Key Arguments

• Freud notes that it is possible for mental processes to "come into consciousness by returning to the visual remnants" and that for many people this is in fact preferred, acknowledging visual thinking as a route to consciousness.
• He cites dream and fantasy research (including J. Varendonck) to claim that "usually only the thought’s concrete material becomes conscious, but for relationships, the particular hallmark of thoughts, a visual expression cannot be given," showing the limitations of image-based thinking.
• He concludes that "Thinking in pictures is also only a very incomplete rendering into consciousness," underscoring its partiality.
• He further asserts that such visual thinking "is closer to the unconscious processes than thinking in words" and is "both onto- and phylogenetically" older, grounding this hierarchy in developmental and evolutionary considerations.

Source Quotes

The word is thus actually the memory remnant of the corresponding word. It must not drive us, 28 in simplifying for simplification’s sake, to forget the importance of the optical memory remnants—of things, to deny that it is possible for mental processes’ to come into consciousness by returning to the visual remnants, and that for many, it seems the preference. Of the nature of the visual thinking the study of dreams and preconscious fantasies can give us an idea in accordance with J.

Varendonck’s 29 observations. One learns that usually only the thought’s concrete material becomes conscious, but for relationships, the particular hallmark of thoughts, a visual expression cannot be given. Thinking in pictures is also only a very incomplete rendering into consciousness.

One learns that usually only the thought’s concrete material becomes conscious, but for relationships, the particular hallmark of thoughts, a visual expression cannot be given. Thinking in pictures is also only a very incomplete rendering into consciousness. In some way as well it is closer to the unconscious processes than thinking in words, and is undoubtedly, both onto- and phylogenetically, 30 older than it.

Thinking in pictures is also only a very incomplete rendering into consciousness. In some way as well it is closer to the unconscious processes than thinking in words, and is undoubtedly, both onto- and phylogenetically, 30 older than it. Returning to our argument, if this is the way something unconscious becomes pre-conscious, then it begs the question, how do we make something repressed (pre-)conscious, so answered: by producing pcs links through analytical work.

Key Concepts

• it is possible for mental processes’ to come into consciousness by returning to the visual remnants, and that for many, it seems the preference.
• One learns that usually only the thought’s concrete material becomes conscious, but for relationships, the particular hallmark of thoughts, a visual expression cannot be given.
• Thinking in pictures is also only a very incomplete rendering into consciousness.
• In some way as well it is closer to the unconscious processes than thinking in words, and is undoubtedly, both onto- and phylogenetically, 30 older than it.

Context

Still in Freud’s analysis of word- and thing-presentations in Chapter II, as he clarifies different modes of thought becoming conscious.