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Attempts to correlate the material of psychoanalysis with the electrochemical activity of the nervous system which produces it have been few. With his customary breadth of view Freud in 1928 (1) suggested such a correlation. The development of the electroencephalogram has opened up a field of observation denied Freud, yet even here it seems as if his vigorous mind foresaw brain waves. In his paper on the Mystic Writing Pad he says,
My theory was that cathectic innervations are sent out and withdrawn in rapid periodic impulses from within into the completely pervious system Pcpt.-Cs. So long as that system is cathected in this manner, it receives perceptions (which are accompanied by consciousness) and passes the excitation on to the unconscious mnemic systems; but as soon as the cathexis is withdrawn, consciousness is extinguished and the functioning of the system comes to a standstill… I further had a suspicion that this discontinuous method of functioning of the system Pcpt.-Cs. lies at the bottom of the origin of the concept of time.
Like other human institutions, scientific disciplines, as they mature, take on a certain dogmatic rigidity which may be due to the working of the instinct thanatos in their creators. In so far as they become rigid, new approaches to the discipline are frowned on. Speculation, rife in its young days when the discipline is green in judgment, is treated with impatience or neglect. Yet as Langer (2) points out, 'All theory is merely speculation in the light of significant facts'. The following speculations are presented, therefore, with the caution that they be so considered and with the hope that they contain thoughts which will stimulate others to prospecting in this field.
Widespread study of the electrochemical activity of brain tissue shows that the steady state or equilibrium of nerve cells