We have spoken above of a receptivity of the unconscious greater than that of the consciousness, chiefly in regard to the simple attempts at thought-reading of numbers. As mentioned, not only our somnambulist but a relatively large number of normal persons are able to guess from the tremors lengthy thought-sequences, if they are not too complicated. These experiments are, so to speak, the prototype of those rarer and incomparably more astonishing cases of intuitive knowledge displayed at times by somnambulists.[1] Zschokke[2] in his “Introspection” has shown us that these phenomena do not belong only to the domain of somnambulism, but occur among non-somnambulic persons. The formation of such knowledge seems to be arrived at in various ways: first and foremost there is the fineness, already noted, of unconscious perceptions; then must be emphasised the importance of the enormous suggestibility of somnambulists. The somnambulist not only incorporates every suggestive idea to some extent, but actually lives in the suggestion, in the person of his doctor or observer, with that abandonment characteristic of the suggestible hysteric. The relation of Frau Hauffe to Kerner is a striking example of this. That in such cases there is a high degree of association-concordance can cause no astonishment; a condition which Richet might have taken more account of in his experiments in thought-transference. Finally there are cases of somnambulic additional creative work which are not to be explained solely by hyperæsthesia of the unconscious activity of the senses and association-concordance, but presuppose a highly developed intellectual activity of the unconscious. The deciphering of the purposive tremors demand an extreme sensitiveness and delicacy of feeling, both psychological and physiological, to combine the individual perceptions into a complete unity of thought, if it is at all permissible to make an analogy between the processes of cognition in the realm of the unconscious
- ↑ The limitation of the associative processes and the concentration of attention upon a definite sphere of presentation can also lead to the development of new ideas, which no effort of will in the waking state would have been able to accomplish (Loewenfeld, “Hypnotismus,” p. 289).
- ↑ Zschokke, “Eine Selbstschau,” III., Aufl. Aarau, 1843, p. 227 ff.
