whelming complex. Whenever we are dominated by a complex it is only the ideas belonging to it which possess a full tone, that is, they alone possess perfect clearness, all other perceptions originating either from within or without are subject to an inhibition, through which they become indistinct, that is, they lose some feeling-tone. This is the basis for the resulting imperfection of the feeling of activity and finally for the want of emotion. These disturbances alone condition the feeling of strangeness. The reasoning faculty which is preserved in hysteria prevents the immediate outward projection as happens in dementia præcox. But if we by judgment facilitate the outward projection by allowing some superstitious ideas to creep in, there soon result explanations in the sense of a power coming from without. The clearest examples are given by the spirit mediums where a mass of insignificant things are referred to as transcendental causes; of course, it must be said that they are never as awkward and grotesque as in dementia præcox. We see something similar in normal dreams where there is outward projection with absolute certainty and ingenuousness. The psychological mechanisms of dreams and hysteria are most closely related to those of dementia preæcox. A comparison with dreams is therefore not too daring. In dreams we see how reality is spun with fanciful creations, how the pale memory pictures of the waking state assume tangible forms, and how the impressions of the environment adapt themselves to the sense of the dream. The dreamer finds himself in a new and different world which he has projected out of himself. Let the dreamer walk about and act like one awakened and we have the clinical picture of dementia præcox.
I am unable to discuss here in detail all delusions. I should like, however, to discuss briefly the well known delusions of influence. The idea of influencing of thought occurs in many forms, the most frequent being that of "thought-deprivation." The patients often complain that their thought is taken away[1] whenever they wish to think or say something.[2]
- ↑ An original form of thought-deprivation is reported by Klinke: "A patient's thoughts are made to come out by the passing to and fro of the other patients in the ward."
- ↑ Also in hysterics these manifestations are not at all rare, as I have observed. Janet calls them "éclipses mentales" (T. complains of often feeling a singular arrest of her thought, she loses her ideas), l. c., p. 369.
