for him, striving to make him as comfortable as possible, and endeavoring to conceal from him my grief and anxiety. You can imagine the strain put upon me all that time. Finally he died, under circumstances that caused me a great shock.
“Within less than a week after his death, I lost twenty pounds in weight. For nearly three months I ate scarcely anything, and did not average more than three or four hours’ sleep out of the twenty-four. I was depressed, overwhelmed; felt that I had lost all that made life worth living; and, in short, wished to die. I became highly nervous, tired easily, and suffered almost constantly from headaches.
“This went on for many months. Then there came a period of temporary recovery. Strangely enough, it followed an occurrence that brought to me suddenly a realization that my position in life was entirely changed, that I was quite alone, desolate, and helpless. For a few minutes these ideas flashed through my mind, and then all seemed changed. I no longer minded what, a moment before, had caused me so much distress; and, what is more, I immediately began to improve in health, until I was able to mingle with my friends, take long walks, go driving, and really enjoy life as I had formerly done. Alas, there soon was a relapse, and now I am feeling worse than ever.”
Listening to her recital, and examining carefully her mental and physical condition, Doctor Prince felt justified in assuring her that there was nothing seriously the matter, and that he would ere long have her on the highway to health. In fact, he regarded her case as one presenting “the ordinary picture of so-called neurasthenia, characterized by persistent fatigue and the usual somatic symptoms, and by moral doubts and scruples”; and planned a course of treatment which he expected would speedily result in a cure. It was, to describe it briefly, treatment by hypnotic suggestion—a method often employed by psychopathologists in handling cases of neurasthenia, for they have discovered that it is perfectly feasible to “suggest away” the fatigue, insomnia, and other symptoms connected with this widespread and distressing malady.
The use of hypnotism in the present instance, though, was attended by consequences vastly different from any Doctor Prince had anticipated, since it revealed to him that his patient was, in reality, suffering from something infinitely more serious than ordinary neurasthenia, and infinitely more difficult to overcome. Put into the hypnotic state, her ills, to Doctor Prince’s amazement, disappeared as though by a miracle. Her whole expression was altered. She looked, and declared that she felt, entirely well. It was hard to believe that this radiant, vigorous, brightly smiling woman was the one who had entered his office so short a time before, a typical nervous wreck, her features haggard and careworn, her eyes dull and heavy, her hands trembling. And, most astonishing of all, the hypnotized patient herself insisted that, in a very literal sense, she was not the same person.
The tone, the language, the manner—all were changed. Struck with sudden apprehension, Doctor Prince quickly brought her out of hypnosis. Immediately there was another transformation, and she was neurasthenic once more, without the slightest remnant of the strength, independence, and self-assertiveness she had just been displaying. Nor, although she was sharply questioned, could she remember anything she had said while hypnotized; still, this proved nothing, for it is seldom that what goes on during hypnosis is recalled in the waking state.
But, comparing her latest declarations with her prior account of the course her malady had run, Doctor Prince could not help asking himself whether she might not actually be a victim of what is technically designated “total dissociation of personality,” whether the second emotional shock of which she had spoken, acting on a system already disorganized by the severe and prolonged strain imposed upon her by her husband’s illness, might not have resulted in a psychical upheaval so catastrophic as to involve the disintegration of her ego, or “self,” and the creation of a secondary self markedly differing from her original personality.
In such an event, the period of temporary recovery would, indeed, represent a period when the secondary self had obtained at least partial control of the patient’s organism; and it was quite conceivable that there might come a time when, momentarily, at any rate, the secondary self would become wholly dominant. In that case, the young woman’s plight would be appalling, for she would be in ignorance of all she said and did while in the secondary state. This was precisely what occurred.
Only a few days after she had first visited him, she came into Doctor Prince’s office in a greatly excited condition.
“Doctor,” she cried, “the strangest, the most inexplicable thing has happened to me! This morning, after breakfast, I went up-stairs, intending to lie down for a time, as I felt so utterly exhausted. I think I fell asleep, but am not sure. I do know, though, that two hours afterward I found myself standing in the post-office, about to mail to you a letter which I am certain I did not write, but which is plainly in my handwriting. It is such a queer letter, too, for it speaks of matters of which I know nothing, and even refers to me as though I were somebody else, and somebody else were I. What does this mean? What does it mean?”
