Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

November 25, 1958. FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THE POETZL PHENOMENON—A STUDY OF DAY RESIDUES. Charles Fisher, M.D.

This further work of Dr. Fisher, using the experimental technique of the Poetzl phenomenon, investigates the relationship between perception and primary and secondary thought processes as they become apparent in the dream work. The method of the experiment consisted of tachistoscopic exposed of the subliminally exposed picture of a snake, and a supraliminally exposed vase decorated with a swastika. Following the exposure the patient's dreams, associations, and drawings were examined. An effort was then made to follow the vicissitudes of these percepts in the formation of dreams.

The first experiment strongly supported the thesis that the vase and swastika had been incorporated into the dream, as evidenced by a series of references to Jews. One patient's dream suggested that the subliminally perceived snake was represented by kidneys which, when pictorially represented, strongly suggested the male genitals. It was concluded that the subliminally perceived snake appeared in the manifest content of the dream as the kidneys with a piece of fat, and was associated with the most highly charged latent dream content, close to the id. The swastika stimulus appeared in the dream in a less distorted fashion, arousing trains of thought relating to Jews, anti-Semitism, etc. Neither stimulus picture appeared directly in the dream images. It is interesting to speculate what effect the stimulus pictures had on forming the latent content of the dream.

From a second similar experiment, the vase was consciously represented in the patient's later drawings. The snake finally appeared in the drawings, but had been represented in a distorted manner in the dream. As in the first experiment, the subliminally perceived snake was closely related to the unconscious drive in the dream. The swastika, in contrast, activated more preconscious trains of thought in the dream. The