GIFT OF THE LOVE LIFE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND JOSEPH RALPH A MESSAGE OF INTEREST THE LOVE LIFE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND By JOSEPH RALPH Author of How to Pyscho-Analyze Yourself Published by the Author LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA Copyright by JOSEPH RALPH 1921 Press of Times-Mirror Printing &. Binding House Los Angeles, Calif. PEEFACE This booklet virtually constitutes a special chapter of How to Psycho- Analyze, Yourself, and is in amplification of Chapter XVIII in that work entitled, The Psychology of Disturbing Dreams. Many inquiries have been received by the writer for fur- ther information as to the significance of certain factors in the recurring dream (i.e., the dream in which certain partic- ular features are repeatedly dreamed), and this brochure has been written in response thereto. JOSEPH EALPH 3205 E. Fourth St. Long Beach, California, THE LOVE LIFE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS OME time ago I endeavored to explain to a friend the principles that are connected with unconscious repressions, and the mental conflicts which result therefrom. I am afraid that I made rather a sorry failure of my efforts ; for after I had concluded my arguments my friend very gravely remarked: "Well, all that which you have said has heen very interesting; hut I hardly think that I am afflicted with any unconscious conflicts; anyway, if I am I don't know it." I suggested to my friend that his remark was somewhat analogous in effect to what would be the case, if, having been accused by his good wife of having talked in his sleep, he offered as evidence in defense the statement that he could not have done that with which he was charged, for the simple reason that he could not remember anything about the experience. Most people are ready to accept the principle that be- neath the horizon of consciousness there exist certain stra- tums of mental activity of which there can be no conscious apprehension ; but there is nevertheless a tendency to think that, somehow or other, a person ought to have some con- scious knowledge of these unconscious mental processes. There seems to be an inability to realize that by the term unconscious there is implied a state of mental activity and forms of psychical influences of the nature and trend of which the individual can have no realization whatever. GOVEKNING PSYCHO- ANALYTIC PKINCIPLES It is very necessary to apprehend the two following psycho-analytic principles if the governing influences of the human personality are to be understood : (a) The motivating influences of the personality are unconscious. (b) Until ascertained by psycho-analysis, the individual cannot possess any conscious knowledge of the nature and trend of the unconscious mental activity that constitutes the governing factors of his own personality. As stated in Chapter XVIII of How to Psycho- Analyze Yourself, all recurring dreams reveal the fact that in the unconscious mental life of the dreamer there exist certain starved love yearnings. Eecurring dreams indicate that some particular wish or tendency (often of an infantile nature), persists in smol- dering in the unconscious mental depths. No small amount of the hostility that is encountered in life arises from misunderstanding; and a great deal of the opposition which Freudian principles have encountered in some directions has been because the exact character of these principles has been misconstrued. At first glance a person may consider that he has some justification for reacting very strongly to the idea that a staid, prosaic, and extremely circumspect spinster (for example), might experience erotic strivings in her uncon- scious mental life, and which could be of such a strong and persistent character as to pronouncedly tinge her general temperamental disposition, and yet at the same time for her to be wholly ignorant of such conditions. The reader may furthermore be even more sceptical if advised that it is not necessary to go so far afield for such an illustration as the foregoing, and can find somewhat sim- ilar conditions (to some degree or other), in his or her own 6 unconscious mind by applying the psycho- analytic test thereto. DEVOLUTION OF PKIMITIVE INSTINCTS In Chapter X of How to Psycho- Analyze Yourself I described the causes of unconscious conflicts; and in Chapter XXIII I sketched in outline some of the difficulties which the child has to surmount in its struggle towards attaining cultural responsibility. The reader will therefore be prepared to realize the significance of that which I will now set forth. The evolution of a desirable personality implies the devolution of certain primitive instincts. Ethical require- ments demand that crude and primitive psychical elements shall be sublimated (refined) into higher channels of expression. Among other lessons which the child has to learn is that society cannot be best served when the individual directs his efforts toward purely selfish aims. He must (for example), become grounded in the first principle of altru- ism: a regard