Dissoluteness

“ In currents of solutions, or at different depths of them, one part may be more full of the dissolved atoms than another; but on the whole, you may think of them as equidistant, like the spots in the print of your gown. If they are separated by force of heat only, the substance is said to be melted; if they are separated by any other substance, as particles of sugar by water, they are said to be "dissolved." ”

“ Knowledge must precede dissociation, so that dissociation is nothing more than a decision to forget. What has been forgotten then appears to be fearful, but only because the dissociation is an attack on truth. ”

“ What baffles me, what I find unimaginable, transcending every faculty I possess—transcending, I humbly submit, every faculty you possess—is the notion that out of those physical tremors you can extract things so utterly incongruous with them as sensation, thought, and emotion. You may say, or think, that this issue of consciousness from the clash of atoms is not more incongruous than the flash of light from the union of oxygen and hydrogen. ”

“ Even to the heart of the particles it penetrated, and the particles of the particles became lonely.
The vast emptiness which surrounds the universe, was not filled with things seen, with sun or moon or stars; it stretched boundless, penetrating everywhere, disuniting everything, body from body, particle from particle.
In emptiness the trees spread their roots, themselves empty; in emptiness rose phantom temples, palaces and houses—all empty; and in the emptiness moved restless Man, himself empty and light, like a shadow. ”

“ This power of switching from one set of interests to another may perhaps be regarded as a kind of epicritic dissociation in which Man has utilised the instinctive property of, or tendency to, dissociation, in which he has brought it under control and to a large extent graduated it to meet the special needs of the developed mental life. At the least we seem to have here a feature of normal mental process, with certain points of resemblance to morbid, or, as it may be called, protopathic, dissociation, which may help us to understand its nature. ”

“ Such a dissociation is an ethereal existence, and as pure energy the life spirit of all material things is neither cold nor hot, heavy nor light, solid, liquid nor gaseous—men can not, as mortals now exist, see, feel, smell, taste, or even conceive of it. It moves through space as we do through it, a world of itself as transparent to matter as matter is to it, insensible but ever present, a reality to higher existences that rest in other planes, but not to us an essence subject to scientific test, nor an entity. ”

“ For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes, Losing its body, when deprived of food: So all things have to be dissolved as soon As matter, diverted by what means soever From off its course, shall fail to be on hand. Nor can the blows from outward still conserve, On every side, whatever sum of a world Has been united in a whole. ”

“ The occurrence of definite dissociation with altered personality may be regarded as an attempt at solution, especially when it takes the form of the fugue with its independent activity and its independent consciousness. ”

“ And thus our finding that the dissolution of matter, in which living beings were most nearly interested, is not their dissolution; and that the destruction of several of the organs and instruments of perception and of motion belonging to them, is not their destruction; shows demonstratively, that there is no ground to think that the dissolution of any other matter, or destruction of any other organs and instruments, will be the dissolution or destruction of living agents, from the like kind of relation. ”

“ The more intense a stimulation is, the more extensive is the process of disaggregation, the higher mounts the moment-threshold giving rise to the different phenomenon of psycho-physiological and psycho-motor dissociation. ”

“ If the minds of all the most learned sages, of all time, were concentrated, into one mind, that one would be too feeble, in its mental outreach, to comprehend the conditions associated with the fourth order of sympathetic condensation. The controversies of the past in regard to the condensation of invisible matter prove this. The chemistry of the infinite and the chemistry of the finite are as wide apart, in their sympathetic ranges, as is the velocity of light from the movement of the hour-hand of a clock. Even the analysis of the visible conditions taxes our highest powers of concentration. ”

“ A dissociated system present in the subconscious, when coming to the surface of the upper strata of consciousness, becomes manifested with intense sensori-motor energy. Dissociation gives rise to greater dynamogenesis. ”

“ In the second place, it is claimed, from a purely philosophical standpoint, that even in the case of dissociation when consciousness may be granted to be present, there is no dissociation in consciousness itself, since consciousness is but a passive onlooker while the active changes go on in the content of consciousness; in other words, in states of dissociation it is not consciousness that is changed, but only the content of consciousness. ”

“ Under the influence of strong stimulation such as mechanical and chemical agencies, and psychic affections, such as intense emotions of fear, anger, grief, anxiety, or worry, the degenerative process of disaggregation sets in, affecting first the higher aggregates and then with the continuity and intensity of the stimulations the process descends deeper and deeper affecting less complex aggregates, finally reaching the simplest aggregates of moments. The higher types of moments degenerate and fall to lower and lower stages of consciousness. ”

“ All of us in some degree, and many persons in a high degree, keep their beliefs and thoughts in separate compartments which have been called "logic-tight compartments." In these cases each of two sets of beliefs or thoughts is accessible to the other, but no effort is ever naturally made to bring them into relation with one another. The special feature of these cases is a failure of fusion or integration which brings them definitely into relation with dissociation. The state may be regarded as another epicritic form of dissociation in which any suppression is of a very incomplete kind. ”

“ In order to allow the emergence of the transmitted ideas into the field of conscious knowledge, there seems to be always necessary some form of psychical “dissociation”—as in a trance, dream, reverie, or moment of absentmindedness. Such states of dissociation are not always easy to bring about voluntarily; and when they are brought about, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, it by no means follows that ideas received telepathically [85] will forthwith and rapidly rise above the threshold of consciousness. ”

“ As examples of such reactions may be mentioned: eating—eatables, short—shortness, sweet—sweetened, quiet—quietness.
*Partial Dissociation.*—We have employed the term dissociation to indicate a rupture of that bond—whatever be its nature-which may be supposed to exist normally between stimulus and reaction and which causes normal persons to respond in the majority of instances by common reactions. ”

