diminished attention, thought is rather superficially connected. The state of diminished attention expresses itself in a decrease of clearness of ideation. Whenever the ideas are not clear their differences, too, are not clear; hence our sensitiveness to differences is naturally diminished, for it is nothing but a function of attention or clearness (synonyms). Therefore there is nothing to prevent the mistaking of one idea ("psychic molecule") for another, although normally they are clearly defined. The experimental expression for this fact is the increase of mediate associations produced by the distractibility. (See Beitrag IB of the "Diagnost. Assoz.-Stud.") It is known that the mediate associations of the association experiments (especially in a condition of distraction), are generally nothing else than a displacement of an intimate connection by phrase or sound. (For example, see Beitrag I. Intr. "Diagnost. Assoz.-Stud.") On account of the distraction the psyche becomes uncertain in the choice of expression, and has to be satisfied with all sorts of errors in the speech and acoustic systems, thus resembling a paraphasic.[1] We can readily assume the external distraction in our experiments to be replaced by a complex which displays its autonomous effect beside the activity of the ego-complex. We have discussed above the resulting association phenomena. Whenever the complex becomes excited the conscious association becomes disturbed and superficial, due to an escape of attention (or inhibition of
- ↑ Kraepelin (Über Sprachstörungen im Traume, Psychol. Arbeiten, Bd. V, H. 1) is of the opinion that the proper formation of a thought is hindered by the encroachment of a distracting by-idea. On p. 48 he expresses himself as follows: "The common feature in all these observations (Dream paraphasias) is the displacement of the basal thought by the entrance of a by-association for an essential link of the chain of presentations. The derailment of speech or of thought to a by-association is due in my opinion, to lack of distinctness in the ideas." Kraepelin further asserts that "the by-idea causing the displacement of thought was distinctly a narrower and more significant idea which suppressed the more general and more shadowy one." Kraepelin calls this symbolic manner of derailment "metaphoric paralogia" in contradistinction to the purely "displacing" and "derailing paralogia." The "by-associations" are mostly perhaps associations of similarity—at all events we deal here very frequently with such—it is therefore easily understood how the paralogia has the character of metaphor. Such metaphors may give the impression, as it were, of an intentional disfigurement of the dream-thought. In this point Kraepelin is not very far from Freud's ideas.
