Condensation, Trauma and Perceptive Density of Language - Freud with Jorge Luis Borges

Abstract

This essay examines the question of perceptual vividness, which will lead to an exploration of condensation in its articulation with trauma. A hypothesis is then formulated around the existence of two different types of reproduction of the traces inscribed in the psychic apparatus: one to do with memory, the other with re-living. Jorge Luis Borges' story 'The Aleph' helps us to think about those traces as the letter - and about its relationship with perception as traumatic excess.