for the interest of others. He must learn (oftentimes by many painful experiences), that this world was not created for his special personal benefit ; and he has to realize that he cannot and must not do just as he may feel disposed. He has to remember, in fact, that he is only a unit in a vast and highly complicated commonwealth, in relation to which he has many personal obligations. Of all of the primitive impulses which the child has to bring under restraint the sexual is the most prominent, the most dominant, and the most insistent. This being the case it naturally follows that a greater psychical struggle hinges around the cultural harnessing of the sexual instinct in the individual's struggle towards a status of personal responsibility than is the case with any other primitive characteristic. THE URGE OF LIFE The urge of life manifests itself as energy. No matter whether we consider the efforts that are put forth by the athlete, the strength that is evidenced by the manual laborer, the application of purpose that is exemplified by the attainments of the explorer, the intensive mental concentra- tion that is brought into requisition by the student or sci- entist, or the driving force that enables the business man of heavy responsibilities to accomplish his purposes : the sus- taining factor in all of such instances (the driving force), is one and the same, viz., psychic energy. It should be understood that the physical and psychical functions of the human mechanism are not motivated by different sets of vital processes, in which one vital process would relate to mental activity, another to physical endur- ance, another to the demands of nutrition, and another to the requirements of the purely sexual functions. There is only one form of energy involved in all of such instances. Cultural requirements demand that ideas which relate to the purely sex aspects of sexual activity shall not be per- mitted to be persistently visualized in the consciousness; and a loosening of restraint in this respect would lower the standard of mental altitude upon which the well-being of a highly evolved society depends for its existence. Never- theless, ignorance in relation to this subject may have as harmful effects as any that are produced by positively wanton actions oftentimes. All concrete ideas are based upon certain memory associations, and which memories are revived in a more or less vivid manner whenever thoughts that relate to them are dwelt upon. The consequence of this principle is: if certain thoughts have a tendency to revive distasteful mem- ory associations, there will come into effect a strong incli- nation on the part of the individual to repress (banish) such painful thoughts from the consciousness. 8 THE SEXUAL IMPULSE is MORE THAN A MERE FUNCTION It is a comparatively easy attainment to repress out of the consciousness all direct ideas that relate to the sexual impulse ; but there is only one means by which this impulse can be extinguished, and that is by actual somatic death. For this impulse is not a mere function ; it is a principle of life. Not only would human life be unable to persist without this principle, it could not exist. The difference between the primitive savage and a highly cultured individual can be expressed by the one word subli- mation; and the struggle of the child towards a desirable status of social responsibility consists in a persistent applying of sublimating efforts. The motivating factors in the psychic life of the savage and that of the cultured individual are one and the same. The crude elements in the psychical foundations of these two divergent types are identical in character. Those which exist in the latter instance are refinements of what occur in the former. In the savage the urge motivates along primitive levels ; it is unrefined, and flows unrestrictedly along lines of least psychical resistance. In the cultured unit this urge is raised to higher levels of expression. In the savage, the urge of life has only primitive aspira- tions ; it consequently finds its means of expression in chan- nels that are crude. In the highly evolved type of mankind this urge reaches satisfying outlets at higher cultural alti- tudes. Two EXAMPLES OF SUBLIMATION Florence Nightingale and Frances Willard may be cited as instances where the principles of sublimation were well illustrated. In both of these cases the life's urge reached out to high levels of expression; self was subordinated to the interest of others. In the application of their 9 respective purposes these two women directed the whole force of their respective psychic energies. Florence Nightingale and Frances Willard had high ideals. They therefore harnessed their psychic energy (their life's urge), to an attainment of their high purposes. They consequently sublimated their primitive impulses to the lofty altitude of altruistic endeavor. The energy that Florence Nightingale used in braving the horrors of Scrutari, and which Frances Willard utilized in the interest of social reform, was one and the same basic principle that is possessed by the savage, and