Thus it continued for five weeks, when one morning after a protracted sleep, she awoke and was herself again. She recognised the parental, the brotherly, and sisterly ties as though nothing had happened, and immediately went about the performance of duties incumbent upon her, and which she had planned five weeks previously. Great was her surprise at the change which one night (as she supposed) had produced. Nature bore a different aspect. Not a trace was left in her mind of the giddy scenes through which she had passed. Her ramblings through the forest, her tricks and humour, all were faded from her memory, and not a shadow left behind.... Of course her natural disposition returned; her melancholy was deepened by the information of what had occurred. All went on in the old-fashioned way.... After the lapse of a few weeks she fell into a profound sleep, and awoke in her second state, taking up her new life again precisely where she had left it when she before passed from that state.... All the knowledge she possessed was that acquired during the fews weeks of her former period of second consciousness. She knew nothing of the intervening time.... In this state she came to understand perfectly the facts of her case, not from memory, but from information.

Yet her buoyancy of spirits was so great that no depression was produced. On the contrary, it added to her cheerfulness, and was made the foundation, as was everything else, of mirth.

These alternations from one state to another continued at intervals of varying length for fifteen or sixteen years, but finally ceased when she attained the age of thirty-five or thirty-six, leaving her permanently in her second state. In this she remained without change for the last quarter of a century of her life.

The emotional opposition of the two states seems, however, to have become gradually effaced in Mary Reynolds.

The change from a gay, hysterical, mischievous woman, fond of jests and subject to absurd beliefs or delusive convictions, to one retaining the joyousness* and love of society, but sobered down to levels of practical usefulness, was gradual. The most of the twenty-five years which followed she was as different from her melancholy, morbid self as from the hilarious condition of the early years of her second state. Some of her family spoke of it as her third state. She is described as becoming rational, industrious, and very cheerful, yet reasonably serious; possessed of a well-balanced temperament, and not having the slightest indication of an injured or disturbed mind. For some years she taught school, and in that capacity was both useful and acceptable, being a general favourite with old and young.

During these last twenty-five years she lived in the same house with the Rev. Dr. John V. Reynolds, her nephew, part of that time keeping house for him, showing a sound judgment and a thorough acquaintance with the duties of her position.

"Dr. Reynolds, who is still living in Meadville," says Dr. Mitchell, "and who has most kindly placed the facts at my disposal, states in his letter to me of January 4th, 1888, that at a later period of her life she said she did sometimes seem to have a dim, dreamy idea of a shadowy past, which she could not fully grasp, and could not be certain whether it originated in a partially restored memory or in the statements of the events by others during her abnormal state.

"Miss Reynolds died in January 1854, at the age of sixty-one. On the morning of the day of her death she rose in her usual health, ate her breakfast, and superintended household duties! While thus employed she suddenly raised her hands to her head and exclaimed: 'Oh! I wonder what is the matter with my head!' and immediately fell to the floor. When carried to a sofa she gasped once or twice and died".

For another and more detailed account, see "Mary Reynolds: a Case of Double Consciousness," by the Rev. W. S. Plummer, D.D., in Harper's Magazine for May 1860 (reprinted in pamphlet form together with Dr. Stevens' report of the "Watseka Wonder," referred to in 238 A, - by the Religio-Philosophical Publishing House, Chicago, 1887). The most important additional details in this account are: (1) Immediately after falling asleep in her secondary state, Miss Reynolds would sometimes narrate audibly what she had done the day before, and plan what to do the next day; which plans she would duly carry out, - as if they were post-hypnotic suggestions, - unless prevented. (2) The first time she was in the secondary state, she recovered through dreams some of the knowledge that she had lost while awake. She dreamt that she heard a man preach and explain passages in the Bible to her, and after the dream seemed to regain all her knowledge of the Bible, though at the time unable to read it. In the same dream she saw and talked with a woman, whom she did not recognise, but described minutely on waking; and the description was said to correspond exactly to a dead sister, whose existence while awake - she had forgotten.

After this she often dreamt of the same sister, and also of another dead friend.