This is another of these malleable hallucinations which the patient had daily. It is one of those scenes of wish-fulfilment, with poverty on one side and riches on the other, recalling Hauptmann's Hannele; more especially that scene where Gottwald says: "She was clothed in rags—now she is bedeckt in silken robes; and she ran about barefoot—now she has shoes of glass to her feet. Soon she will live in a golden castle and eat each day of baked meats. Here has she lived on cold potatoes...."
The wish-fulfilments of our patient go even further. Switzerland has to furnish her with an income of 150,000 francs. The Director of the Burghölzli owes her 80,000 francs damages for wrongful incarceration. She is the proprietress of a distant island with silver mines, the "mightiest silver island in the world." Therefore she is also the greatest orator, possesses the most wonderful eloquence, for, as she says, "Speech is silver, silence gold." To her all the beautiful landed estates belong—all the rich quarters, towns and lands, she is the proprietress of a world, even a "threefold proprietress of the world." Whilst poor Hannele was only elevated to the side of the Heavenly Bridegroom, our patient has the "Key of Heaven," she is not only the honoured earthly queens Mary Stuart and Queen Louise of Prussia, but she is also the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God as well as the Godhead. Even in this earthly world where she was but a poor, ill-regarded homely dressmaker she attained fulfilments of her human wishes, for she had taken three husbands from the best families in the town and her fourth was the Emperor Francis. From these marriages there were two phantom children—a little boy and a little girl. Just as she clothed, fed and feasted her parents, so she provided for the future of her children. To her son she bequeathed the great bazaar of Zürich, therefore her son is a "Zur," for the proprietor of a Bazaar is a "Zur." The daughter resembles her mother; hence she becomes the proprietress of the asylum and takes her mother's place so that the mother is released from captivity. The daughter therefore receives the title of "Agency of Socrates," for she replaces Socrates in captivity.
These instances by no means exhaust the delusional fancies of the patient. But they will give you some idea, I hope, of the richness of her inner life although she was apparently so dull and apathetic, or, as was said imbecile, and sat for twenty years in her workroom, where she mechanically repaired her linen, occasionally uttering a complex of meaningless fragments which no one had hitherto been able to understand. Her odd lack of words can now be seen in another light; they are fragments of enigmatical inscriptions, of fairy-story phantasies, which have escaped from the hard world to found a world of their own. Here the tables are ever laden, and a thousand feasts are celebrated in golden palaces. The patient can only spare a few mysterious symbols for the gloomy dim shores of reality; they need not be understood, for our understanding has not been necessary for her for this long time.
Nor is this patient at all unique. She is one of a type. Similar phantasies are always found in patients of this kind, though not always in such profusion.
The parallels with Hauptmann's Hannele show that here likewise the artist has shown us the way with the free creation of his own phantasy. From this coincidence, which is not accidental, we may conclude that there is something common both to the artist and the insane and not to them alone. Every human being has also within himself that restless creative phantasy which is ever engaged in assuaging the harshness of reality. Whoever gives himself unsparingly and carefully to self-observation, will realise that there dwells within him something which would gladly hide and cover up all that is difficult and questionable in life, and thus procure an easy and free path. Insanity grants the upper hand to this something. When once it is uppermost, reality is more or less quickly driven out. It becomes a distant dream, and the dream which enchains the patient wholly or in part, and often for life, has now the attributes of reality. We normal persons, who have to do entirely with reality, see only the products of disordered fancy, but not the wealth of that side of the mind which is turned away from us. Unfortunately only too often no further knowledge reaches us of the things which are transpiring on that other side, because all the bridges are broken down which unite this side with that.
We do not know to-day whether these new views are of universal or only of limited validity; the more carefully and perseveringly we examine our patients, the more we shall meet cases, which, despite apparent total imbecility, will yet afford us at least some fragmentary insight into the obscurities of the psychical life. This life is far removed from that mental poverty which the prevailing theories were compelled to accept.
However far we are from being able to understand fully the concatenations of that obscure world, at least we may maintain, with complete assurance, that in dementia præcox there is no symptom which can be described as psychologically baseless and meaningless. The most absurd things are in reality symbols of ideas which are not only generally understandable, but also universally operative in the human heart. In insanity we do not discover anything new and unknown, but we look at the foundation of our own being, the source of those life-problems in which we are all engaged.
Part II.[201]
The number of psychoanalytic investigations into the psychology of dementia præcox has considerably increased since the publication of my book upon the subject.[202] When, in 1903, I made the first analysis of a case of dementia præcox, there dawned on me a premonition of the possibilities of future discoveries in this sphere. This has been confirmed.
Freud first submitted a case of paranoid dementia to closer psychological investigation.[203] This he was enabled to do by means of an analytic technique perfected through his rich experiences with neurotics. He selected the famous autobiography of P. Schreber, "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken." The patient could not be analysed personally, but having published his most interesting autobiography all the material wanted for an analysis was to be found in it.