which every other type of individual possesses in common. By reason of restricted memory associations some peo- ple have a difficulty in realizing that the actuating energy that exists behind the noble efforts of a Florence Nightin- gale or a Frances Willard is one and the same in general principle of which some anasmic souls would deny the existence in their own psychical constitutions; yet such is the actual case. The urge of life may find as many different levels of expression as there are individuals in existence; but, still, there is only one form of urge. If, because of narrow memory resources, a person is unable to think of the sexual instinct without there being developed in the consciousness some more or less vivid ideas relating to the purely sex functioning aspects of that instinct (and which is a tendency which the ultra prudish individual shares with the one who is irredeemably vulgar), then so inuch the worse for the diseased mental attitudes of such people. To the unimaginative, a lump of coal tar is nothing but a black and unappealing viscous mass ; to the analytic chem- ist it is a world of infinite possibilities from which he is able to distill a range of substances of the most transcen- dent beauty and practical utility. A somewhat analogous set 10 of conditions exist in relation to possible concepts in relation to the sexual impulse, REPKESSION vs. SUBLIMATION It is comparatively easy to free the consciousness of concrete sexual thoughts; in fact such an attainment as that is merely a natural concomitant to a healthy mental attitude. Let it be remembered, however, and f orevermore, that if mere efforts at repression are manifested, without any actual sublimation of the impulse being accomplished, then the individual in question will only have succeeded in accomplishing a make-believe condition of psychical hygiene. Difficulties cannot be disposed of by any such simple expediency as that of turning the mental back to them. If it were possible to accomplish a difficult purpose by any such simple method as that, then this world would not be a par- ticularly ennobling place in which to live ; for there would not exist any premium on individual effort. Sublimation of the sexual instinct does not imply that no thoughts of sex must ever occupy the consciousness ; for a total absence of all conscious ideas in that respect can quite strongly indicate the existence of conditions which have a serious pathologic significance. The governing fac- tor in such instances is that of their hygienic complexion. The first step toward sublimating the sexual impulse consists in adopting toward it a healthy mental attitude. It must be realized that, if instead of sublimation, this impulse is repressed, very serious psychical trouble is courted. The sexual instinct is a manifestation of kinetic energy; it is an urge that is continually striving for expression. If this urge is not designedly utilized, and in accordance with cultural requirements, it will strive for, and find an outlet along undesirable lines. 11 VOCABULARY or THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND The test of sublimation attainments is to be found in the nature of the dream experiences of the individual. If there have been no repressions, and all thoughts in rela- tion to the sexual impulse have been healthily disposed of in the consciousness, there will be no dreams persistently revolving around erotic ideas. On the other hand : if, instead of a sublimation of this impulse, it has been crudely repressed (which is virtually a denial to one's self of the existence of any sex thoughts or sex feelings, or some other similar form of unhealthy mental attitude), then the true conditions will be revealed by the phenomena of recurring dreams. The unconscious mind will continually strive to express what the consciousness has repressed. As described in How to Psycho -Analyze Yourself, a dream is a disguised expression of a repressed wish; and in the recurring dream the unconscious mind persistently repeats some repressed yearning. In the conscious life we do not continually alter the sym- bols which we use as a medium for exchanging ideas ; for we have a more or less stereotyped means for expressing our thoughts. The written and spoken word symbols which we use today for the purpose of exchanging ideas we will probably utilize again tomorrow in case we desire to exchange the same ideas. It is by means of custom and usage such as this whereby a language becomes evolved. As is the case with intellectual thought symbols so it is with unconscious methods of expression. When the unconscious mental mechanism has gravitated to the utiliza- tion of a certain series of symbols for expressing its yearn- ings it will continue to use those same symbols every time those same yearnings come into activity. If, for example, the pictorialized idea of the individual's climbing of stairs, or passing through a series of rooms, serves as a symbol by which some repressed wish or yearn- 12 ing can be expressed, then that set of ideas will always constitute the media whereby that particular wish