Wit and its relation to the unconsciousFreud, Sigmund
Science
Wit and its relation to the unconscious
Freud, Sigmund
Subconsciousness; Wit and humor -- Psychological aspects
Here, physiology shows the way in that it teaches us that even while an
idea is in the process of conception innervations proceed to the
muscles, which naturally represent only a moderate expenditure. It is
now easy to assume that this expenditure of innervation which
accompanies the conception of the idea is utilized to represent the
quantitative factor of the idea, and that when a great motion is
imagined it is greater than it would be in the case of a small one. The
conception of greater motions would thus actually be greater, that is,
it would be a conception accompanied by greater expenditure.
_Ideational Mimicry_
Observation shows directly that human beings are in the habit of
expressing the big and small things in their ideation content by means
of a manifold expenditure or by means of a sort of _ideational mimicry_.
When a child or a person of the common people or one belonging to a
certain race imparts or depicts something, one can easily observe that
he is not content to make his ideas intelligible to the hearer through
the choice of correct words alone, but that he also represents the
contents of the same through his expressive motions. Thus he designates
the quantities and intensities of “a high mountain” by raising his hands
over his head, and those of “a little dwarf” by lowering his hand to the
ground. If he broke himself of the habit of depicting with his hands, he
would nevertheless do it with his voice, and if he should also control
his voice, one may be sure that in picturing something big he would
distend his eyes, and describing something little he would press his
eyes together. It is not his own affects that he thus expresses, but it
is really the content of what he imagines.
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