Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/163

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PARANOID DEMENTIA AS A PARADIGM.
139

It is no difficult task for the dream to condense, much less to make an analogy of two objects having an external resemblance. Such an analogy seems to exist between the kissing snake and the eating of pork sausages. The word "kiss" which produced a vivid affect in patient gives to the analogy the unmistakable sexual tinge. If a real plastic presentation is made of the process how the snake creeps to the mouth in order to kiss it, one will inevitably be struck by the symbol of coitus. According to the known mechanism of Freud "the transposition from below to above," this localization and interpretation of the act of coitus is a preferred one. This mechanism we have found in a number of both normal and psychological cases.[1] If the symbol of coitus is localized in the mouth the vague dreamlike fancy readily merges in the direction of eating, and it is for this reason that this act too is frequently drawn into the symbolism of coitus.[2] Hence it is readily understood why under this constellation the snake is changed into an edible sausage.[3] "Eating" should therefore be the analogue of kissing. The hedge hog plays the special part of an oblong animal. By its creeping to the well it seems to be blended with the snake presentation. Mouth, however, is represented by "well." Mouth can be understood as a sexual symbol if one assumes a "transposition from below to above," "well" on the contrary only if one assumes no transposition, but a figurative metaphoric designation on the basis of familiar analogy which the ancients have already applied to their fountains. Here then we encounter the "coarse sexual" symbols which we have thus far missed and which are as a rule extraordinarily prominent. Considering it from this point of view the individual details of the above association can be understood without any great difficulty. That "amphi" has human reason is not at all remarkable when it is meant to represent a man. Likewise can it be understood how the animal is "in the evacuation" (stool). There seems to be a vague analogy to an intestinal worm; the essential, however, is the localization of the symbol in the cloaca (Freud), which has already been expressed by another symbol, the "well." The obscure passage "only

  1. Compare, e. g., Beitrag VIII, Diagnost. Assoziations-Stud.
  2. See Beitrag VIII, Diagnost. Assoziations-Stud.
  3. "Sausage" is a familiar vulgar expression for penis.