Part 2 (1/2)

In the morning he told the horrified prior that he had dreamed that the latter had murdered his mother, and that her b.l.o.o.d.y shadow had appeared to him to summon him to avenge her. He had hastened to arise and had stabbed the prior. Immediately he had awakened in his bed, bathed in perspiration, and had thanked G.o.d that it had been only a frightful dream. The monk was horrified when the prior told him what had taken place.” The following cases besides: ”A shoemaker's apprentice, tortured for a long time with jealousy, climbed in his sleep over the roof to his beloved, stabbed her and went back to bed.”

Another, ”A sleep walker in Naples stabbed his wife because of an idea in a dream that she was untrue to him!” We may conclude, on the ground of our a.n.a.lytical experiences, that the untrue maiden always represents the mother of the sleep walker, who has been faithless to him with the father. The hatred thoughts toward this rival lead in the first dream to the reverse Hamlet motive, the mother has demanded that the son take revenge upon the father. Finally Krafft-Ebing gives still other cases: ”A pastor, who would have been removed from his post on account of the pregnancy of a girl, was acquitted because he proved that he was a sleep walker and made it appear that in this condition (?) the forbidden relations.h.i.+p had taken place.” Also, ”The case of a girl who was s.e.xually mishandled in the somnambulistic condition. Only in the attacks had she consciousness of having submitted to s.e.xual relations, but not in the free intervals.”

There exists a better agreement of opinion over the relations.h.i.+p between sleep walking and the dream. Sleep walking, a.n.a.logously to the latter, fulfills also wishes of the day, behind which stand always wishes from childhood. Only it must also be emphasized that the old, like the recent wishes, are exclusively or predominantly of a s.e.xual nature. Because however that s.e.xual desire is forbidden in the waking life, it must even as in the dream take refuge in the sleeping state, where it can be gratified unconsciously and therefore without guilt or punishment. Most of the sleep activities of our patient were performed originally in a state of apparent sleep, that is actually practiced in the conscious state until later they were carried out quite unconsciously. She would never then betray what when feigning sleep she had to conceal as causes.

Finally the directly precipitating causes in her erotic nature for the sleep walking and moon walking seem especially to have been light and the s.h.i.+ning of the moon, her p.u.b.erty and her mother's sickness.

All of our patient's sleep walking, in accordance with the etiology and interpretation, since it goes back to infantile s.e.xuality, is half s.e.xual, half outspokenly infantile. It reaches the greatest degree, indeed the moon walking sets in just at the time of s.e.xual maturity and leads to the most complicated actions before the menses, that is at the time of the greatest s.e.xual excitement. And this activity in sleep and the moon walking too almost cease when the patient enters upon regular s.e.xual intercourse. The s.h.i.+ning of every light stimulates her s.e.xually, especially that of the moon. The wandering about in her nightgown or in the scantiest clothing is plainly erotically conditioned (exhibition), but also the going about in the ghostly hours (see later), finally the being wakened through the softest calling of her name by the mother, with whom alone she stands in a contact like that of hypnotic somnambulism.

Purely childish moreover is the clever technique of disguise. First she simulates illness or fear in order to be taken into the mother's bed.

Then she pretends to be asleep, talks in her sleep, throws herself about in her sleep, that she may be able to do everything without punishment and without being blamed, finally plays the mother in a manner which corresponds completely to child's play. Also later, before and after wandering in the bright moonlight, she produces specially deep sleep and first as if in an obsession tries the door repeatedly to see if it is closed. I see in this, naturally apart from possible organic causes of profound sleep, an unconscious purpose, which plainly insists: ”Just see, how sound-asleep I am (we are reminded of the earlier pretending to be asleep) and how afraid I am that the door might be left open! Whoever has to walk about in spite of such sound sleep and such precaution, and even perhaps do certain things which might be s.e.xually interpreted, he plainly is not to blame for it!”

We might add from knowledge of the neuroses that the fear that some one might be hiding in the room signifies the wish that this might be so in order that the subject might be s.e.xually gratified. There was one circ.u.mstance most convincing in regard to this, which I will now add.

