Hidden Minds (32 page)

Much work on the Poetzl effect has been undertaken since 1917, and the phenomenon seems to be fairly robust. Indeed, the Poetzl effect reliably survives different modes of presentation. If stimuli are presented subliminally, or if stimuli are presented supraliminally (but are unattended), links can be made between original presentations and the later entry of related material in awareness. Although the return of information in dreams is the most well-researched example of the Poetzl effect, many other methods have been used to catch these extraordinary rebounds from the unconscious, for example, fantasy drawings, doodles, responses to the Rorschach test and word association.

What then, are the practical uses of the Poetzl effect?

Firstly, there is some evidence to suggest that Poetzl-type phenomena can be employed diagnostically. The unattended elements of pictorial presentations that appear in dreams may indicate areas of psychopathology that are ordinarily inaccessible to consciousness. Secondly, and more speculatively, the Poetzl effect might be used to exercise a benign influence on the content of dreams. Again, this would be most relevant for individuals suffering from chronic nightmares. Subliminal presentations of comforting images might possibly ‘crowd out’ nightmare images. Such a treatment would be particularly useful for very young children, for whom drugs or behaviour therapy might not be an option. Interestingly, the Poetzl effect has been reported in the context ofthe symbiotic merging fantasy stimulus. Some heroin addicts who received subliminal exposures of’Mommy and I are one’ later reported dreams in which a mother figure rescued a child.

Most people have had the experience of struggling to solve a problem, having to give up on account of its difficulty, only to have the solution miraculously pop into awareness at a later stage. This phenomenon is all the more remarkable because usually no effort to solve the problem is made between giving up and getting the answer. So well recognised is this effect that people grappling with seemingly intractable problems are routinely advised to ‘sleep on it’.

Psychologists have called the period that extends from ‘giving up’ to ‘getting the answer’ the incubation period. Although conscious thought is abandoned, it is assumed that important unconscious or preconscious processes are taking place. These unconscious processes that assist in the solution of problems sometimes become visible in dreams. An image or symbol appears which somehow encapsulates the essence of a solution.

Descartes famously resolved to develop his own approach to philosophical enquiry after a complex dream involving whirlwinds, cryptic books, and mysterious figures; the physicist Niels Bohr gained insight into the structural properties of the atom when he had a dream about a racecourse in which the horses ran in lanes corresponding with the orbit of electrons; and the chemist Friedrich Kekulé solved the structure ofthe benzene ring when, while dozing, he had a vision of hydrogen and oxygen atoms joining together in a circle.

However, it is artists, rather than scientists, who seem to have drawn the greatest inspiration from dreams. The romantics positively cultivated a rich dream life in order to liberate fully formed works of art from the unconscious. Coleridge’s ‘Khubla Khan’ remains the seminal example, but there are many more. The poet and artist William Blake claimed to have learned a new engraving technique (relief etching) from his dead brother who appeared to him in a vision or ‘dream’, and the composer Tartini first heard the music of his
Devil’s Trill
sonata played by the devil in a dream. The music of Stravinsky’s
The Rite of Spring-
perhaps the most influential composition of the twentieth century – was also first heard in a dream.

Mozart, on the other hand, did not need to be in a dream to tap his uniquely productive unconscious. Inspection of Mozart’s original manuscripts shows that his compositions went through very few drafts and required comparatively few corrections. Moreover, it is well known that Mozart could compose while he seemed to be fully engaged in other activities. A game of billiards didn’t stop him from composing masterpieces. Even though he was concentrating on a shot, the process of composition proceeded without effort. It is also clear that Mozart was able to conceive compositions ‘whole’. Complete works, that would unravel over extended periods of time in performance, seemed simply to appear in his mind, polished to perfection in a single moment.

Such extraordinary feats strongly suggest the presence of a hidden intelligence, continuously labouring below the threshold of awareness. It seems implausible to suggest that Mozart’s endlessly inventive music was the result of compositional skills that had become automated through practice; however, the potential of insensible neural reflexes shouldn’t be underestimated.

It is well known, for example, that the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich could hear music if he tilted his head to one side. This bizarre phenomenon was the direct result of an injury. During the First World War a splinter of metal from a shell became embedded in his brain. Presumably, when Shostakovich tilted his head, the splinter moved and stimulated the auditory apparatus. This resulted in the automatic production of perfectly coherent music. Allegedly, some of the music that Shostakovich heard in this way was so impressive he later incorporated it into his compositions.

Whether works of art produced with little or no conscious effort are the result of a hidden intelligence or a set of neural reflexes is a debate of hardly any concern to creative artists. They are much more interested in the more pressing issue of exploiting the unconscious.

In many respects, the methods of exploiting the unconscious favoured by the romantics are linked by self-annihilation. Opium, merging with nature, pursuing extremes of emotion (even to the point of welcoming insanity), are all ways of dissipating or weakening the everyday, conscious self. This is of considerable interest insofar as contemporary research has shown that self-awareness interferes with task performance – particularly if the task in question has been automated through practice. Thus, in many respects, it makes perfect sense to eliminate conscious control of the creative process. The mechanisms that govern creativity will work more efficiently if consciousness has been dissolved – albeit temporarily

The tradition of self-annihilation did not end with the romantics. Indeed, many twentieth-century artists, particularly those who broke new ground, aspired to a state of non-being while working. William Burroughs, for example, is supposed to have written
The Naked Lunch
(1959) in a state so dissolute that he had no recollection of having written any of it. Moreover, the painter Francis Bacon worked long hours, ceaselessly modifying images, in an attempt to lose his ego and facilitate the transition of unconscious material directly on to the canvas.