“ What are our bodies but condensations of certain molecules? Mind controls matter. If disembodied intelligences so will it, what is to prevent the hasty condensation of the molecules and the formation of a temporary body in any shape they desire to assume? ”

“ For that which is non-existent does not exist. But when bodies are disintegrated, and experience a change, a dissolution of them takes place; so that a part of them goes to earth, a part to air, and a part to something else. ”

“ Reflect that no effect, no trace, no influence remains of any being after its members are dispersed and its elements are decomposed, whether it be a mineral, a vegetable or an animal. There is only the human reality and the spirit of man which, after the disintegration of the members, dispersing of the particles, and the destruction of the composition, persists and continues to act and to have power. ”

“ The first possibility which occurs to us is that we should connect the term "complex" with the process of dissociation as so defined. A complex would then be a body of suppressed experience with an activity independent of the behaviour of normal life and accompanied by consciousness dissociated or separated from the consciousness which accompanies that behaviour. ”

“ The isolation of the members in the series is the chief characteristic of this type of moment-consciousness which may then be termed desultory consciousness.
The moment consciousness of the desultory type may also be represented in a more hypothetical form. There may be a type of consciousness in which the moment does not recur at all. Each moment appears and vanishes, never to come again, and is followed by another moment of a totally different content. The moments have no relation to one another. ”

“ The facts are trite enough; but, because they are of common experience, it is well to formulate them and so, as far as possible, give precision to our conception of the psychological relations which have a distinct bearing on the principles of dissociated personality and other psychoses, on character and psycho-therapeutics. When, at a later time, we take up for study the subject of dissociated personality [147] we shall find that the dissociation of consciousness sometimes takes its lines of cleavage between systems of complexes of this kind. ”

“ As a tortoise puts forth its body out of its shell and again draws that body into it, so out of Love the twenty-three principles are projected, and drawn, in the fullness of time, back into its bosom again. This reaction or journey of the universe back to its source is called universal destruction, or dissolution, or disintegration. This universal dissolution takes place when the Three Cardinal Attributes of creation, out of which all the composing principles have sprung, fall into equilibrium; in other words, become equal in power or tension. ”

“ When a chemical body breaks up into its elements, these elements are the products of its disintegration, but it is not permissible on that account to describe elements as entirely products of disintegration. ”

“ Or, again, sentiments, thoughts, dispositions, tendencies, instincts which, though intimately belonging to the individual, have been restrained, repressed, concealed from the world for one reason or another, may, being set free through dissociation 550from the repressing thoughts, rise to the surface and take part in the synthesis of the new personality.
In other words there is a rearrangement and readjustment of the innate dispositions and those deposited by the experiences of life which go to form personality. Some by the process of dissociation are expelled from the personal synthesis ”

“ And to each is appointed a fixed term of existence. Sooner or later, the balance of equilibrium is tilted, disturbance eventuates in overthrow; the tiny exquisite system finally breaks up. Of atoms, as of men, it may be said with truth, "Quisque suos patitur manes." ”

“ And just as all particular things are evolved by the force of attraction and dissolved by the force of repulsion, a state of concentration or aggregation in the individual perpetually alternating with a state of diffusion or segregation, so it is also with the material universe as a whole. ”

“ That general and systematized dissociation are phenomena which can be, and frequently are, induced by the conative force of purely subconscious processes, in view of the multiform data offered by hysterics can be open to no manner of doubt. The process may be also formulated in terms of conflict.
Laws governing the lines of cleavage of personality.—In systematized dissociation there is a cleavage between certain organized systems of experiences and 505functions and the remainder of the personality. The contracted personality is consequently shorn of much. ”

“ And to be a combination of these it was necessary that there should be a chemical union of all matter dissolved into space before man could be formed. For man's body is made of the dust of this living matter. ”

“ I shall perish molecule by molecule, feeling my own death, able to appreciate every change, every stage in the inevitable progress of corruption. That lingering process of annihilation which other men suffer unconsciously underground I shall suffer consciously above ground. ”

“ We know that the fundamental mechanism of cognition may be reduced to two antagonistic processes, association and dissociation, assimilation and dissimilation; to combine, to separate; in brief, analysis and synthesis. [71] In the formation of the generic image, as we have seen, assimilation plays the principal part; the mind works only upon similarities. In proportion as we recede from this point, we have the contrary; the mind works more and more upon differences; the primitive and essential operation is a dissociation ”

“ For decomposition causes the dissociation of the various elements. Thus, as we observe the coming together of elements giveth rise to the existence of beings, and knowing that beings are infinite, they being the effect, how can the Cause be finite? ”

“ The most different and discordant fluids, separated only by the finest film or membrane, are, as we have already observed, kept perfectly distinct, while life remains; but no sooner does the vital principle depart, than secretion, as well as the due preservation of what has been secreted, are both at an end, and the principle of dissolution reigns absolute. ”

“ I now witnessed some fearful scenes of bloodshed, and being an atom of a philosophical turn of mind, I often speculated upon the motives that induced those short-lived atomic structures called men to hasten each other’s dissolution. ”

“ Usually in all such cases the neurograms are isolated, etc., by dissociation. They still, however, may be strongly organized and conserved as an unconscious complex and sometimes may be excited as a subconscious process by an associated stimulus. In such conditions it very frequently is found that the dissociation is due to conflict between the emotion belonging to the complex and another emotional complex. The impulsive force of the latter dissociates the former complex which then cannot be voluntarily reproduced as memory, nor awakened by any association under normal conditions. ”