Page:Freud - Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses.djvu/208

 CHAPTER X.

The delusional formations of paranoiacs containing the greatness and sufferings of their own ego, which manifest themselves quite typically in almost monotonous forms are universally familiar. Furthermore, through numerous communications we became acquainted with the peculiar organizations by means of which certain perverts put into operation their sexual gratifications, be it in fancy or reality. On the other hand it may sound rather novel to some to hear that quite analogous psychic formations regularly appear in all psychoneuroses, especially in hysteria, and that these so called hysterical fancies show important relations to the causation of the neurotic symptoms.

Of the same source and of the normal prototype are all these fantastic creations, so called reveries of youth, which have already gained a certain consideration in the literature, though not a sufficient one. They are perhaps equally frequent in both sexes; in girls and women they seem to be wholly of an erotic nature, while in men they are of an erotic or ambitious nature. Yet even in men the significance of the erotic moment is not to be put in the second place, for one examining more closely the reveries of men we generally learn that all these heroic acts are accomplished, that all these successes are acquired in order to please a woman and to be preferred to other men. These fancies are wish gratifications which emanate from privation and longing. They are justly named "day dreams" for they give the key for the 194