And, in a day or so, she had an even stranger story to relate.
“Yesterday afternoon,” she said, “I went for a walk, not because I wanted to, but because you had told me that I ought to take some exercise. I returned home about four o’clock, and went straight to my room. I remember nothing of what then happened until, in the evening, I suddenly became aware that I was at a gay dinner party, drinking wine—which is contrary to my principles—and, what was far worse, smoking a cigarette. Never in my life had I done such a thing, and my humiliation at the discovery was deep and keen.
“I assure you, on my honor, that I have not the least recollection of accepting an invitation to dine out, of dressing for dinner, or of leaving the house to attend the party. Everything is a blank to me from the moment I went to my room, in the afternoon, until I came to my senses, several hours afterward, to find a lively group about me, a wineglass at my plate, and a half-smoked cigarette in my fingers. Tell me, Doctor Prince, am I going insane?”
The physician hastened to reassure her, but nevertheless he felt seriously alarmed. It was evident that she was in a thoroughly dissociated condition, and that she had become, so to speak, a battleground on which was to be fought out the weirdest and most uncanny of conflicts—a duel between two separate selves for absolute supremacy in the use of the organs of her body.
Further, it soon developed that the advantage would lie with the secondary self—which Doctor Prince called her B self—because, although her ordinary, or A self, suffered from amnesia, or loss of memory, regarding her actions when in the B state, the B self had a memory extending over both states. The mental agony growing out of this recurring forgetfulness on A’s part may readily be imagined. As the patient herself has since expressed it, in an autobiographical account written at Doctor Prince’s request:[44]
“The amnesia made life very difficult; indeed, except for the help you gave me, I think it would have been impossible, and that I should have gone truly mad. How can I describe or give any clear idea of what it is to wake suddenly, as it were, and not to know the day of the week, the time of the day, or why one is in a given position? I would come to myself as A, perhaps on the street, with no idea of where I had been, or where I was going; fortunate if I found myself alone, for if I was carrying on a conversation I knew nothing of what it had been; fortunate, indeed, in that case, if I did not contradict something I had said, for, as B, my attitude toward all things was quite the opposite of that taken by A.”
Picture to yourself, my reader, how you would feel if, for a few hours almost every day, and sometimes for whole days at a stretch, you became virtually nonexistent, yet were made to realize, from what your friends told you, that a something or a somebody had taken possession of your organism, and was veritably acting in your place, and in a way utterly unlike your natural self. This was the state of affairs with Doctor Prince’s luckless patient. In moods, tastes, points of view, habits of thought, and controlling ideas, her secondary personality was the very reverse of that which had been dominant when she first sought medical advice.
There even were pronounced physical differences. Whenever she was in the A state, she was extremely neurasthenic, being afflicted now by one, now by another, of the multifarious functional disturbances that accompany neurasthenia, and being exhausted by the slightest effort. A walk of a few hundred yards would be almost enough to prostrate her.
In the B state, on the contrary, she did not know the meaning of the word “pain,” and was seemingly incapable of feeling fatigue. She would walk for miles without experiencing the slightest distress, was constantly on the go, and appeared to be in every way an exceptionally robust, healthy woman. Thus, physically, she was—as B—a decided improvement over herself as A. But with respect to psychical differences it was altogether another matter.
In the A state, she was kind, considerate of others, self-sacrificing, animated by a keen sense of, and devotion to, duty; profoundly stirred by any tale of sorrow or suffering, and most conscientious—if anything, overconscientious, being tortured at times in an extraordinary degree by moral doubts. In the B state, she was selfish, thoughtless, and cold; one might almost say devoid of human feeling. Here is the way she herself has put it:
“As B, I felt no emotion, except that of pleasure, using the word pleasure as meaning a ‘good time’—social gayety, driving, motoring, walking, boating, etc.; but my enjoyment of these things was very keen. As B, I was always the gayest of the company, but for people I cared nothing. The little acts of affection which we all perform in daily home life I never thought of. The habit of shaking hands with one’s friends, kissing or embracing those nearer and dearer, had no meaning to me. Ordinarily, I think, when one shakes hands with a friend, one feels the individuality of the person, more or less, and the clasp of hands means something; but, as B, it meant no more to me than clasping a piece of wood, and the acts of shaking hands, embracing, or kissing were all alike—it made no difference to me which I did—one meant just as much as the other. This lack of feeling applied only to people, for I loved the outside world; the trees, the water, the sky, and the wind seemed to be a very part of myself. But the emotions by which as A I was torn to shreds, as B I did not feel at all.”
