forces the mind to keen,
alert, constructive attention during our waking hours, a guard who
_censors_ whatever enters the conscious mind and compares it with
reality, forcing back all that is not of immediate use, or that is
undesirable, or that contradicts established modes of life or thought.
In sleep we might say that the censor, wearied by long vigilance,
presses all the material--constantly surging from the unconscious into
consciousness, there to meet and establish relations with matter--back
into the unconscious realms, and locks the door, and lies and slumbers.
Then the half-thoughts, the disregarded material, the unfit, the
unexpressed longings or fears, the forbidden thoughts; in fact, the
whole accumulation of the disregarded or forgotten, good, bad, and
indifferent--for the unconscious has no moral sense--seize their
opportunity. The guard has refused to let them pass. He is now asleep.
And the more insistent of them pick the lock and slip by, masquerading
in false characters, and flit about the realms of the sleeping
consciousness as ghosts in the shelter of darkness. If the guard
half-wakes he sleepily sees only legitimate forms; for the dreams are
well disguised. His waking makes them scurry back, sometimes leaving no
trace of their lawless wanderings. So the unconscious thoughts of the
day have become sleep-consciousness by play acting.

CONSCIOUSNESS IN DELIRIUM

At this time of our study it will suffice to say that in delirium and in
insanity, which we might very broadly call a prolonged delirium, the
toxic brain becomes a house in disorder. The censor is sick, and
sequence and coherence are lost as the thronging thoughts of the
unconscious mind press beyond the portals into consciousness, disordered
and confused. We shall later find, however, that this very disorder
falls into a sort of order of its own, and a dominant emotion of pain or
ecstasy, of depression or fear, of exaltation or depreciation calls
steadily upon the stored away incidents and remembered, related
feelings of the past and interprets them as present reality. The censor
of the sick brain is stupefied by toxins, shock, or exhaustion, and the
citadel he is supposed to guard is thronged with besiegers from every
side. The strongest--_i. e._, those equipped with most associations
pertinent to the emotional status at the time--win out, occupy the brain
by force, and demand recognition and expression from all the senses,
deluding them