Even during the time of her psychoa.n.a.lytic treatment, when she did not wander at night any more nor perform complicated acts in her sleep, she had a number of times in the country carefully locked the door of her room in the evening, only to find it open again in the morning. To be sure, her lover of that period slept under the same roof, though at some distance from her.

Before I go more closely into the question as to what share the light had upon the sleep walking of our patient, I will recall once more that her actions during sleep were at first but few and had nothing to do with the light. As the years went by they became more complicated and finally took place only under the influence of the light, whether it was artificial or natural, that is of the moon. More extended walks were in general possible only in the light of the moon, which as a heavenly body s.h.i.+ning everywhere threw its brightness over every thing, in the court, garden and over the street, while candles or lamps at the best lighted one or two rooms. The patient, given to sleep walking or moon walking, went after the light, which meanwhile represented to her from childhood on a symbol of the parents' love and gave hope of s.e.xual enjoyment.

It was also bound inseparably within with motor activities of an erotic nature. When her mother approached her bed with the light it was a reminder to the child, Now you must go upon the chamber and you can pa.s.s ”the good,” or, when she sat on the mother's lap and gazed into the lamplight, Now you may stimulate yourself according to your heart's desire. Then the lamp was s.h.i.+ning when the little one wished to climb into bed with the mother in order that, while exhibiting herself, she might see her as scantily covered as possible. And finally the striking of the light announced, ”the mother is sick, in nursing her you will have the opportunity to see her bared b.r.e.a.s.t.s and her blood.” Evidently the light thus led, when she climbed after it, to the greatest experience of s.e.xual pleasure of her earliest childhood. On account of this strong libido possession the memory of the light was kept alive in the unconscious and it needed only that the light of the lamp or the candle should fall upon the face of the wanderer to permit her to experience in the most profound sleep the same pleasure, the unconscious was set into activity and everything was accomplished most manifestly according to the purpose that served her strong libido.

It is remarkable that our patient distinguished immediately a strong feeling of pleasure by the s.h.i.+ning of every light, that moreover she seemed to herself as a supernatural being (glorification through the s.e.xual feeling of pleasure[10]), that she herself imagined it must represent a second sort of consciousness, and finally that she stood in such contact with the beloved person as that of a hypnotized subject--somnambulist--with her hypnotist. For she perceived also the mother's lightest word when most soundly asleep, in spite of her difficulty in hearing at other times.

[10] One thinks of the halo in religious pictures, which indeed is nothing else than the s.h.i.+ning of the light about the head.

What was the patient's intention in her longer walks under the moon's influence, that she, for instance, climbed to the first story, reflected for a moment and then started to go out at the gate? That becomes comprehensible when it is remembered that she once opened the door in her sleep for her lover in the country and furthermore in her first complicated sleep walking. The purpose of the latter has been stated, to climb into her mother's bed in order to obtain the greatest s.e.xual pleasure. I do not believe I am far astray when I a.s.sume that this erotic desire of the child lies also essentially at the basis of her more extensive wandering in the moonlight. She simply wishes each time to go to the bed of some beloved one, which, as we shall hear later, is accepted by poets and the folk mind as a chief motive, and a fundamental one for many instances of sleep walking, especially with maidens.

It becomes clear now, likewise, why the patient climbs into the first story, then recollects herself and seeks to go out at the gate. In her seventh year she and her family had changed their abode and this had been before in the first story but was now on an upper floor. She is trying yet to climb into the mother's bed, this still remaining as a fundamental motive. Only she is not seeking the bed where it stands at the present time but where it stood in childhood, in the first story and in another house. She goes, therefore, downstairs but remembers, unconsciously of course, that this is not the right floor and wants now to go out at the gate to find the home of her childhood. Later in the country when she so thoroughly frightens her landlady and her daughter, there she is also going to a woman she loves and she leaves the house for this purpose and goes at least into the room that lies in the direction of the house where the beloved lies. Later still she opens the door wide in her sleep so that her lover can have free entrance.

We might also explain now in great part the sleep walking of the mother.