In still further contrast, this most remarkable young woman, when in the B state, was giddy, irresponsible, and frivolous. In the A state, she was most serious-minded and intellectual, being fond of reading such excellent literature as the works of Shakespeare, Hugo, Ibsen, Tolstoi, and Maeterlinck. All this, B found very tiresome, and cared only for the lightest kind of fiction, when she read at all.
In matters of dress and social pleasures, A and B were also diametrically opposed. A believed that she ought to wear black; B, who seems never to have given a thought to the dead husband, detested black, and, on the other hand, had a really abnormal liking for white. So that, as the two selves alternated in control, the strange spectacle was presented of the same woman at one moment arrayed in deep mourning, at another dressed in some light, bright gown.
To cap the climax, B took a malicious pleasure in tormenting her other self in many ways. She made engagements which she knew that, as A, she would not like to keep; she cultivated friendships with people with whom, as A, she had little desire to associate; she was wastefully extravagant, freely spending on useless articles money which, as A, she had been carefully hoarding against a rainy day; she indulged in innumerable petty, but annoying, practical jokes at A’s expense.
For example: A would often wake in the morning to find on her pillow or dressing-table notes advising her jeeringly to “cheer up,” to “weep no more,” and not to “bother Doctor Prince so much.” These notes she herself had written during the night, having changed to the B state while she slept, awakened as B, risen, and penned the notes, and then returned to bed, to fall asleep once more, and, in the morning, awake as A, with no memory of what she had done since retiring.
The flood of notes continuing, she began to destroy them unread, hoping that this would discourage B’s malicious activity. It only made matters worse, for B now began to affix the notes to the center of her mirror, pasting above them inscriptions warning her to be sure to read them, and declaring that they contained—as they sometimes did—information of importance to her.
But the best idea of the topsyturvy, kaleidoscopic, almost incredible life led by this woman with a double existence may be given by quoting a few extracts from a diary kept jointly by the two personalities, at Doctor Prince’s suggestion. Unique as a record of human experiences, it had a distinctly practical value, for it enabled A to keep track of what she had been doing while B was in control. B, of course, had no need of it for this purpose, since, as was said, she did not suffer from loss of memory, like A. The extracts quoted are not always in chronological order; but, for the present purpose, that is unimportant:
“I am here again to-night, B, I am. I may as well tell all I have done, I suppose. For one thing, I had a facial massage—there is no need of being a mass of wrinkles. I know A doesn’t care how she looks, but I do. The Q’s spent the evening here, and I smoked a cigarette. Now, A, don’t go and tell Doctor Prince; you don’t have to tell him everything—you do it, though. I must have a little fun.”
“I have struggled through another day. B has told what she did. How can I bear it? How explain? I am so humiliated, so ashamed. Why should I do things which so mortify my pride? Quite ill all day. I am, as usual, paying for B’s ‘fun.’ It is not to be borne.”
“A terrible day—one of the worst for a long time. I cannot live this way; it is not to be expected. I am so confused. I have lost so much time now that I can’t seem to catch up. What is the end to be? What will become of me?”
“A was used up, and had to stay in bed all the morning, but I came about one o’clock, and Mrs. X asked me to motor down to Z. Had a gorgeous ride, and got home at seven, nearly famished, for A had eaten nothing all day—she lives on coffee and somnos—nice combination!—steak and French fried for mine, please.”
“Good gracious! How we fly around! A has been ill all the day, could not sleep last night. I hope he [Doctor Prince] won’t send for us, for he will put a quietus on me, and, as things are now, I am gaining on A. Had a gay evening—no discussions of religion or psychology, no dissecting of hearts and souls while I am in the flesh.”
“I wonder if A is really dead—for good and all? It seems like it. The thought rather frightens me some way, as if I had lost my balance wheel. She wants to die, she really does, for she thinks it to herself all the time. I wish I were myself alone, and neither A nor B; I cannot bear to hear A groan, she cannot bear my glee.”
