We see that consciousness is not fully and evenly aware of all our actions; some actions with their accompanying mental process can be carried on by an independent stream and, as in the case of the pianist, the streams are of such balanced complexity that we can regard them as co-equal. Others, like turning over the pencil, are associated with such a lack of awareness that they hardly seem conscious, and if they are regarded as due to a split-off stream the stream is a very minor one.
This loss of awareness can be carried further, and actions involving complicated processes can be performed without the main personality knowing of them. The easiest example by way of illustration is automatic writing, often carried out by Planchette, which is a small platform mounted on wheels and bearing a pencil whose point touches a sheet of paper. If two people, sitting opposite each other, place their finger-tips upon the platform it immediately begins to move, for unless the muscular push of one operator is absolutely balanced by that of the other the apparatus moves away from one of them; the other person straightway resists the movement and pushes in an opposite direction, and thus a see-saw motion is kept up which the operators cannot stop. The resulting scrawls on the paper may be deciphered according to fancy, but with practice a legible product is obtained; further, some people are able to concentrate the mind upon, or in other words fill the stream of consciousness with, another set of ideas by means of talking or reading, so that the automatic writing is carried on by a split-off stream of which the main stream is unaware. One person can use Planchette alone, though the experiment is oftener carried out as described above because unintended movements are more readily produced by two operators.
By this trick of splitting-off, or dissociation, the operator is able to allow ideas and memories from the unconscious to come to the surface unrestrained by the cramping control of the consciousness; hence the product of the automatism is usually fantastic and imaginative, though memories are available which may be beyond the reach of the consciousness.
An excellent example of this dissociation is given in _The Gate of Remembrance_, a book which I shall consider later.