Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/36

12 no attention can probably take place, and in revery there is no attention to begin with, and where this is lacking the flow of associations must sink into revery. According to the laws of association there results a slowly progressive course, tending principally towards likeness, contrast, coexistence and motor-speech combinations. Numerous examples can be observed daily by attentively following a general conversation. As Pelletier shows, the course of association in dementia præcox is constructed upon a similar scheme. This can best be seen by an example:

"Je suis l'être, l'être ancien, le vieil Hêtre, que l'on peut écrire avec un H. Je suis universel, primordial, divine, catholique, Romaine, l'eusses-tu cru, l'être tout cru, suprumu, l'enfant Jésus. Je m'appelle Paul, c'est un nom, ce n'est pas une négation, on en connait la signification. … Je suis éternel, immense, il n'y a ni haut, ni bas, fluctuat nec mergitur, le petit bâteaubateau [sic], vous n'avez pas peur de tomber."

This example shows us very distinctly the type of association in dementia præcox. It is a very shallow one and carries many sound associations. Yet the disintegration is so marked that we cannot compare it to the reveries of the normal state, but are obliged to compare it to dreams. Only in dreams is such speech observed. Rich examples can be found in Freud's "Die Traumdeutung."

In the first contribution of the "Diagnostische Associationsstudien" it was proven that diminished attention produced shallow association types, motor-speech combinations, sound associations, etc., and inversely, the appearance of shallow