“Such a day! A got away from me for a little while, and tried to write a letter to Doctor Prince. It was a funny-looking letter, for I kept saying to her: ‘You cannot write, you cannot move your hand,’ but she had enough will power to write some, and direct it. The effort used her up, however, and I came, and the letter was not mailed.”
“I am too much bewildered to write. I have succeeded in writing Doctor Prince. If I can only mail it! Oh, but I am tired! Such an awful struggle!”
“Another queer thing happened to-day. I have not been to the cemetery for a long time, so started to go there. I had gone only a little way when I began to feel that I could not go on. I do not mean that I did not wish to, but that I could not easily move my feet in that direction. It was as if some physical force was restraining me, or like walking against a heavy wind. I kept on, however, and finally reached the entrance; but farther I found it impossible to go. I was held—could not move my feet one inch in that direction. I set my will, and said to myself: ‘I will go, I can go, and I will!’ But I could not do it. I began to feel very tired—exhausted—and turned back. As soon as I turned away, I had no trouble in walking, but I was very tired.”
These last paragraphs refer to a phase of the case which was, from the standpoint both of the patient and Doctor Prince, one of its most serious and mysterious features. Although B, try as she might—and she undoubtedly tried hard enough—could not permanently oust the A self, and had to be content with manifesting as an alternating personality, it was none the less the fact that, even when A was uppermost, B was able to exercise, from some subconscious region, a certain amount of influence, often impelling A to do things contrary to her inclinations.
The consequence was that A suffered fearfully from what seemed to be aboulia, or paralysis of will, somewhat similar to that experienced by Doctor Pierre Janet’s patient, Marcelle, described in the preceding chapter. The cemetery episode was only one of many incidents, when, overpowered by some force she could not understand, and which was actually the superior will of B, she was unable to carry out projects she wished to execute, or was made to perform acts not at all to her liking.
The diary is full of allusions to this subconscious mastery of A by B. Scores of times, B influenced her to read some particular book she—B—wished to read, or to go out for a walk when she—A—wished to remain at home. Naturally A began to consider herself changeable and weak-minded.
“One day,” B writes, “it was raining and she did not want to go out, but I felt that I could not stay in the house another minute. So I willed that she should go to walk, and she changed her clothes and went out. She thought: ‘What nonsense this is to go out in this rain! I wish I knew what I wanted to do five minutes at a time.’ She would think: ‘I guess I will go to walk.’ And then she would think: ‘No, I don’t want to go out in all this rain.’ Then, in a few minutes: ‘I believe I will go to walk,’ etc. And finally she went, more for peace of mind than anything else.”
Frequently, moreover, the subconscious willing to affect A’s conduct, resulted in completely effacing A, and allowing B to reëmerge spontaneously, in full control.
Thus, there was a dinner party which B was anxious to attend, but while A was dressing she—A—decided she would not go, and started across the room to telephone and say she would not be present. At once B subconsciously began to think: “I want to go,” “You must go.” And poor A first became very much confused, then faded away entirely, with the result that the telephone message was not sent, and B was free to attend the party, and enjoy another of the “good times” that meant so much to her.
Where A suffered most of all by reason of this subtle power of B to influence her actions, lay in the difficulty she had in communicating with Doctor Prince, and in going to him for treatment. B well knew that her career would come to an end the moment Doctor Prince succeeded in reassociating his patient’s disintegrated personality, and she fought desperately to preserve her existence, repeatedly preventing A, as mentioned in the extracts quoted from the diary, from telephoning to Doctor Prince, writing to him, or visiting him; all of which greatly increased A’s confusion, misery, and unhappiness.
But, as it chanced, although Doctor Prince was earnestly desirous of effectually and forever suppressing B, he was not at all desirous of doing this for A’s sake; and was, in fact, as anxious to get rid of A as he was to get rid of B.
For, to inject a new complication into this most complicated affair, he had by this time discovered that A had no more right to consideration than B, since A no more than B represented the patient’s normal personality. His searching study of the case—the duel between A and B lasted a year or more—had convinced him that there had been not a single, but a double, dissociation of personality; and that the normal self, in consequence first of the shock occasioned by the husband’s illness and death, and afterward of the shock that brought the B personality to the fore, had been violently relegated to some obscure department of the patient’s subconsciousness, where, however, it assuredly was existent, and where it was an intensely interested, if helpless, spectator of the struggle being waged for control by the two usurping selves.
