s out there, nothing can be discriminated in
its detail. That background is not even made up of whole ideas and whole
memories and whole emotions and feelings and judgments and volitions,
but of loose fragments; half ideas and quarter ideas, atoms of feelings
and incipient impulses and bits of memory images are always mixed in
that half-dark background. And yet it is by principle not less in
consciousness, and consciousness itself is not different for these
contents. It is not half-clear consciousness, not a lower degree of
awareness, only the objects of awareness are crumbled and fading.

Whether these background objects really exist can only be made out by
studying carefully the changes which result under different conditions,
the influences which those loose parts have on the structure of the
whole, and the effect of their complete disappearance. I may never
really notice a little thing in my room and yet may be aware that it has
been taken away. The visual image of it was an element of my mental
background, when I was sitting at my desk, but it never before moved to
the center of my conscious content. But this center itself is also
constantly changing. Sometimes the one, sometimes the other idea may
enter into it, but in this alternation that which is not in the focus
either remains in consciousness unattended or when it disappears from it
it loses its mental character altogether. If I attend a tiresome lecture
while my mind is engaged with a practical problem of my own life, there
may be a steady rivalry between the words which come with the force of
outer stimulus to my brain and make me listen and my inner difficulties
which claim my attention. I listen for a while, and then suddenly,
without noticing it, my own thoughts may have taken the center of the
stage and again without sudden interruption a word may catch my
attention. While I was thinking of my own problem the sounds of the
lecturer were really outside of my field of attention, yet some remark
now pushes itself again into the center. That does not mean that a
subconscious mind is listening while my lucid mind was thinking, but it
does mean that those words were unattended and remained in the periphery
of the field of consciousness. But when some of the sentences stirred up
in that peripheral field some important associations, they were strong
enough to produce a new motor reaction by which the mental equilibrium
became changed again and by which the lectu