tions of thought-influence, imperative ideas with the character of strangeness, the cessation and disappearance of thought (appropriately designated by one of my patients as "Gedankenentzug"—thought deprivation), and inspirations (pathological fancies), etc. Gross states that the catatonic manifestations are "changes of the will brought about by an agent which is conceived as external to the ego-continuity, and is therefore referred to as a strange power." They are a "substitution of the will of the ego-continuity by a crowding in from outside of another conscious series." We have to keep in mind that many association series can simultaneously flow in the organ of consciousness without influencing one another. From these series in consciousness one will have to become the carrier of the continuity of consciousness, while the other association series are then naturally "subconscious," or rather, "unconscious." Now at all times there is a possibility that also in these the nervous energy swells up and reaches such a stage that one of its end organs becomes endowed with attention, which means that a joint from the unconscious association series pushes itself illegitimately into the continuity of the dominant one. If these conditions are fulfilled, the accompanying subjective process can be only of such a nature as any psychic manifestation entering into consciousness in an unadjusted manner, and is therefore perceived by the conscious continuity as something entirely foreign. Ideas of explanation are almost inevitably added, the referred psychic manifestation (idea) originating not from the ego-consciousness, but thrown into it from without.[1] As aforesaid, the displeasing part in this hypothesis is the assumption of synchronous independent association series. Normal psychology does not furnish us with any facts on this point. Where we can best observe split-off series of ideas, namely, in hysteria, we find that the opposite holds true. Even where one deals with apparently totally separated series, one can find somewhere in some hidden location the bridge leading from one series to the other.[2] In the mind all stands in connection with all, the present psyche is the result of milliards of constellations.
