Divided consciousness is a term coined by

Ernest Hilgard Ernest Ropiequet "Jack" Hilgard (July 25, 1904 – October 22, 2001) was an American psychologist and professor at Stanford University. He became famous in the 1950s for his research on hypnosis, especially with regard to pain control. Along wit ...

to define a psychological state in which one's

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

is split into distinct components, possibly during

hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...

Origin(s)

The theory of a division of consciousness was touched upon by

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

in 1935 when he stated, "The so-called unity of consciousness is an illusion... we like to think that we are one but we are not." Ernest Hilgard believed that hypnosis causes a split in awareness and a vivid form of everyday mind splits. Drawing themes from

Pierre Janet Pierre Marie Félix Janet (; 30 May 1859 – 24 February 1947) was a pioneering French psychologist, physician, philosopher, and psychotherapist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory. He is ranked alongside William James and ...

, Hilgard viewed hypnosis from this perspective as a willingness to divide the main systems of consciousness into different sectors. He argued that this split in consciousness can not only help define the state of mind reached during hypnosis, but can also help to define a vast range of psychological issues such as

dissociative identity disorder Dissociative identity disorder (DID), better known as multiple personality disorder or multiple personality syndrome, is a mental disorder characterized by the presence of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states. The di ...

. In Hilgard's ''Divided Consciousness Reconsidered'', he offers many examples of "

dissociated Dissociation in chemistry is a general process in which molecules (or ionic compounds such as salts, or complexes) separate or split into other things such as atoms, ions, or radicals, usually in a reversible manner. For instance, when an acid ...

" human behavior. With regard to theory, he does state that it is useful to assign two modes of consciousness, a receptive mode and an active mode—that is, a bimodal consciousness. In other places he mentions the concept of ''coconsciousness'', wherein two or more states of consciousness may be equally receptive or active, as, for example, in some types of dissociative personalities. Many psychological studies assume a unity of consciousness. Doubt is cast on this assumption by psychophysical studies in normal subjects and those with

blindsight Blindsight is the ability of people who are cortically blind to respond to visual stimuli that they do not consciously see due to lesions in the primary visual cortex, also known as the striate cortex or Brodmann Area 17. The term was coined by ...

showing the simultaneous dissociation of different modes of reporting of a sensation, and by clinical studies of anosognosic patients showing dissociations of awareness of their own states. These and other phenomena are interpreted to imply two kinds of division of consciousness: the separation of phenomenal experience from reflexive consciousness and the non-unity of reflexive consciousness. Reflexive consciousness is taken to be necessary for report and is associated with ‘the self’ as the subject of experience and its own agent of reporting. Reflexive consciousness is operative only when we attend to our own states. When we are involved in the world, reflexivity intervenes less and our consciousness is more unified.

Experimentation

The theory has been tried and tested and some tests have proven that the theory makes some legitimate predictions. Others - such as one performed on 169 undergraduate students, some of whom performed tasks in

selective attention Attentional control, colloquially referred to as concentration, refers to an individual's capacity to choose what they pay attention to and what they ignore. It is also known as endogenous attention or executive attention. In lay terms, attenti ...

and divided attention conditions being correlated with scores on the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility - refute Hilgard’s findings. New trends in psychology and

cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental proces ...

suggest that applications of

nonlinear dynamics In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...

, chaos and

self-organization Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when suffi ...

seem to be particularly important for research of some fundamental problems regarding mind-brain relationship. Relevant problems among others are formations of memories during alterations of mental states and the nature of a barrier that divides mental states, and leads to the process called

dissociation Dissociation, in the wide sense of the word, is an act of disuniting or separating a complex object into parts. Dissociation may also refer to: * Dissociation (chemistry), general process in which molecules or ionic compounds (complexes, or salts) ...

. This process is related to a formation of groups of

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa. N ...

s which often synchronize their firing patterns in a unique spatial manner. The central theme of this study is the relationship between level of moving and oscillating

mental process Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

es and their

neurophysiological Neurophysiology is a branch of physiology and neuroscience that studies nervous system function rather than nervous system architecture. This area aids in the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological diseases. Historically, it has been dominated b ...

substrate. This presents a question about principles of organization of the conscious experience and how the experiences happen in the brain. The concept of chaotic self-organization provides a unique theoretical and experimental tool for deeper understanding of dissociative phenomena. It enables people to study how dissociative phenomena can be linked to

epileptiform Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking due to abnormal electrical ...

discharges, which are related to various forms of psychological and somatic manifestations. Organizing principles that constitute human consciousness and other mental phenomena from this point of view may be described by analysis and reconstruction of underlying dynamics of psychophysiological measures.Chaos, brain and divided consciousness. Petr Bob, Acta Univ Carol Med Monogr. 2007;153 :9-80 17867519 (P, S, G, E, B)

References

{{Consciousness Hypnosis Consciousness Consciousness studies Dichotomies Mind–body problem Mental states Psychological theories Neurological disorders Neuropsychology Neuroscience

Origin(s)

Experimentation

See also

References