Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/149

Rh time Zähringer also means to her a nice residence in the "Zähringer quarter." Again we have a dreamlike condensation of the most multiform ideas.

18. Recently patient repeatedly uttered the following neologism: "I am a Switzerland." Analysis: Long since I affirmed Switzerland as double—I do not belong here confined—I came here free—he who is free from death and error retains a child's pure soul—I am also a crane—one cannot confine Switzerland.

It is not difficult to see how patient is Switzerland: Switzerland is free—patient "came here free," hence she should not be confined. The tertium comparationis "free" leads to a "contamination" with Switzerland. Similar but more grotesque is the neologism "I am a crane." "He who is free from debt," etc., is the familiar quotation from the "Cranes of Ibykus." Patient therefore identifies or "condenses" herself very rapidly with "crane." The analysis thus far given concerns only symbols, of the unusualness, power, health, and virtue of patient. They are purely thoughts of self-admiration and self-glorification, which express themselves in enormous and hence grotesque exaggerations. The fundamental thought: I am an excellent tailoress, I have lived respectably and therefore claim respect and financial reward, can be readily understood. We can also understand that these thoughts are the cause of many wishes, such as recognition, praise, and financial provision for old age. Before her disease patient was very poor and belonged to a family of low station, her sister being a puella publica. Her thoughts and desires express a striving to come out of this milieu and to attain a better social standing; it is therefore no wonder that her wish for money, etc., is especially accentuated. All strong wishes are themes for dreams, in which they are represented as fulfilled, not in the conception of reality, but in dreamlike obscure metaphors. In this patient the wish-fulfilling dreams go side by side with the associations of the waking state. The inhibiting ability of the ego-complex being destroyed by the disease, the complex appears in the waking state and automatically spins its dreams on the surface, in the same manner as it used to do under normal conditions, only in the dim depths of the inhibited unconscious. Dementia præcox has here pierced the investment of consciousness, that is, destroyed the function of the clearest purposive