loss of a finger and we had to count the buttons
to make sure of their number owing to their partial concealment
by the folds of the unbuttoned coat. The shoe-strings I am sure
under the conditions would have escaped nearly every one's
notice.[22]

[Footnote 22: Prince: _The Unconscious_, p. 53.]

Automatic writing, the method used to uncover this subconscious
perception, is a favorite method with some investigators and is often
used by Morton Prince. The hand writes without the direction of the
personal consciousness and usually without the person's being aware
that it is writing. A dissociated person does this very easily; other
people can cultivate the ability, and perhaps most of us approach it
when we are at the telephone, busily writing or drawing remarkable
pictures while the rest of us is engaged in conversation.

The present epidemic of the Ouija board shows how many persons there
are who are able to switch off the conscious mind and let the
subconscious control the muscles that are used in writing. The fact
that the writer has no understanding of what he is doing and believes
himself directed by some outside power, in no way interferes with the
subconscious phenomenon.

=Everyday Doings.= Besides perceptions which were originally so far
from the focus of attention that the conscious mind never caught them
at all, there are the little experiences of everyday life, fleeting
thoughts and impressions which occupy us for a minute and then
disappear. Every experience is a dynamic fact and no matter how
trivial the experience may be or how completely forgotten, it still
exists as a part of the personality.

An amusing example of the everyday kind of forgotten experience
occurred during the writing of this chapter. I wrote a sentence which
pleased me very well. This is the sentence: "In the esthetic processes
of evolution they [man's desires] have sunk below the surface as soon
as formed, and have been covered over by an elastic and snug-fitting
consciousness as the skin covers in the tissues and organs of the
body." After showing this passage to my collaborator and remarking
that this figure had never been used before, I was partly chagrined
and partly amused to have her bring me the following sentence from
White and Jelliffe: "Consciousness covered over and obscured the inner
organs of the psyche just as the skin hides the inner organs of the
body from vision." My originality had vanished