Boris Sidis

“ The same objections hold true in the case of the theory of unconscious cerebration offered us in the garb of nerve currents and nerve paths, well worn nerve tracks, opening and closing of nerve currents and tracks, and formation of all shapes and forms of neurograms. Why be misled by figments and by sounds? The subconscious stands for a number of facts, reactions, and behavior which are accompanied by psychic life, by mental activities, by consciousness. ”

“ Similarly no one can gain access to the facts of abnormal psychology without a thorough understanding of the subconscious. The subconscious may be briefly defined as mental processes of which the individual is not directly conscious. Such knowledge is all the more requisite as psychopathic disturbances with which psychopathology proper deals are essentially affections of subconscious life activity. ”

“ The modern upholders of unconscious cerebration think that they have discovered new facts and arguments in favor of unconscious mental activity, and are thus justified in denying subconscious mental life. ”

“ The physiological unconscious registration theories of nerve currents, nerve-paths, and neurograms are not only figments, arbitrary fanciful weavings of the imagination, they cannot even hypothetically explain the simplest act of memory, and especially of recognitive memory. ”

“ The adherents of unconscious cerebration tacitly include under this term not only unconscious physiological processes, or nerve modifications, but also psychical states. Keeping clearly in mind the real meaning of unconscious cerebration as referring to physiological processes, or nerve modifications with no psychical accompaniment, the difficulties of unconscious cerebration to account for the phenomena of hypnotic memory become truly insurmountable. ”

“ Since the theories of unconscious registration fail us in the most elementary mental processes, how can we possibly rely on cerebration-fancies in the case of such complex phenomena as hypnotic conditions and various mental states of trance and dissociation? ”

“ This extreme view is certainly wrong, for the subject during hypnosis not only acts, moves, but he also speaks, answers questions intelligently, reasons, discusses; and if such an individual may be regarded as a mere machine, on the same grounds we may consider any rational man as a mere unconscious automaton. ”