As far as I can discover, the mother also as a very small child lived in another home than the one in which her sleep walking began. She ran about her room at night and could not find her bed and felt around in distress without coming upon the chamber, both of which stood in the usual places. This may be explained by the fact that in phantasy she was seeking the bed and chamber of her earliest childhood, which of course stood elsewhere. Moreover she attained by her moaning the fulfilment of her unconscious wish to be set by her mother upon the chamber and then lifted into bed. The wanderings in the moonlight, after which likewise she could not find her way back to bed, may be similarly explained, though I learned only this much about her dancing in the moonlight, that in her childhood she was very fond of dancing, which is also the case with our patient. Perhaps she wished also to play elves in the moonlight, according to poems or fairy tales or had, like her daughter, earned the special love of her parents through her skill in dancing.

We are now at the chief problem. How is it then that the night's rest, the guarding of which is always the goal of the dream, is motorially broken through in sleep walking? There is first a special organic disposition, which is absent from no sleep walker, a heightened motor stimulability[11]. This appears clearly with children, and so for example with our patient as a tendency to convulsive attacks, pavor nocturnus and terrifying dreams, from which she starts up.

[11] Cf. with this Krafft-Ebing, _l. c._ ”Slight convulsions or cataleptic muscular rigidity sometimes precede the attacks.”

As far as my observations go, it seems to me that there is a special disposition to sleep walking in the descendants of alcoholics and epileptics, of individuals with a distinctively s.a.d.i.s.tic character, finally of hysterics, whose motor activity is strongly affected, who also suffer with convulsions, tremor, paralyses or contractures. It should be merely briefly mentioned that the heightened motor excitability also establishes a disposition to a special muscle erotic, which in fact was easily demonstrable in every one of the cases of sleep walking and moon walking which have become known to me. The disturbance of the night's rest was made desirable through the satisfaction of the muscle erotic to every one for whom the excessive muscular activity offered an entirely specialized pleasure, even s.e.xual enjoyment.

Moreover in our case a series of features besides those already mentioned bear undoubted testimony to the abnormally increased muscle erotic. I have already elsewhere discussed them in detail[12] and will here merely name briefly the chief factors. The patient had an epileptic alcoholic grandfather on the mother's side, who was notorious when under the influence of alcohol for his cruelty and pleasure in whipping. She had, besides a strongly s.a.d.i.s.tic mother, two older brothers, of whom the elder was frightfully violent and brutal, often choking his brothers and sisters, while the other found an actually diabolical pleasure in destroying and demolis.h.i.+ng everything. Our patient exhibited already at two years old as well as through her whole life a pleasure in striking blows, and also conversely a special pleasure in receiving them, further at four years old an intensive delight in dancing, an enjoyment that was unmistakably s.e.xual. We have learned above how she delighted to press herself upon her mother's body or twine herself about her legs.

Moreover, finally, one of her very earliest hysterical symptoms was a paralysis of the arm.

[12] Cf. note 6, p. 163.

More difficult seems to me the answer to the second main question: What influence does the moon exercise upon the sleeper? It was earlier discussed, along with the various psychical overdeterminations, that the moonlight awoke first the infantile pleasure memories, among other things that that light s.h.i.+ning everywhere lighted the way which led to the house and the dwelling of the earliest childhood. Mention was made of the infantile comparison of the moon's disk with the childish nates and perhaps the gazing upon the nightly orb, which seems besides most like a hypnotic fixation, may be also referred back to the same. Since we know today that the love transference const.i.tutes the essential character of hypnotism, that symptom brings us once more to the eroticism. Beside there was not wanting with our patient a grossly sensual relations.h.i.+p. Finally there is also the infantile desire to climb over the houses into the moon, realizing itself in part at least in the moon-inspired climbing upon the roof.

Yet the second leading problem appears to me, in spite of all this, not completely exhausted. It might not thus be absolutely ruled out that more than a mere superst.i.tion lurks behind the folk belief which conceives of a ”magnetic” influence by which the moon attracts the sleeper. Such a relations.h.i.+p is indeed conceivable when we consider the motor overexcitability of all sleep walkers and the effecting of ebb and flow through the influence of the moon. Furthermore no one, in an epoch which brings fresh knowledge each year of known and unknown rays, can deny without question any influence to the rays of moonlight. Perhaps in time the physicist and the astronomer will clear up the matter for us.