or yearn- ing can be expressed in the recurring dream. In course of time, therefore, the unconscious mind of every person builds up a vocabulary by means of which it can express its disguised tendencies; and although this vocabulary will not be identical with all people, it will con- tain some characteristics which are common to the race. There exists, in fact, a certain range of hereditary uncon- scious mental symbols : a form of unconscious racial vocab- ulary. An Arabian nomad would never dream of missing a train nor of being whisked by an elevator to the upper floor of a tall office building. Nor would an American stock-broker be likely to dream of riding camel-back over a desert. Never- theless, both of such seemingly diverse types of dreams would possess common associative roots; so that if the Arab dreamed of his riding-camel having broken loose from camp and the American broker dreamed of losing the Twen- tieth Century Limited, they would virtually be expressing similar unconscious ideas. By means of the vast amount of evidence which has been gathered from many sources, by many patient inves- tigators, it is now known that certain ideas have special significance when they are featured in dreams; and by a decoding of the real meaning of many of these symbols by such investigators as Freud, Stekel and Kaplan, etc., a great deal has been accomplished in uncovering the strivings of the unconscious mind as expressed in dreams. A recurring dream is a persistent utilization of certain particular symbols on the part of the unconscious mind by which it expresses its yearnings ; and which persistent utili- zation of particular symbols takes place whenever the uncon- scious mind experiences certain recurring sensations. 13 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EECUKKING DREAM So-called goodness can, under certain conditions, consist of rank stupidity. On the other hand, mere negative good- ness is almost as deplorable as is positive badness. Failure to sublimate the crude sexual impulse does not wholly hinge on the status of the ethical aspirations of the personality; it often results from a lack of sensible appre- hension of certain fundamental requirements. If the good St. Augustine had only possessed a little psycho-analytic knowledge he would never have felt him- self driven to supplicate God to hold him blameless for the nature of his dreams. Eecurring dreams indicate that there has been a failure to adjust the insistence of the sexual impulse in conformity with the best interest of the personality and of social requirements. They indicate that there has been an inability to either raise the quality of this impulse to higher sublima- tion levels on the one hand, or to healthily treat it in con- formity with the realities of life on the other. Eecurring dreams show that the sexual impulse has been repressed without having been satisfactorily sublimated. They are evidence that this principle of life's energy has neither been adequately utilized physically, nor refined to higher altitudes of expression. If a person has high ethical aspirations, he will realize that the purely physical aspects of the sexual impulse can- not be granted unlimited license. In order to comply with cultural demands, therefore, there is only one of two pos- sible courses of action that are open to the individual: he must either repress the insistence of this impulse or else sublimate it. Now to repress means an attempt to stifle- whereas to sublimate implies to utilize. There is therefore no option of conduct from which the ethical individual can choose and yet at the same time be psychically healthy. Sub- limation consequently becomes a cultural necessity. 14 DKEAM SYMBOLS The pictorialized ideas that serve as symbols of expres- sion in recurring dreams are of many types, of which the following are a few of the most common examples : The person dreams of ascending or descending stairs, going through passage-ways, halls, or a number of rooms, swimming, rowing, flying, gliding, swinging, riding horse- back, running, ascending in a balloon or airplane, falling over precipices, struggling to catch trains or other means of conveyance, or missing connections in these respects, registering on or off at hotels, viewing certain forms of buildings or other structural objects, carrying, handling, or in other ways treating such articles as hand-bags, trunks, umbrellas and walking sticks, etc., etc. With some people animals figure prominently in the recurring dream; some of which are fierce and menacing while others are benign. With many people snakes and other forms of lowly life figure prominently. The recurring dreams of some people revolve around the act of losing something or other, such as an article of jewelry or clothing. Some people persistently dream of losing teeth or undergo some other disagreeable sensation. In all such experiences the point of significance does not relate to the exact nature of the idea which is drama- tized in the dream, but lies in the fact that some particular idea persistently recurs. Every recurring dream has an erotic