4. _Hysterical attacks._ It is of practical importance to note another part which emotional complexes may play in psychopathology. In certain pathological conditions in which there is limitation of the field of consciousness (involving a disappearance of a large part of the normal mental life) often all that persists of consciousness and represents the personal self is the obsessing complex which previously tormented the patient. In hysterical crises, psycholeptic attacks, trance, and certain types of epilepsy this is peculiarly the case. In these states the content of consciousness consists almost wholly, or at least largely, of a recurrent memory of an experience which originated in the normal life and which has been conserved in the unconscious. Here the obsessing ideas, which at one time were voluntarily entertained by the subject, or, as frequently happens, originated in some emotional experience, automatically recur, while the remainder of the conscious life becomes dissociated and suppressed; in other words the obsessing ideas emerge out of the unconscious (neurograms) and became substantially the whole conscious field. In hysterical attacks, particularly, the complex is accompanied by the same strong emotional tone—such as fear, anxiety, jealousy, or anger—which belonged to the original experience. In such pathological subjects, whenever the complex is awakened, the remainder of the conscious field tends to become dissociated and the psychological state to be reproduced. Hence, in such states, the ideas repeat themselves over and over again with the recurrence of the attacks. The subject lives over again as in a dream the original attack, which is a stereotyped revivification of the original experience. This peculiarity of the mental condition in attacks has been described by various writers. The dream of the hystero-epileptic is substantially always the same. Janet has accurately described the origin and rôle of the fixed ideas in the hysterical attack. “These ideas,” he says, “are not conceived, invented at the moment; they formulate themselves; they are only _repetitions_. Thus, the most important of the hallucinations which harassed Marcelle during her cloud-attack was but the exact reproduction of a scene which had taken place the previous year. The fixed ideas of dying, of not eating, are the reproduction of certain desperate resolutions taken some years ago. Formerly these ideas had some sense, were more or less well connected with a motive. A desperate love affair had been the cause of her attempts at suicide; she refused to eat in order to let herself die of hunger, etc. To-day these ideas are again reproduced, but without connection and without reason. She has, we convinced ourselves, completely forgotten her old despair, and has not the least wish to die. The idea of suicide comes to her to-day without any relation to her present situation, and she is in despair at the idea