simolinic

By no means comprehensive, just typing:

p. 28, about conversation and how what we say is generally only heard as relatively the same thing we meant: ”As long as concepts are identical with mere words, the variation is almost imperceptible and plays no practical role. But when an exact definition or a careful explanation is needed, one can occasionally discover the most amazing variations, not only in the purely intellectual understanding of the term, but particularly in its emotional tone and its application. As a rule, these variations are subliminal and therefore never realized.”

p. 29 “These subliminal aspects of everything that happens to us may seem to play very little part in our daily lives. But in dream analysis, where the psychologist is dealing with expressions of the unconscious, they are very relevant, for they are the almost invisible roots of our conscious thoughts. That is why commonplace objects or ideas can assume such powerful psychic significance in a dream that we may awake seriously disturbed, in spite of having dreamed of nothing worse than a locked room or a missed train.”

p. 29 “In our conscious thoughts, we restrain ourselves within the limits of rational statements — statements that are much less colorful because we have stripped them of most of their psychic associations.”

p. 31 “Yet the emotions that affect us are just the same [as those of primitive humans]. In fact, the terrors that stem from our elaborate civilization may be far more threatening than those that primitive people attributed to demons. […] Instead of God or the “fear of God,” there is an anxiety neurosis or some kind of phobia. The emotion has remained the same, but its object has changed both its name and nature for the worse.”

p. 32 “It is far more difficult for this educated man to make an admission of this kind [that a morbid phobia of cancer had control over him, despite concrete evidence that he was cancer-free] than it would have been for a primitive to say that was plagued by a ghost. The malign influence of evil spirits is at least an admissible hypothesis of primitive culture, but it is a shattering experience for a civilized person to admit that his troubles are nothing more than a foolish prank of the imagination. The primitive association of obsession has not vanished; it is the same as ever. It is only interpreted in a different and more obnoxious way.”

p. 33 “Such messages from the unconscious are of greater importance than most people realize. In our conscious life, we are exposed to all kinds of influences. Other people stimulate or depress us, events at the office or in our social life distract us. Such things seduce us into following ways that are unsuitable to our individuality. Whether or not we are aware of the effect they have on our consciousness, it is disturbed by and exposed to them almost without defense.”