significance. THE SEXUAL MOTIVE POWEB A successful sublimation of the sexual impulse is gov- erned by two requirements : (a) the cultivation of a healthy mental attitude towards that impulse, and (b) a rightful harnessing of the energy connected with it in accordance with social demands. In Will Power While You Wait (Chapter XX, How to 15 Psycho -Analyze Yourself], I have shown the necessity of the individual's having an interest object; a failure to acquire which will seriously handicap all other efforts that may be made towards psychical adjustment. This interest object consequently becomes the channel in which the energy which constitutes the motive power of the sexual impulse can desirably and satisfyingly flow. If this available energy is not directed into desirable channels it will cut courses of its own; and which courses will not be in the best interest of the individual. This energy exists, and cannot be stifled. If it is not therefore used rightly it will most certainly spend itself harmfully, and in directions which will be psychically destructive. It is now known that it is this unharnessed energy of the sexual impulse which is the pathogenic factor in all neurotic disturbances and cases of so-called nervous breakdown. Ignored, unutilized, and oftentimes despised (considered to be something too " unclean " for some types of unhealthy minds to think about), and consequently unsublimated, this insistent force of a fundamental principle of life carves out blind channels of release in the unconscious psychical mechanism and goes on the rampage. Every form of nervous ailment indicates that there exists in the unconscious mechanism of the sufferer a disturb- ance in the natural rhythm of the psycho-sexual impulse. Such nervous conditions betray, without exception, that there has been repression without sublimation. THE WOEKING PEESSUBE OF THE INDIVIDUAL The energy which exists behind the sexual impulse is the motive power to all human achievements. It constitutes the working ability of the individual. It is to the personality what pressure per square inch is in physical mechanics. It is the boiler power behind all forms of mental and physi- ological effort. 16 This impulse is not a mere function; it is a principle of life. The purely sex attribute of this impulse is virtually the least significant of its avenues of utilization, and is merely an incident to broader considerations. With some people this motive power becomes released at low psychical levels ; whereas in the case of others it is raised (by sublimating efforts), to the most exalted peaks of expression. In all instances, however, the energy is one and the same in basic quality. Nature does not supply a particular form of psychical energy for the savage and another form for the altruist. The molecular gyration which exists in the blood corpuscle of a troglodyte is identical in character with that which exists in the case of a St. Francis of Assisi or of a Darwin. The principles of Nature are not patchy in their constitu- tion, but are universal. OUK BEST is ON THE OUTSIDE In the struggle toward a status of cultural responsi- bility the personality has to surmount many psychical obstacles; and few indeed are those who succeed in their efforts to a degree of perfection. Consequently : although the principles of Nature are not patchy in their constitution, an application of those prin- ciples can produce an infinite variety of effects. * * As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. ' ' And accord- ing to the unconscious thoughts of the individual so will be the nature of the personality. Hitherto it has been complacently assumed that it is the worst part of the individual's self which is on the outside. People have found it to be extremely comfortable to believe (or to try to believe), that the exterior part of the person- ality is the worst, and is merely a superficial layer to higher and more refined psychical characteristics existing within. Psycho-analysis, however, has proved that an altogether 17 opposite state of affairs is the case. It has demonstrated that it is the best, and consequently the most socialized attributes of the personality which exists on the outside; and that it is the worst, the primitive, the uncultured, and consequently the least socialized psychical tendencies which lie within. It is always the best side of the personality which is presented towards the world. In man's unconscious men- tal processes vestiges of the archaic survive. Beneath the veneer of civilization the savage in man still exists ; and in the daily actions we find these primitive tendencies con- tinually manifesting themselves. The farther we are removed from cultural restraint the more pronouncedly these strains become revealed. In our private lives we are there- fore always more primitive in our actions than when we are exposed to the social gaze; we are even more so in our thoughts ; while in the unconscious mental life the ancestral strains of the brute are latent factors which have always to be reckoned with. Sublimation is the only true hall mark to psychical wholesomeness ; and the greater the degree of smug respect- ability with which some individuals would seek to impress the world the greater the evidence that in such cases the sublimating processes have attained the least degree of desirable results. Smug respectability is an attempt, by conscious deport- ment, to compensate for an unconscious disreputableness. The concept that it is the worst which is without, and that it is the best which is within, is accountable for the long train of psychical miseries that are so profuse in the social life. It is this erroneous concept which is responsi- ble for having filled our asylums, and for having inflicted upon society a multitude of neurotics. 