Meanwhile the question is raised and can be answered only with an hypothesis.

In conclusion I have in mind a last final connection which the spell of the moon bears to belief in spirits and ghosts. It is established through many a.n.a.lyses that the visits of the mother by night form the basis of the latter, when she comes with the light in her hand and scantily clothed in white garments, nightgown, or chemise and petticoat, to see if the children are asleep or, if they are, to set a child upon the chamber. The so often mentioned ”woman in white” may also be the maiden in her nightgown, who thus exhibits herself in her night garment to her parents as she climbs into their bed, later also eventually to her lover. The choice of the hour between twelve and one, which came to be called the ghostly hour, may perhaps be referred to the fact that at this time sleep was most profound and therefore there was least danger of discovery.

CASE 2. I introduce here a second case, in which to be sure the influence of the moon represented only an episode and therefore received also but a brief a.n.a.lysis. It is that of a twenty-eight year old forester, who came under psychoa.n.a.lytic treatment on account of severe hysterical cardiac distress. The cause of this was a damming up of his feelings toward his mother, for whom he longed in the unconscious. His condition of anxiety broke out when he went to live with his mother after the death of his father and slept in the next room. He admitted that his father drank. Every Sunday he was somewhat drunk. Likewise the mother, who kept a public house, was in no way disinclined toward alcohol. He himself had consumed more beer especially in his high school days than was good for him. I would emphasize in his s.e.xual life, as belonging to our theme, his strong urethral erotic, which made him a bed wetter in childhood, led in later years to frequent micturition at night and caused a serious dysuria psychica. His muscle erotic finally drove him to the calling of a forester.

Only the portions of his psychoa.n.a.lysis, which lasted for eight weeks, which have to do with his sleep activities and his response to the moon will be brought forward. Thus he relates at one time: ”At thirteen years old, when I was in a lodging house kept by a woman, I arose one morning with the dark suspicion that I had done something in the night. What I did not remember. I merely felt stupefied. Suddenly the boys who slept with me began to laugh, for from under my bed ran a stream of urine. In the night the full moon had shone upon my bed. We fellows had no vessel there but had to go outside, which with my frequent need for urination during the night was very unpleasant. Now there stood under my bed a square box for hats and neckties, which I, as I got up in the night half intoxicated with sleep, had taken for a chamber and I had urinated in it. This was repeated. Another time, also at full moon, I wet a colleague's shoe. They all said that I must be a little loony. When the full moon came, I was always afraid that I might do this again, an anxiety which remained long with me. I never dared sleep, for example, so that the full moon could s.h.i.+ne directly upon me. Yes; still something else. Two or three years later the following happened, only I do not know whether there was moonlight. I was sleeping with several colleagues in a room adjoining that of the lodging house keepers, the man and his wife. I must have gone into them at night and done something s.e.xual. Either I wished to climb into bed with the wife or I had m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed, I do not know which. I had at any rate the next day the suspicion that something of the kind had happened. The landlord and landlady laughed so oddly, but they said nothing to me.”

”Did your mother perhaps in your childhood come to look after you with the light?”--”Yes; that is so. My mother always stayed up for a long time and came in regularly late at night with the light to go to bed. My father was obliged to go early to bed because of his work and had to get up at midnight, when he always made a light.” Here he suddenly broke off: ”Perhaps it is for this reason that I have an anxiety in an entirely dark room. If there is not at least a bit of light I can not perform coitus.”--”How is that?”--”I have remonstrated rather seriously with myself that the s.e.xual act could be performed only with a light.”--Then at a later hour of a.n.a.lysis: ”When my father went away at night, I came repeatedly into my mother's bed. I lay down in my father's bed, also in a certain measure put myself into his place.”--”Did your mother call you, or did you come of yourself?”--”I believe that my mother invited me to her. Now something occurs to me: The moonlight awoke me as my father woke me when he struck a light as he was going out. Then it was time to go into bed with my mother, for the father was gone, which always gave me a feeling of rea.s.surance.”--”Yes, when he was gone he could do nothing more to the mother. And then you could take his place with her.”