Eight Forms of Realities in the Schreber Case

Summary:

The author shows that Lacan’s reading of D.P. Schrebers Memoirs between 1953 and 1959 demonstrates that the latter experienced at least eight distinct forms of realities at a time when he had partially recovered from his psychotic decompensation. Of these, three were intimately linked to language phenomena, three were bodily/imaginary phenomena, and two were “shared realities”, i.e., they were directly acceptable by his contemporaries. Moreover, Lacan puts to profit Freud’s assertion that Schreber’s delusions had an “asymptotic” quality, i.e., they were not supposed to be realized in a near future, which increased the possibilities of stabilization.