Psychology : an introductory study of the structure and function of human consciousness / by James Rowland Angell.

Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Psychology : an introductory study of the structure and function of human consciousness / by James Rowland Angell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    loss alarm as to the dangers of hypnotism. In point of fact it is practically impossible to force a person to do anything seriously offensive to his moral or gesthetic sense of the right and the decent. iMoreover, persons of normal make-up can- not be hypnotised against their wills—at all events not until the process has been performed so often as to become more or less habitual. A thing much more to be feared in our day is the auto-suggestion of a hypnotic character by virtue of which mobs and great crowds give way to the wildest and most beastly excesses. Although hypnotism undoubtedly has therapeutic value, it should not be indiscriminatel}'^ cultivated by untrained persons. Dreams afford a familiar instance of disturbed personality. Sometimes this is manifested simply in the ridiculous judg- i ments which we pass upon dream situations, and the absurd , sentiments which they call forth. Occasionally, however, we actually seem to have become some other person. Despite the frequent occurrence of dreams, no wholly satisfactory ' theory of their causes and conditions is yet at hand. Un- doubtedly sensory stimulations, partly from the external senses, partly from the viscera and other intra-organic sources, are largely responsible for the beginning of dreams. Undoubtedly, also, the higher forms of systematised control, the “ apperceptive activities ” of many authors, are tempo- rarily in abeyance. Although most of us would maintain ! that w^e often have dreamless sleep, it has been vigorously urged that we dream all the time during sleep, and that i consciousness is consequently never altogether interrupted. : Certainly it is true that we frequently forget our dreams with marvellous rapidity, and we ordinarily find that we are dreaming when awakened. Rut while these considerations afford a measure of presumptive evidence in favour of the hypothesis, they are not conclusive, and the weight of o])inion unquestionably regards dreamless sleep as a frequent occurrence.