To recall this lost self, which he designated as C, was Doctor Prince’s paramount object; and, after many months of weary and futile effort, he ultimately succeeded. One day, after he had plunged his patient into deep hypnosis, he saw that she had undergone a striking change. Physically she seemed much as in the B state, though not so boisterously vigorous; mentally she was like A, thoughtful and intellectual, but happily devoid of the vacillation and morbid overconscientiousness that had made A’s life a misery to herself, and most difficult to all who came in contact with her.
Questioned, she showed that in this new state she possessed a complete memory for both the A and the B states, and was closer to normal than either. In Doctor Prince’s mind, no doubt remained—he had found C, the missing self, the self which, after nearly two years of exile, had promise of coming once more into its own.
It had yet to be reëstablished in sovereignty—no easy task, as the event proved. Not many hours after its first emergence, B once more put in an appearance, wrathful, vehement, and defiant, angrily challenging Doctor Prince to suppress it if he could. Then came A, and soon a momentary return of C, quickly put to flight, however, by the still powerful will of B. In short, the conflict now became triangular, with B and C active opponents, and A a participant because she could not help herself.
The invaluable diary affords a clear view of the chaos that prevailed, and of the increasing effectiveness of Doctor Prince’s vigorous reënforcement, by hypnotic suggestion, of the claims of C. We find, for instance, B lamenting, after several days’ banishment:
“Well, once more I am permitted to write in this diary. After we got home, C went to pieces. I never saw such a lot! And then poor old A came again, in anguish, wringing of hands, finally tears. Then, thank goodness, I came myself! I cannot see why Doctor Prince would rather have that emotional, hysterical set than to have me! It passes comprehension. I know everything, always, and they know only a few things for a few minutes.”
The note of woe and panic sounded here was amply justified. Little by little, A and B became less in evidence, until at length they were heard from no more, and C—the normal self—was left dominant, with a complete restoration to physical as well as mental health.
But, the reader may well ask, what does all this mean? Can there really be more than one self, one personality, in human beings? If so, what are we? What is the true nature of man? These are questions that cannot be avoided, and in my next and closing chapter I will make some attempt to answer them.
It is barely fifty years since the problem of supreme interest to mankind—the problem of the nature, possibilities, and destiny of man—began to be studied in a really scientific way; yet in that half century more progress has been made toward its solution than in all the previous thousands of years that have elapsed since man first asked himself: What am I? What are my capabilities? Shall I be, after I have ceased to exist here on earth?
Armed with instruments of the most delicate precision, devising novel methods for exploring the body and the mind in their mutual ramifications, modern investigators have thrown a flood of new and largely unexpected light on the great questions at issue, and have opened vistas of hope and aspiration and actual achievement undreamed of by the vanished peoples of bygone times.
At first sight, to be sure, much of their effort appears to be irreparably, even wantonly, destructive, and perhaps nowhere more so than in the blows they have dealt at the traditional conception of the central fact in man’s psychical make-up—that intangible entity variously known as the ego, the self, the personality, animated and governed by an indwelling, unifying principle, the soul. Every man instinctively believes that there is only one of him. He feels that, no matter how his thoughts, his sensations, his emotions may change in the course of time, he himself will remain essentially and permanently the same. Putting this belief into metaphysical language, he declares, with the excellent Thomas Reid:
“The conviction which every man has of his identity ... needs no aid of philosophy to strengthen it; and no philosophy can weaken it without first producing some degree of insanity.... The identity of a person is a perfect identity; wherever it is real it admits of no degrees; and it is impossible that a person should be in part the same and in part different, because a person is a monad, and is not divisible into parts.”[45]
But the modern explorer of the nature of man, replies:
“You are wrong, my friend. Your self is very far from being the simple, stable unity that you imagine it to be. In reality it is most complex and most unstable, easily breaking up, and sometimes breaking up so completely that it may even be replaced by an entirely new self. You do not believe this? I can prove it to you from the facts not only of scientific experiment, but also of everyday observation.”
