Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/174

150 (comp. Flournoy), just as every split-off complex is wont to disturb the activity of another simultaneously existing complex. This may be compared to the disturbance caused by an invisible planet moving in the orbit of a visible one. The stronger the split-off complex, the more intensely will the automatic disturbances assert themselves. The best examples are offered by the so-called teleological hallucinations to illustrate which I should like to report three examples from my experience.

1. A patient in the first stages of progressive paralysis wished in his despair to kill himself by jumping from a high window. He got upon the window ledge, but at this moment there suddenly appeared in front of the window a powerful light, which practically threw him back into the room.

2. A psychopathic individual to whom, on account of some misfortunes, life became unbearable wished to commit suicide by inhaling gas from an open jet. He inhaled the gas forcibly for a few seconds, when he suddenly felt a heavy hand grasp him by the chest which threw him to the floor, where he gradually recovered from his fright. The hallucination was so impressive that the following day he could still indicate the place where he was grasped by the five fingers.

3. A Russian-Jew student, who later developed a paranoid form of dementia præcox, related to me the following: Under pressure of great unhappiness, he resolved to become converted to Christianity, although he was orthodox and entertained strong religious scruples against changing his faith. Finally, after a hard struggle, he determined to take the step. With this thought he fell asleep and dreamed that his dead mother appeared to him and admonished him against it. After his dream his religious scruples became stronger, so that he was unable to make up his mind to go over to Christianity. Thus he was wretchedly tormented for a few weeks longer until forced by his persistent distress he once more decided to apply for conversion. That night his mother again appeared to him in a dream and said, "If you do this I will choke you." This dream had such a terrifying effect on him that he definitely decided to desist from becoming a convert, and to escape his misery he emigrated to a foreign land. We see how in this case the repressed religious scruples made use of the strongest symbolic arguments, i. e., the