ABSTRACT
Naturally, imagination can create beings which do not exist in actual reality, but such beings still conform to the requirement of non-interpenetrability. It is important to note that obsessive tension is intimately related to the external world. If action is prevented, fantasied action takes its place, hand in hand with the tension affect. The individual feels the tension and imagines the actions he wants to perform, achieving in this way a vicarious discharge. Imagination always seems to work in conformity with the data of sensory experience, which it elaborates. It may be that the actions which the individual wants to perform as a consequence of tension can actually be accomplished in reality one by one, but not simultaneously. It seems obvious that the experiences described in connection with the third grade of tension have placed the individual in a state of being turned away from the external world and turned towards his own internal world.
