Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/48

24 It is a contamination of (a) fine, (b) famous.

The dream is likewise an apperceptive weakness par excellence, which is especially shown by its tendency towards symbolism.

Finally there is still one more question which really should have been answered first, and that is: Does the state of consciousness in' Stransky's normal experiments really correspond to one of disturbed attention? Before all it is to be noted that Stransky's experiments in distractibility show no essential changes from the experiments with the normal, consequently neither the association nor the attention in both conditions could have been so very different. But what is one to think of the disturbance in the experiments with the normal?

It seems to me that the main reason is to be looked for in the forced character of the experiment. The test persons were instructed to talk at random, and that they have at times talked with great rapidity is shown by the fact that on an average they uttered from 100 to 250 words per minute, whereas in normal speech the average per minute is only from 130 to 140. Now if one talks and perhaps thinks more rapidly about indifferent things than he is accustomed to, he cannot bestow sufficient attention on the associations. A second point which has to be considered is the fact that most of the test persons were unaccustomed to the situation and it consequently influenced the emotional state. This may be compared to excited orators who develop a state of "emotional stupidity." In such conditions I found extraordinarily high numbers of perseverations and repetitions. Emotional stupidity causes likewise great disturbance of attention. We can therefore take it as certain that in Stransky's experiments with the normal the attention was really disturbed, although the state of consciousness is surely not clear.

We are grateful to Heilbronner for an important observation. By examining a series of associations in a case of