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PCT 11(1):3-56 (1988)

Further Observations on the Poetzl Phenomenon: The Effects of Subliminal Visual Stimulation on Dreams, Images, and Hallucinations

Author: Charles Fisher MD

Editor's Statement

In publishing Dr. Charles Fisher's article, which originally appeared in its complete version only in the French journal L'Évolution Psychiatrique, some 25 years ago, we not only wish to honor our distinguished colleague, but also to affirm the contemporary relevance of his seminal contributions to the subliminal field of research. Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists are currently studying mental activities occurring outside conscious awareness, viewed as the initial phase in the processing of information. Though these contemporary researchers, with few exceptions,
Dr. Fisher is in the Department of Psychiatry, Mt. Sinai Medical Center, One Gustave Levy Place, New York, New York.
This is the original English version of the paper presented to the Groupe de l'évolution Psychiatrique, July 1958, Paris, France. It was published, translated into French by Dr. I. F. Foncin, in L'évolution Psychiatrique, 1959, 4: 541-566.
Page 3
avoid reference to the Freudian model, their work converges on many points with earlier, psychoanalytic concepts and previous research findings in the psychoanalytic domain. In his brief but lucid historical overview (to be found at the end of the present article as Addendum II), Dr. Fisher touches on some of the parallels between the disciplines.
L.G.

In recent years I have been able to confirm the findings of the classical experiments of Otto Poetzl, first carried out in 1917, to the effect that those parts of tachistoscopically1 exposed pictures that are not noticed or perceived are nevertheless registered, transformed into memory traces, and utilized extensively in the manifest content of subsequent dreams, images, and hallucinations. These experiments have turned out to have important implications for the psychology of the dream process, the relationship of the primary to the secondary process, the theory of perception, and ego psychology in general, because they throw considerable light upon the mode of functioning of the ego a

PCT 11(1):3-56 (1988)

Further Observations on the Poetzl Phenomenon: The Effects of Subliminal Visual Stimulation on Dreams, Images, and Hallucinations

Author: Charles Fisher MD

Editor's Statement

In publishing Dr. Charles Fisher's article, which originally appeared in its complete version only in the French journal L'Évolution Psychiatrique, some 25 years ago, we not only wish to honor our distinguished colleague, but also to affirm the contemporary relevance of his seminal contributions to the subliminal field of research. Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists are currently studying mental activities occurring outside conscious awareness, viewed as the initial phase in the processing of information. Though these contemporary researchers, with few exceptions,
Dr. Fisher is in the Department of Psychiatry, Mt. Sinai Medical Center, One Gustave Levy Place, New York, New York.
This is the original English version of the paper presented to the Groupe de l'évolution Psychiatrique, July 1958, Paris, France. It was published, translated into French by Dr. I. F. Foncin, in L'évolution Psychiatrique, 1959, 4: 541-566.
Page 3
avoid reference to the Freudian model, their work converges on many points with earlier, psychoanalytic concepts and previous research findings in the psychoanalytic domain. In his brief but lucid historical overview (to be found at the end of the present article as Addendum II), Dr. Fisher touches on some of the parallels between the disciplines.
L.G.