V. The Dissociation of Human Personality During Initiation

A young man stood confronted by an examination which would probably decide his entire future life. For a long time previously, he had worked for it assiduously, and consequently, on the evening before the examination, was exceedingly tired. He was to appear before the examiners punctually at eight in the morning of the following day. He wanted to have a night's restful sleep before the trial, but he feared lest, on account of his exhaustion, he might not be able to wake himself at the right hour. He therefore took the precaution to arrange that a Person living in the next room should wake him at six o'clock by knocking at his door. Thus he was able to abandon himself to sleep with an easy mind. On the following day he awoke, not at the call of his neighbor, but out of a dream. He heard six sharp rifle-reports, and with the sixth he was awake. His watch—equipped with no alarm—stood at six o'clock. He dressed himself, and after half an hour his neighbor awoke him. In reality, it was only just then six o'clock, for his watch, by some accident, had gained half an hour in the night. The dream which awakened him had timed itself to the erroneous watch. What was it, then, which happened here? The soul of the young man had remained active even during his sleep. Because he had previously formed a connection between this activity of soul and the watch at his side, there had remained a connection between the two for the whole of the night, so that on the next day the soul came, as it were, to the hour of six simultaneously with the watch. This activity had impressed itself on the young man's consciousness through the pictorial dream already described, which had awakened him One cannot explain it away by reference to the increasing light of day or anything similar, for the soul acted not in accordance with the real time of day, but with the erroneous watch. The soul was active like a veritable watchman while the physical person slept. It is not the activity of the soul which is lacking in sleep, but rather a consciousness of that activity.