"APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY."
(TO THE EDITOR CP THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—As Dr. Lay considers that his subliminal self's encounter with an alarm-clock was worth putting on record, and as your reviewer thought that the episode was interesting enough to serve as a quotation, you may possibly like to publish this account of a trick played on me by my unconscious self. During seven weeks last winter I slept very little, as I was nursing my husband through a severe illness, and I was always awake at 3 o'clock in the morning. A fortnight ago, several weeks after our return to normal nights and days, my daughter went to bed early, complaining of a cold. I was not in the least anxious about her, and went to bed as usual, but woke up to hear the clock strike three, and with an almost irresistible desire to get up and go to her. As I woke more thoroughly I reflected that she would be much startled at seeing me and a candle, and would find it very difficult to go to sleep again if I roused her by opening the door, and as I felt sure that she was not in want of a dose of medicine or a hot-water bottle, I decided not to get up, as if I had done so I should certainly have given my husband a bad night, as well as disturbing my daughter, for the sake of complying with the wishes of a subliminal consciousness. Then I found myself repeating "And in the light of reason let me live," which was strangely comforting, for it was not easy to lie- still just then. Next morning she told me she had slept well, and had not wanted me in the night.
Now, it seems to me that the " strange primitive being," as your reviewer calls it, was trying to get " a bit of its own back." It has often happened that I have wished to get up at a certain hour, to poke a fire, arrange a pillow, or some such thing. This is always easy enough to do at the beginning of an illness, when the subliminal self is ready to help, and when I am in a better position to control it, than later when I am getting tired. Then it grows lazy and obstinate, and wants to sleep when I want to be awake. I have often called it names, and evidently it seized this opportunity of waking me up and
showing its zeal in a tiresome way.—I am, Sir, &c., F. S.
Previous page