18 PENETKATING THE DISGUISE OF THE EECURRING DEEAM No one who is really happy, and whose life's urge is strongly projected towards some desirable interest object, will continue to experience recurring dreams. When a recurring dream is split up into its elemental parts, the condensations and displacements disintegrated, and the free association method applied thereto (as fully described in Chapter X of How to Psycho- Analyze Your- self), the dreamer will soon find himself face to face with memories which he will be able to interpret in an entirely new light. In this analysis there must be no shrinking back from whatever ideas may spring forth into the consciousness ; for nothing will come up from the unconscious mental depths but what, at some time or other, under some condition or other, has been repressed down into it in an unsublimated form. Nothing will be created by this analyzing process ; there simply occurs a liberation of mental material which has existed for a long time, but of the quality of which the con- sciousness has persistently endeavored to deny. In this analytic work the individual will come face to face with some of the motivating factors of the real self, and will consequently be able to adjust some of the psychical inharmonies accordingly. The latent factors in the recurring dream represent traces of unsublimated psychical grime which have been accumulated by the personality in the struggle along the trail towards cultural responsibility : grime which has been covered over without having been psychically sterilized. When the disguise of the recurring dream has been pene- trated (and the unconscious meaning has been thereby revealed to the consciousness), the dream will cease to recur. There will be no more persistent dreams of climbing stairs, floating through space, or of some other seemingly innocent 19 sets of ideas being dramatized in the dream. The individ- ual will have peered into the recesses of his soul and will thereby have identified the unsublimated sexual character- istics of the psychic life which have been buried there pos- sibly since the days of pre-adolescence. MAKE-BELIEVE PUKITY OF MIND Eecurring dreams furnish indubitable evidence that the individual has endeavored to believe himself to be better than he really is ; they indicate that there has been an ignor- ing of the practical aspects of the principle expressed in the aphorism: As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Sublimation of the sexual impulse implies a refining of the attributes of that quality. It means a raising of the pitch of expression of that principle from a low to a high psychical level. It does not mean a denial of the insistence of that impulse, but an application of its potential qualities to cultural achievements. If this energy is not designedly harnessed (and its inherent features thereby socialized), it will turn bolshevik in the unconscious psychic life ; it will run wild. It is a condition such as this which is responsible for many serious forms of mental, psychical, and physiological disturbances with which society is afflicted. When driven from the consciousness down into the unconscious mental life, this repressed energy acts like a swirling current against an unstable bank, and with destruc- tive effects. For a time this action proceeds unrecognized by the consciousness, but the undermining influences are none the less dangerous. HARNESSING THE ENERGY In order to harness this energy it must be hitched up to some strongly beckoning and constructive interest object, the nature of which must largely depend upon the govern- ing characteristics of the individual. 20 This interest object must be of a nature which will pro- vide intensity of attention and hopeful striving. As long as this interest object is of a socially desirable character its exact nature is immaterial. For that matter no two individ- uals will have similar inclinations in this respect. Each individual temperament must have his or her own particular interest object to wards which there can be directed the kinetic energy that pertains to the sexual impulse. The poetic temperament sublimates by directing the urge into efforts to express the human emotions and pas- sions in pleasing symphony and song. The musician (with equal special adaptability), utilizes the principles of har- mony, melody and rhythm in interpreting the emotional striv- ings of the ego. The artist