We live in a culture which deifies artists. Critics and academics pore over biographical details in an effort to establish links between the artist’s life and work, but the entire enterprise might be misconceived. Examining an artist’s ego will more than likely only reveal inhibitory factors. To understand the dynamics of creativity requires access to an altogether different biography, the secret biography of the unconscious.

Ironically, a potentially beneficial use of the unconscious is featured in Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel
Brave New World.
In Huxley’s chilling vision of the future, children are educated (or rather indoctrinated) in their sleep, using a technique called
hypnopaedia.
The advantages of being able to deliver education during sleep are obvious. Information can be acquired without any effort and waking hours can be used for more leisurely pursuits. Unfortunately, until recently, sleep-learning had little, if any, scientific credibility. Over the past twenty-five years, however, evidence for the efficacy of sleep-learning has been mounting. Moreover, much of this evidence has sprung from an unexpected source – the literature on surgical anaesthesia.

For as long as general anaesthesia has been in use, surgeons have been intrigued by patients who, although entirely unconscious during the course of an operation, wake to report certain experiences. The most detailed and expansive of these are the now well-known out-of-body and near-death experiences. Typically, patients report leaving the body, being able to observe the surgeons operating, and journeying through a long tunnel to a realm of light. At the more pedestrian end of the spectrum are reports of theatre staff conversations that took place while the patient was supposed to be asleep. Although not as impressive as near-death experiences, such reports are nevertheless extremely puzzling. They seem to suggest that the unconscious brain can listen, learn, and remember.

Inspired by these anecdotal reports, a small group of researchers began to test the brain’s ability to learn under general anaesthesia. An early and memorable study conducted in the mid 1960s, involved the staging of a mock crisis during surgery. It was found that four out of ten patients could recall the crisis under hypnosis, and another four could remember that there was some sort of problem but could not remember the specific details.

From the 1980s investigations into learning during general anaesthesia became less dramatic but more controlled. After receiving a general anaesthetic, patients were ‘played’ informative tapes. Prior to surgery, the experimental group answered 37 per cent of general knowledge questions correctly. After surgery, their hit rate rose to 62 per cent.

More recently psychologists have focused on more subtle procedures to detect learning during anaesthesia. In a typical contemporary study, a recording of a word list is played to patients while they are undergoing surgery. After waking, they are given a special kind of memory test – known as an implicit memory test – to see if any of the words were registered in the unconscious brain.

The term ‘implicit memory’ is used by psychologists to describe memory for knowledge which is not associated with a particular learning experience. We have already encountered this concept in the context of patients suffering from anterograde amnesia (see
Chapter 7
), who can learn new skills and facts but cannot remember acquiring this information. They feel like they are guessing the answers to questions, but discover that they are guessing right. Implicit memory can be thought of as unconscious memory. Therefore, tests of implicit memory are designed to detect unconscious learning.

A memory test of this kind might involve presentation of the word
javelin
to a patient during surgery. After waking, the patient might then be shown the letters
j
and
a
and instructed to think of a word beginning with these two letters. If learning has occurred, then the patient is more likely to reply ‘javelin’ than ‘jam’ or ‘January’.

There is now quite a large body of work on the subject of implicit memory for words presented during general anaesthesia. Approximately half of these studies have produced positive results. That is, patients completed unfinished letter stems using words that they had heard while asleep more frequently than would be expected by chance. Although only half ofthe studies have produced positive results, this is by no means insignificant. The fact that sleep-learning occurs at all is in direct contradiction to received scientific wisdom.

Even so, a few caveats are in order. Recent findings suggest that memory for information presented during surgery is somewhat short lived. Thus, positive results are more likely to be achieved if memory tests are administered immediately after surgery. The longer the interval between surgery and the administration of implicit memory tests, the fewer the words remembered. In addition, there seems to be a relationship between memory effects and depth of anaesthesia. Shallow anaesthesia produces better implicit memory for words than deep anaesthesia; thus, it would appear that the closer the sleeping brain is to consciousness, the more receptive it is to learning.

The somewhat patchy and inconsistent results obtained from investigations of sleep-learning have been explained with reference to a number of factors. Obviously, fluctuations in depth of anaesthesia ranks high among them; however, in addition, it has also been suggested that hormone levels have a significant impact on the brain’s capacity to register or record information.

From a subjective point of view, the brain is experienced as being ‘on’ or ‘off’. Even in dreams, we experience the brain as being switched on. Although dreams might well represent activity in the unconscious, we, as observers or actors in the dream, are definitely not unconscious. When we reflect on our dreams, we endorse an implicit assumption that the brain is operational.

The sleep-learning literature seems to suggest that our subjective experience of the brain being On’ or ‘off’ is misleading. In reality, between the two theoretical extremes of coma and hypervigilence might be a graded continuum of functioning. Moreover, some of these levels of functioning proceed efficiently in our absence. Even though we are switched off, our brains are still switched on. If this were not the case, then experimental investigations of learning under general anaesthesia would not have produced a single positive result.

In this sense, it would be true to say that the unconscious never sleeps.

F
reud’s celebrated assertion that – after Copernicus and Darwin – he had delivered the third and most wounding blow to a narcissistic human race appears in his
Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis.
According to Freud, ‘the ego is not even master of its own house, but must content itself with scanty information of what is going on unconsciously in the mind’.

It isn’t necessary to be a disciple of Freud, or a devotee of psychoanalysis, to subscribe to this view. The pith of Freud’s argument can be drawn out from the husk of psychoanalytic theory without loss of integrity and coherence: human thought and behaviour are determined largely by unconscious processes. We obey orders that are issued from below the threshold of awareness, and we obey like automata.