I want to teach you how to fish. I not only want to teach you how to fish, but to show you where the fishing is good.

I do not want you to fish for physical fish, however; nor for compliments. I want you to fish for ideas— your own ideas.

The ideas are your own in that you are supposed to hold a form of equity interest in them. But having an equity in something or other and being in actual possession and enjoyment of it are two altogether different considerations.

It is precious little good to hold an equity in some­thing or other if we cannot do with that something or other just what we like, when we like, and as we like. If we cannot use a thing as we may want to, and when we may want to, we might as well not humor ourselves with the idea that we have any actual ownership in the affair.

I want to introduce to you the free association of ideas.

In developing flows of free associations of ideas the thoughts are allowed to flow without any conscious intervention at all; no matter whether such thoughts are pleasing or unpleasing, seemingly relevant or the opposite.

Now I don't mean by this that, in some way or other, you take the lid off your unconscious mental cauldron, and invite a flowing into the consciousness of whatever motley procession of ideas may be in­clined to pour forth; for even if you succeeded in do­ing this the result would not be very helpful; in fact, it might be quite the contrary.

We know that every idea that comes into the con­sciousness has roots that trail away down into the un­derlying mental storehouse; and we also know that if we can succeed in tracing these roots downward from the consciousness to their beginnings in the uncon­scious, we shall uncover the birth point of that idea— the buried memories from which the idea has emanated.

If we take a certain idea, therefore, and hold it in the consciousness as a bait, so to speak, and then allow it to be superseded by another one purely by inherent sympathetic association, and continue to withhold all conscious analysis, criticism, judgment, co-ordination, or any other form of intellectual intervention, the stream of thoughts that consequently pass across the horizon of consciousness will be a flow of free asso­ciation of ideas.

In free association, the idea that occupies the con­sciousness at any given moment liberates the next one purely by reason of some sympathetic association between them, and without being influenced by any intellectual interference.

In intellectual thinking you are challenging, ana­lyzing, judging, and otherwise "sizing up" the ideas that come up into the consciousness; using those that seem to be what are required, and relinquishing the rest. Thinking is therefore a persistently applied sorting-out process.

In developing flows of free association of ideas it is necessary completely to side-track these intellectual efforts, and for the consciousness to be a mere spec­tator of what transpires. The subject must watch the mental procession that passes in review before the consciousness and not interpose any intellectual in­terference whatever.

The sort of mental attitude aimed at is not a hard one to acquire, and is in reality more of a "knack" than anything else.

You must remember that no thought comes up into the consciousness by chance.

Every thought that occupies the peak of conscious­ness, even if for only a fleeting fraction of a moment, has either been forced up there by underlying influ­ences or attracted there by surface conditions.

If you will therefore hold an idea in the conscious­ness for a moment, and then wholly refrain from in­terposing any intellectual influences, a flow of mental associations will develop that will constitute the memory roots of the thought that has been used as "bait." And if those associations are allowed to flow wholly uninfluenced, they will bring into conscious recognition the exact memory sources to which the "bait idea" belongs.

In free association of ideas, the stimulus idea that is held in the consciousness (the "bait") is linked up in a very definite way with some particular set of memories somewhere down there in that vast uncon­scious; and if we can succeed in following the line of associations which connect these two factors we shall be able to apprehend, fully and vividly, just what influence the underlying set of ideas has on the individual's conscious conduct; for we shall have traced the line from effect to cause.

The free association method is the open road to an understanding of the processes whereby the conscious conduct is controlled by the unconscious mind; and if this method is rightly applied you can practically rebuild your conscious personality.

I once asked a friend to develop a flow of free associations. To suggest some stimulus idea for this purpose—a point of mental departure—I informed the gentleman in question that he could indicate the name of a place, a person's name, an object, or merely suggest some abstract subject. I intimated that, on hearing any such suggestion, I would permit my men­tal associations to flow unrestrainedly up to a certain point.

My friend then uttered the word "pueblo," and as I mentally sat back and permitted my thoughts to flow unrestrainedly, without interposing any conscious interference, without looking for any logic, se­quence, or relevancy, a stream of ideas closely ap­proximating the following coursed across my con­sciousness:

/ am in Pueblo, Colorado, and then am sitting out in the open observation car of a Denver & Rio Grande Western train as it travels westward up the Royal Gorge. It is hot; mosquitoes are bothersome out on the fiat to the west of Salt Lake City, and I find myself on a mountain slope at Sausalito on the northern coast of San Francisco Bay. I have a disagreeable experience (which I cannot describe under the pres­ent conditions) with a person whose temperamental qualities are antithetical to my own.

At this point I must cease extending a free descrip­tion of details, for there bubbled up into my consciousness certain thoughts and realizations of an extremely personal nature, a description of which would serve no very practical purpose in the present instance, even if no personal reasons existed to re­strain me.

