My Library

similar memory and states, "This is the object or action you are seeing." It is only after critical analysis that some semblance of what actually was perceived comes to light. There are many good illustrations of this phenomenon. One of the best is the visit to Mr. Bahnson's house in the morning. The mind, having no reference in its memory of the object being placed in the back of the car (Van DeGraff generator), identified properly its approximate size, the round, wheellike protuberance on a post, and the base platform, and reported erroneously that it was a child's automobile. The mind properly reported the boy and the baseball, because this was a part of its memory-bank data. However, it ran into a problem on the motion of Mrs. Bahnson in handing out the morning mail. This was reported as "dealing cards," but the mind was faced with the incongruity of playing with large white cards (letters) at a table filled with dishes. The idea of "card playing" was the least impossible similar event in the memory association, so that was the unit retained. Of equal interest was the experience of the airplane crash reported in Chapter 11. Here was a whole series of events filled with much sensory data, filtered by the mind's past associations. Added to this was the rapid superimposure of information, so that the sequence of events in time added to the confusion. The impression of taking a trip by airplane was quite accurate. However, the mind "forgot" that there was a bus trip to the airport first. Consequently, in reporting the loading of the bus, the impression was that this was the airplane. In boarding the bus, the mind perceived the driver waiting beside the door. In an attempt to identify the man, the memory was searched and the most similar person in past experience (D.D.) was selected as the person encountered. (The physical similarity between the bus driver and D.D. when compared later was most remarkable.) Recognition of the woman in the seat ahead and her discomfort was another form of misinterpretation. The, discomfort or anxiety was accurate, the reason wrong. The mind had not determined the cause of the woman's anxiety, so it related it to the individual, as some answer was demanded. Then, the flying low and slow over streets was a perfect description of the event itself—the bus traveling the turnpike to the airport—except that the mind was still fixed on the idea of flying in an airplane. The mind still held fixedly on the "fact" that the plane flight had already begun. When the plane encountered the storm, the mind reported the plane flying under power and telephone wires because it could not translate directly the effect of the storm.