preoccupation, and as they close the book, become aware that they do not know the equivalent which they had actually found and read. Just how extensive the loss of orientation becomes can not be determined by the nature of the error which it induces, but must be inferred more intimately from the temperament and introspective account of the subject thereof. The man who, suddenly fearful that he had forgotten his watch, hastily explores the outside of his pockets, fails to feel the object of his search, and a moment later consults his timepiece to see whether he has time to go back and get the forgotten watch, may be regarded as suffering from a decided lapse of orientation sufficient to becloud his rational habits. Yet the degree of objective confusion involved in the following narrative is no greater than in many others, though the context suggests a decided mental wandering. A young lady, after the wear and tear of an amateur play, was returning a helmet which she had borrowed as 'property' and passing by a laundry, entered, wrote her name on the package, asked when it would be delivered, and was only 'brought to' by the astonishment on the clerk's face when a partial unwrapping revealed the nature of the article. The same comment may be made upon this instance as well: a young lady calling upon her friend to borrow a bicycle, found only her brother at home. The latter was pleased to be of service, brought out his sister's bicycle, inflated the tires, then took the trouser-guards from his own bicycle, offered them, along with the machine—and realized that explanation was hopeless. One also hardly needs the confession of the subject of the following lapses that she is constantly losing herself, particularly under mental excitement, or apprehension, such as examinations bring in their train. Knocking at her own door and waiting for an answer, rubbing one foot against the other and saying, 'excuse me'; sitting in her room absorbed in work, and realizing the passing of muffled steps outside the door (such as made by rubber heels which she herself wears), she mentally comments, 'There goes ,' meaning herself—such are the tales laid at her door, which in substance are acknowledged.[1] Here the condition approaches that of
- ↑ It may not be out of place to note again that the type of action here illustrated is just as apposite whether it leads to an inappropriate issue and thus figures as a lapse, or whether the subconscious mechanism correctly carries the action through to its normal result. The same degree of abstraction that is needed for these pronounced lapses is perfectly comparable with equally and even more pronounced activities correctly performed. I have the testimony of a lady of domestic habits and decided literary tendencies who frequently finds herself going through so prosaic an occupation as washing dishes in a vague sort of way, quite surprised to find that she is through, and about equally unable to retrace in memory the successive stages of her manual labor and of her far-away thoughts. Indeed there is abundant evidence that mental wandering occurs more frequently without leaving in its wake interesting or recordable trace of its influence upon the waves of thought, than it does thus aid the psychologist in the pursuit of his problems.
