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Isakower has dealt before with the importance of equilibrium sensations during early phases of ego development.1 He now traces the psychic correlations of equilibrium and of the auditory apparatus. Certain crustaceans 'incorporate' particles of stone and sand to use as otoliths, that is, to aid their orientation in space. The human being's need for orientation is met by speech, which also is based upon material taken in from the outer world, through auditory incorporation. Here it is not so much the verbal elements themselves as 'the assimilation and correct combination of verbal images, the development of a grammatical and logical order in the processes of speech and thought'. These auditory incorporations, relevantly construed by the child, become the basis for the superego, which also serves the purpose of orientation in the outer world. 'The following formula then suggests itself: Just as the nucleus of the ego is the body-ego, so the human auditory sphere as modified in the direction of its capacity for language is to be regarded as the nucleus of the superego.' Proofs for this origin of the superego are found in delusions of observation and in certain other schizophrenic phenomena.
The relation of the auditory sphere to dreams is next examined. Dreams are usually visual, but Isakower calls attention to an interesting phenomenon which occurs while falling asleep: 'Linguistic phenomena connected with going to sleep often show an almost exaggeratedly elaborate grammatical and syntactic structure. The speech flows along in complex phrases, with strongly accentuated sentences of animated and changing form; but it loses its clarity more and more as it proceeds, and at length there remains only an impression of lively and complicated periods without any verbal elements which can be clearly grasped (and this is perhaps one of the main reasons why periods themselves are so difficult, indeed almost completely impossible, to grasp) until at last the periods gra