It is not necessary to attempt to explain the princi­ples that caused my thoughts to jump around in the way they did, and flit with lightning rapidity from memories of an observation car in the Royal Gorge to a scene of oral hostilities with a person on the northern slope of San Francisco Bay. Sufficient to say that all flows of free associations, with everyone, fol­low similar seemingly erratic principles. And when you let your own free associations flow in a little mental experiment you will find that they will follow similar influences as was the case in the personal illustration which I have given. It will be found that the thoughts (memories in fact) will flow first this way and then in another way, and without any ap­parent governing principles; though, as a matter of fact, such flows of ideas are governed by laws that are as undeviating as those of gravitation.

When I came to the point where my associations were related to my innermost self (so that I felt con­strained to cease giving utterance to them), my friend indulged in a chuckle. He furthermore exhibited a rather skeptical attitude when I told him that all freely flowing mental associations eventually lead clear into the very core of the unconscious thought tendencies that constitute the exact foundations of the personality.

However, telling my friend that it was now his turn to contribute to the psychological experiment, I used the first idea that occurred to me and requested him to permit his thoughts to flow unrestrainedly from that idea, and to utter them aloud so that I could hear them.

Standing on a shelving ridge of the dining-room where we were seated was a hand-painted dinner plate, and as one suggestion was as good as any other for the purpose of my experiment I uttered the word "plate," and then sat back to watch developments.

For a few moments my friend's associations flowed uninterruptedly, and there was no restraint in regard to his giving utterance to them; but there soon en­sued a slight hesitancy. After a moment or so, how­ever, the thoughts started to flow freely again, and with my "patient" giving utterance to them quite unrestrainedly.

It was not long, however, before another slight hitch occurred in the freeness of the associations, so that an experience of hesitancy once more developed momentarily; but this break soon became repaired and he gave utterance to a further spurt of associa­tions.

Choosing a period of hesitancy which I considered a good one for my purpose (and acting immediately the hesitancy occurred), I asked my friend to explain the reason for the periodical breaks. He replied: "Nothing seemed to come into my mind for a mo­ment; my mind seemed to be a blank for a time."

I then suggested to my subject that there was more than a modicum of truth, after all, in what David said about the standard of veracity manifested by mortal kind. I furthermore intimated that there was even a particular significance where certain subjects for ana­lytical experiments are concerned.

My friend then asked me whether I was suggesting that he was lying when he stated that the reason why there were breaks here and there in his utterances was because of "blank spots" in his conscious­ness. And I frankly told him that the evidence was certainly in favor of such an assumption.

I asked him whether there was not some slight in­consistency between the excuse he now made for the breaks in his flow of free associations, and the agree­ment he had previously extended to me to the effect that mental consciousness presupposed the existence of some form of ideas in that consciousness. He ac­knowledged that there was an apparent variance existing in the two instances which I cited.

I then suggested to my "victim" that if he would go off to a quiet spot, close his eyes, bring the body to a state of general rest, and then take some idea as a stimulus (of any sort whatever—no matter whether name of place, person, an object, or some abstract idea), and then mentally speak the thoughts that de­veloped, that his flow of mentally ejaculated ideas would be as continuous and persistent as a stream of running water; that there would not be one moment of so-called mental blankness.

My subject told me that he thought that he could control his mind sufficiently well enough to follow the plan I suggested without having to go off into the country; so, closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair and embarked on the new experiment. After indulging in this effort for a few minutes he confessed that my intimation was quite correct, and that in his little "private" experiment there was no break in the flow of mental associations.

Then, as an afterthought, he made the important confession that his free associations eventually brought him face to face with thoughts and tendencies that constituted the actual motivating factors of his gen­eral temperamental qualities.

A clear understanding of the conditions involved in developing free associations of ideas is absolutely necessary if you hope to apply the analytic method in remedying mental and temperamental defects; and although this ability is, as previously intimated, only a "knack," it is nevertheless very necessary that these principles are clearly understood.

Bear in mind the following governing factors in this connection: During every moment of the waking state, a stream of thoughts is continually passing across the horizon of consciousness; and when this stream of thoughts (which actually constitutes con­sciousness) is not being designedly directed, it will flow solely in accordance with sympathetic associa­tions.

If there is any break in the freeness of the flowing mental associations, the reason is that there is a more or less pronounced emotional storm existing in the unconscious mental mechanism.

In such instances the evidence is conclusive that, in the upward flowing stream of thoughts from the un­conscious, some elements have made an appearance that contain features more or less painful or undesir­able to the consciousness; with the result that (either deliberately or involuntarily), the consciousness inter­poses a defence against their appearance in the con­scious thought-streams; hence a more or less pro­tracted mental storm becomes developed. It is this storm that is responsible for the seeming breaks in the flowing associations.

These emotional storms will eventually be found to constitute a prevailing feature in the free associa­tion experiences; and for the simple reason that it is the exact object of the analytic method to uncover and disintegrate, not the pleasing nor the innocuous elements existing in our unconscious mental lives, but those that are unpleasing and actively harmful.

Interruptions in the steadiness of the flow of mental associations are always indications of the coming into activity of painful thoughts.

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