Naturally, in support of this statement, stress would be laid on instances resembling the strange case of BCA, just narrated. And although cases at all similar to the BCA affair are extremely uncommon there are a number on record evidencing in other ways so-called “total dissociation of personality.” For example:
A prosperous Philadelphia plumber, a man of exemplary habits and seemingly in good health, left his home one day to take a short walk. From that moment he disappeared as completely as though the earth had opened and swallowed him. There was no reason why he should abscond or commit suicide, and the general belief was that he had met with foul play. Rewards were offered, and detectives employed, but no trace of him could be found. His wife, giving him up for dead, sold his business and removed with their children to Chicago.
Nearly two years later, the workmen in a tin-shop in a Southern city were startled one morning by the conduct of one of their number, who, dropping his tools and pressing his hand to his head in a bewildered way, sprang to his feet, and cried:
“My God! Where am I? How did I get here? This isn’t my shop!”
The foreman, thinking he was drunk, or had gone insane, ran forward to pacify him.
“Steady, Smith, steady!” he exclaimed. “You’ll be all right in a minute.”
The other only stared at him wildly.
“Why do you call me Smith?” he demanded. “That isn’t my name.”
“That’s the name you’ve gone by since you came among us six months ago.”
“Six months ago! You’re crazy, man. It isn’t half an hour since I left my wife and little ones to get a breath of fresh air before dinner.”
“Look here,” said the foreman, pressing him gently into a seat, “where do you suppose you are, anyway?”
“Why, in Philadelphia, of course.”
It was indeed the Philadelphia plumber, whose missing self had returned to him as suddenly and as mysteriously as it had vanished. A few days more and he was happily reunited with the family that had so long believed him to be among the dead.[46]
Where, it may well be asked, was this man’s original self during these two years? What had become of his normal ego, the ego of which alone he had formerly been aware? Yet at no time throughout the period when he lacked knowledge of his identity, and was without memory for his earlier life and social relationships, did he display the slightest sign of mental aberration. He was as sane and real to himself and to those with whom he came into contact, and was as able to take care of himself and earn a sufficient living, as he had ever been in the years before he experienced the remarkable psychical upheaval that had substituted an alien, a “secondary” self in the place of the self he had always been and known.
A blow, an illness, a fright, the stress of a prolonged emotion—any one of several causes may bring about this weird condition, of which I could give illustrative cases to a number that would fill many pages of this book.[47] Sometimes, though fortunately seldom, there may be—as in the case of BCA—a double or even a multiple dissociation, resulting in the development of two, three, four, or more secondary selves, which alternate with one another in a way productive of the most intense mental agony to the helpless victim.
But, after all, it is not necessary to insist on such extreme instances in order to demonstrate the essential instability and divisibility of that which we commonly have in mind when we speak of the “self.” Dissociation of personality is in evidence every day in the pathetic symptomatology of the various insanities, and in the chronic, if often masked and unrecognized, memory lapses universal among sufferers from the manifold affections of hysteria, such as we dealt with in the chapter on “Dissociation and Disease.” It is in evidence in the victims of alcoholic and drug excesses, who, in a very literal sense, may become “another person,” and say and do things quite alien from their usual self, and concerning which their usual self afterward has no knowledge.
Even normal sleep, albeit a wise provision for the rest and strengthening of the organism, involves dissociation. Still more strikingly is dissociation evident in the phenomena of the state of artificial sleep induced by hypnotism.
It would carry us too far from the point now under consideration to enter here into any discussion of the nature and mechanism of hypnotism, that still widely misunderstood but marvelous agency, not simply for therapeutic purposes but for the study and exploration of man’s inmost being. The thing of immediate importance is the fact that under the influence of hypnotism a person invariably develops a self more or less different from his ordinary waking, conscious self.
Hypnotized, he is to all outward seeming oblivious to everything transpiring around him. But let the hypnotist speak to him, question him, and he instantly responds with answers so intelligent as to indicate that, in some respects, at all events, he is more alert and keen than when wide awake. Curiously enough, however, commands and suggestions given to him are, within certain limitations, accepted and acted upon, no matter how disagreeable or absurd they may be.
Later, when awakened, he is in precisely the same position as are victims of spontaneous dissociation—such as the Philadelphia plumber, and Doctor Prince’s puzzling neurasthene, BCA. That is to say, he is unable to give any account of what he has said and done during hypnosis. Thus the effect of hypnotism is to produce a psychical cleavage so profound as to involve the action, within a single organism, of two separate selves.
