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.