It arises from an act of memory--for the mind must still be able to recall the past, dimly at least--but from a memory which misses its habitual support in a recognized element of constancy.

If there is no memory, that is to say, if the past is a complete blank, the mind simply feels a rupture of identity without any transformation of self.

This is our condition on awaking from a perfectly forgotten period of sleep, or from a perfectly unconscious state (if such is possible) when induced by anaesthetics.

Such gaps are, as we have seen, easily filled up, and the sense of identity restored by a kind of retrospective "skipping." On the other hand, the confusion which arises from too great and violent a transformation of our _remembered_ experiences is much less easily corrected.

As long as the recollection of the old feelings remains, and with this the sense of violent contrast between the old and the new ones, so long will the illusion of two sundered selves tend to recur.
The full development of this process of imaginative fission or cleavage of self is to be met with in mental disease.