This has been demonstrated by a long line of scientific investigators, including physicians and psychologists of international reputation. Moreover, these investigators have shown that, even after a person has been brought out of the hypnotic state, the self evoked by hypnotism may in some inscrutable way continue operant without his suspecting for a moment its existence and influence.
Impressive proof of this is found in the execution of what are known as post-hypnotic commands. A hypnotized person is told that, after being de-hypnotized, he is to perform a certain act on receiving a certain signal, or at the expiration of a certain time. As usual, when restored to his conscious, waking state, he remembers nothing of the command imposed on him; but when the signal is given, or the appointed time arrives, he feels an irresistible, and to him inexplicable, impulse to carry out the suggested idea.
Thus, in one series of fifty-five experiments made by the foremost English authority on hypnotism, Doctor J. Milne Bramwell, the subject, a young woman of nineteen, was ordered to perform a specified act at the end of a varying number of minutes, ranging from three hundred to more than twenty thousand. Not once, on being de-hypnotized, did she remember what she had been told to do, although offered a liberal reward if she could recall the commands given her.
Nevertheless, only two of the fifty-five experiments were complete failures, while in forty-five she executed the commands at exactly the moment designated, and in the remainder was at no time more than five minutes out of the way. As to the complete failures, Doctor Bramwell ascertained that in one instance she had mistaken the suggestion given, and in the other the circumstances were such that the command might have been executed without his being aware of it.[48]
Equally astonishing results are reported by the brilliant group of Frenchmen who, uniting under the direction of Doctor A. A. Liébeault, were the first to make an organized investigation of the cause and effects, the possibilities and limitations, of hypnotism. One of these French investigators, Doctor Hippolyte Bernheim, once hypnotized an old soldier, and asked him:
“On what day in the first week of October will you be at liberty?”
“On the Wednesday.”
“Well,” said Doctor Bernheim, “on that day you will pay a visit to Doctor Liébeault; you will find in his office the president of the republic, who will present you with a medal and a pension.”
The soldier was then awakened and questioned as to what had been said to him, but could remember nothing. However, on Wednesday, October 3, Doctor Liébeault wrote to Doctor Bernheim:
“Your soldier has just called at my house. He walked to my bookcase, and made a respectful salute; then I heard him utter the words: ‘Your excellency!’ Soon he held out his right hand, and said: ‘Thanks, your excellency.’ I asked him to whom he was speaking. ‘Why, to the president of the republic.’ He turned again to the bookcase and saluted, then went away. The witnesses to the scene naturally asked me what that madman was doing. I answered that he was not mad, but as reasonable as they or I, only another person was acting in him.”[49]
Compare with this an amusing little story told by Doctor Prince.
“Wishing to test the compelling influence of post-hypnotic commands,” he says,[50] “I suggested to one of my subjects, Mrs. R., after she was hypnotized, that on the following day, when she went down to dinner, she would put on her bonnet, and keep it on during the whole of dinner time. The next day I received a letter from her in which she said:
“‘I think I am getting insane. At dinner time I would wear my hat during the meal.’
“On further inquiry, I obtained the following story, which I give substantially in the original language:
“‘As I was going in to dinner, my girl asked me what I was going out for. “I am not,” says I. “I am going to eat my dinner.” “Then what have you got your hat on for?” says she. I put my hand to my head, and there was my bonnet. “Lord, Mamie!” says I, “am I going crazy?” “No, mother,” she says, “you often do foolish things.” I began to get frightened, but took off my bonnet and went into the next room to dinner.’
“Then the younger child similarly asked her where she was going, and called attention to her having her bonnet on. A second time she raised her hand to her head, and to her surprise found that her bonnet was really there. She again took it off, and later, when her husband entered, the same thing was repeated; but when she found her bonnet on her head for the third time, she made excuse of the stormy words that ensued to declare she would ‘keep it on now till she was through.’ After dinner, being alarmed, she consulted a neighbor about it.”
But the longest time on record for the carrying out of a post-hypnotic suggestion was made by a subject of Doctor Liégeois, another of the early French investigators. Doctor Liégeois hypnotized a young man, and said to him:
“A year from to-day this is what you are going to do, and what you are going to see: You will call at Doctor Liébeault’s office in the morning, and tell him that you have come to thank him and Doctor Liégeois for all they have done to improve your health. While you are talking to him, you will see enter the room a dog with a monkey riding on its back. They will perform a thousand tricks that will amuse you very much.
