down in sleep. And to this there may be the added
horror that, during the intervening period of oblivion (for this Self)
the same external body, actuated by another "Self," may have performed
actions and lived a course of life utterly at variance with the tastes
and desires of the primary "Self." The other Self may even have married
the common body in the interval--to a man whom the original self had
never known--does not know now! There may even have been children;
friends, environment, all, all may have been changed in the interim.
Like Rip van Winkle, the setting of life may be found to have altered;
but in some of these cases, the awakening must be the greater nightmare.
The unfamiliarity, even horror, of the situation can be imagined. Yet
many such cases exist; and the two Selves alternately usurp and
manipulate a common body; the Real Self and the Stranger. Who and what
is this Stranger? Apparently it is an alien spirit--another soul,
perchance, entangled miserably in the body of some equally unhappy
mortal! Yet modern psychology contends that such cases represent, for
the most part, mere splits or dislocations or dissociations of the
normal personality; and that the two or more Selves we see before us, at
such times, are none of them a _real_ self; but mere fragments of the
primary self, dissociated from it, owing to some shock or accident or
disease. Let us see if we can penetrate a little deeper into this
mystery of being; and lay bare the secrets of this alien Self, as well
as the original Self which owned the body from birth.

The older psychology held that the mind was a _unit_; that it was a
separate thing or entity, a sort of _sphere_, which, if it could ever be
caught, would reveal all the secrets of True Being. Accordingly, they
tried to catch this sphere-of-being, by inward reflection or
"introspection." But it was never caught! There are many reasons why
this should be so, the chief reason being that a subject cannot be an
object also; it is as impossible for a thought to catch itself as it
would be to turn a hollow rubber ball inside out without tearing the
cover.[20] But the newer psychology studies the mind objectively, from
the outside, by means of recording instruments, and does not depend upon
introspection for its results. Further, the very conception of the
nature of the "self" is different; it is not now considered an entity,
as of old; but rather a compound thing, a product, a complex, compose