finds his particular sublimation avenue by translating the aesthetic in terms of gratifying physical renderings. The author strives to accomplish a similar purpose by directing his efforts at supplying the sum of some department of human knowledge for the edu- cation of others. The ascetic strives towards his sublima- tion goal by means of processes of rigid ritualistic observ- ances. The person who is possessed of a fierce realization of the unjust inequalities of various social conditions turns the full power of his or her urge into efforts at adjusting those conditions. The scientist, with his reasoning and inquiring mind, transforms the full brunt of his primitive energy into mental application. Other people, less construc- tively inclined, find substitute channels for their psychical energy in the prosecution of hobbies, indulgence in sports, and in the taking up of various studies. They all strive after the same goal, even if they follow different routes. SO-CALLED NEBVOUS BKEAKDOWN An attentive mind is a contented mind. On this prin- ciple hinges the outcome of the individual's efforts at sub- limation. 21 The first requisite towards attaining this goal is to have a desirable interest object. The person who is lacking in a strongly beckoning interest object is psychically moribund. The energy which is contained in the sexual impulse must be harnessed; and if this harnessing is not applied in a normal and constructive manner it will most certainly break out and go on the rampage in an abnormal and destructive manner. It is now known that the multitude of so-called nervous diseases with which modern society is afflicted are products of displaced sexual energy. In such cases the energy which, rightly applied, would constitute the constructive influence to great achievements, virtually becomes a destroying curse. Having been deprived of an adequate expression at levels of low psychical pitch, and not having been elevated to higher outlets, this crude insistent energy breaks out over its natural banks, flows over into the molec- ular constitution of the physiological processes and, by dis- rupting them, produces disorganization; and which disor- ganization is known as d i s e a s e. It may be hard to realize that the person suffering from a so-called nervous breakdown has, in reality, as much energy at his disposal as has an athlete or a forceful cap- tain of industry ; nevertheless such is the case. A so-called nervous breakdown is not a breaking down of energy resource, but is a breaking out of the unutilized aspects of that quality. Where this energy is under con- trol, and is constructively applied, it is the creative influ- ence in all human endeavor. But where it is beyond con- trol, and consequently exerts itself destructively, the result is disastrous. THE PSYCHICAL The recurring dream is a sure indication that the per- sonality is afflicted with a psychical "drag." It shows that there is lack of harmony in the unconscious love life; and 22 there is consequently a lack of physical energy in the con- scious mental life. In order to attain to psychical freedom the individual must bring the unsublimated strivings of the repressed sexual impulse into alignment with the conscious endeavors. Until this is accomplished the personality is virtually split. The consciousness is pulling in one direction and the uncon- scious strivings are pulling in another. The nature of these unconscious psychical "drags" can be ascertained to a very material extent by decoding the symbolized expressions that are contained in the recurring dream. When this is achieved the consciousness appre- hends its unconscious weaknesses and is able to adjust the conscious mental attitude accordingly. The disguise of the recurring dream should be analyzed away, and its hidden meaning thereby laid bare to conscious recognition. When this is accomplished the hitherto existing split in the personality becomes annealed. A personality derives its strength by apprehending and adjusting its weaknesses. Nosce te ipsum. By these means the personality becomes released from its psychical "drags." 23 The Price of This Booklet is Fifty Cents Orders Should Be Addressed to JOSEPH RALPH P.O.BOX 639 LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA HOW TO PSYCHO-ANALYZE YOURSELF THEORY AND PRACTICE OF REMOLDING THE PERSONALITY BY THE ANALYTIC METHOD By JOSEPH RALPH HIS book has been written with the purpose of enabling people to apply the principles of psycho-analysis by self -efforts. The author is a practicing an- alyst; and the methods of instruc- tion set forth in this work are based upon the personal experience of the writer, both in relation to his own self and in consulting room prac- tice. This is not a text-book; it is a working manual of instructions. It is the first book that has been written by a practicing analyst in the interest of popular application. A Handsome Volume, Six Inches by Nine Inches, 300 Pages PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR Orders Should Be Addressed to JOSEPH RALPH P. 0. 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