“Then you will see a man come in, leading a great American grizzly bear, which will also perform tricks. It will be a tame bear, so that you will not be at all frightened. The man will be delighted at recovering his trained dog and monkey, which he thought he had lost. Before he leaves you will borrow a few cents from Doctor Liébeault to give to him.”
Doctor Liégeois, after repeating these complicated and absurd directions, awoke the young man, and by cautious questioning ascertained that his memory was a perfect blank for all that had been said to him while he was hypnotized. Great care was taken not to recall to his mind at any time the command given to him, and which his hypnotic self was expected to remember and perform on the appointed day.
Exactly a year later, at nine in the morning, Doctor Liégeois went to Doctor Liébeault’s office, where he waited half an hour, and then returned home, thinking that the experiment had failed. But at ten minutes to ten the young man arrived. There was nothing about his appearance to indicate that he was in any abnormal condition.
He greeted Doctor Liébeault, explained that he had come to thank him for his kindness to him, and inquired for Doctor Liégeois, whom he said he had expected to find there. A few minutes afterward, Doctor Liégeois having meanwhile been hastily summoned, the young man cried out that a monkey had just come in, riding on the back of a dog. He watched the antics of these imaginary animals with great interest, laughing heartily, and describing the tricks he fancied he saw them performing. After this, he announced the arrival of a man who was evidently the owner of the monkey and the dog, and he begged Doctor Liébeault to lend him a little money to reward the man for the amusement his animals had given him. But he saw no bear.
A moment later he was conversing with the two physicians, in evident ignorance of all that he had just been saying and doing. He angrily denied that there had been any animals in the room. When asked why he himself was there, he could give no definite reply. Doctor Liégeois immediately put him into the hypnotic state, and demanded:
“Do you know why you came here this morning?”
“Of course I do.”
“Why was it?”
“Because you told me to.”
“When?”
“A year ago.”
“But you did not come at nine o’clock?”
“You did not tell me to come at nine o’clock. You said to come at exactly a year from the time you were talking to me. It was ten minutes to ten when you gave me your command.”
“And why did you not see the bear?”
“Because you said nothing about a bear when you repeated your orders. You spoke only once of a bear. Everything else you spoke of twice. I thought you had changed your mind about the bear.”[51]
Obviously, the hypnotic self, distinct and different though it is from the primary, waking self, can reason, can analyze, can draw conclusions as readily as the conscious self, and is, to put it otherwise, as truly a self as the conscious self.
Facts like these, as was said, have caused numerous investigators to question the validity of the hitherto prevailing view of human personality. The self, they affirm, is no single, continuous, permanent entity. On the contrary, it is merely a loosely coördinated aggregation of mental states, forever shifting and changing, so that the self of to-morrow may be vastly different from the self of to-day. To quote Professor Ribot, the famous scientist, and one of the most distinguished exponents of this new view of the self:
“The unity of the ego is not the unity of a single entity diffusing itself among multiple phenomena; it is the coördination of a certain number of states perpetually renascent, and having for their sole, common basis the vague feeling of the body. This unity does not diffuse itself downward, but is aggregated by ascent from below; it is not an initial, but a terminal point.”
And Ribot adds emphatically:
“It is the organism, with the brain, its supreme representative, which constitutes the real personality; comprising in itself the remains of all that we have been and the possibilities of all that we shall be. The whole individual character is there inscribed, with its active and passive aptitudes, its sympathies and antipathies, its genius, its talent or its stupidity, its virtues and its vices, its torpor or its activity.”[52]
Or, as the eminent psychologist, Alfred Binet, declares:
“We have long been accustomed by habits of speech, fictions of law, and also by the results of introspection, to consider each person as constituting an indivisible unity. Actual researches utterly modify this current notion. It seems to be well proven nowadays that if the unity of the ego be real, a quite different definition should be applied to it. It is not a single entity; for, if it were, one could not understand how in certain circumstances some patients, by exaggerating a phenomenon which obviously belongs to normal life, can unfold several different personalities. A thing that can be divided must consist of several parts. Should a personality be able to become double or triple, this would be proof that it is compound, a grouping of, and a resultant from, several elements.”[53]