All speech and all conduct, except simple reflex behavior, are presumably determined by ideas. When an individual is not aware of the purpose governing his action, we assume, in psychological study, that an unconscious motive is present, so that in either case the first step in psychological understanding of any normal or abnormal condition is to discover, if possible, what the ideas are that lead to the actions or utterances observed. In the case of stupors the situation is fairly simple, in that the ideational content is extremely limited. As has been seen, it is confined to death and rebirth fancies, other ideas being correlated with secondary symptoms, such as belong to mechanisms of other manic-depressive psychoses. It is not necessary to repeat the catalogue of the typical stupor ideas, as they have been given in an earlier chapter. Our task is now to consider the significance of these death and rebirth delusions and their meaning for the stupor reaction. Thoughts concerned with future and new activities require energy for their completion in action and are therefore naturally accompanied by a sense of effort which gives pleasure to an active mind. When the sum of energy is reduced, one observes a reverse tendency called “regression.” It is easier to go back over the way we know than to go forward, so the weakened individual tends to direct his attention to earlier actions or situations. To meet a new experience one must think logically and keep his attention on things as they are, rather than imagine things as one would like to have them. Progressive thinking is therefore adaptive, while regressive thinking is fantastic in type, as well as concerned with the past--a past which in fancy takes on the luster of the Golden Age. Sanity and insanity are, roughly speaking, states where progressive or regressive thinking rule. The essence of a functional psychosis is a flight from reality to a retreat of easeful unreality.