Part 3 (1/2)

CASE 6.--I add here three autobiographical reports, which I have gathered from literature. The first originates with the famous anatomist and physiologist Karl Friedrich Burdach, who from his tenth to his thirtieth year had occasional attacks of moon walking, although he apparently ”enjoyed the most perfect health.” ”I have during these periods,” he himself relates, ”undertaken actions which I had to recognize as mine, merely because they could have been carried out by no one else. Thus one day it was incomprehensible to me why I had on no s.h.i.+rt when I awoke, and it remained so in spite of my utmost efforts to recollect myself, until the s.h.i.+rt was found in another room rolled together under a press. In my twenty-ninth year I was awakened from a night wandering by the question, What did I want? and then the consciousness of the somnambulistic state pa.s.sed over in part to the awaking. First I found the question strange, but since I thought the reason for it would become plain, I need not betray it. Immediately, however, as I began to waken, I asked myself in what that consisted and, now that the somnambulistic state was over, the answer must be due me.”

One cannot help finding this self revelation exceedingly interesting.

The hiding of the s.h.i.+rt, although the affair is so incompletely reported, especially in its motivation, points unmistakably at least to exhibitionism. The second sleep walking appears much more difficult of explanation. In this Burdach sought plainly a definite goal, which seemed so clear and transparent to him that he could not at all understand why anyone should question him about it. If we consider that his first thought on waking was that he need not betray this purpose, that moreover there enters at once a repression and causes him completely to forget it, there remains then no other possibility than that we have to do with a strongly forbidden wish, which the conscious censor will not allow to pa.s.s. It is easy to conceive a s.e.xual motivation in this second instance if we remember that in the first sleep walking something s.e.xual surely took place.

Still more probable is the strongly forbidden s.e.xual goal, if we take into consideration the circ.u.mstances of his life. In his autobiography ”Ruckblick auf mein Leben” Burdach tells us how extraordinarily his mother depended upon him. ”Having already lost four children in their first year, she had longed to bear another child and especially since the setting in of the illness of my father had compelled her to think of losing him, she had wished for a son as a sure object for her love-thirsty heart. Her wish was fulfilled when she bore me.” Eleven months later the father died, leaving his wife and his little son not yet a year old unprovided for. Nevertheless she, the widow, rejected the proposal to return to her parents' home and preferred rather ”trouble, need and a thousand cares upon herself in order that I might be better educated; for I was the object of her deepest love. About nine o'clock in the evening she went with me to bed and twined her arm about me; in the morning she stole from my side and permitted me an hour or two more of rest (p. 14).

”Women had a particular influence upon me; but it was also natural to me to attach myself to them. As my mother related, I never as a child went for a ride on my hobby horse without having at parting and on my return kissed my hand to my lady represented by a doll” (p. 24). It is superfluous to add that this lady was no other than his mother. Also the following pa.s.sage I think is significant: ”I was by nature endowed with as great a sensitiveness to womanly charm as to womanly dignity and this inclination toward the other s.e.x grounded in my psychical const.i.tution was nurtured by circ.u.mstances from my earliest youth on. I could but recognize very soon the high intellectual and moral quality of my good mother, who in her struggle with poverty kept herself fresh and free from vulgarity and shunned no sacrifice for me. Likewise the matrons to whose well wis.h.i.+ng I owe my grat.i.tude, inspired me with high respect for their character. In my former nurse there seemed to me a pattern of tireless and sagacious activity of a high order and breeding.... Thus a high respect for true womanhood was implanted in me. On the other hand I was as a boy made so accustomed to this role by several young women, who entertained themselves with me and considered me as their lover to while away their time, that I later retained the inclination to play this part and considered a friendly advance as an invitation which I in turn held as a sacred claim of honor and an agreeable duty” (pp. 69 ff.).

When later the mother took a young widow into lodgings, the young man, then twenty-one years old, had ”the exalted feeling of being her protector. Then it was all up with my heart” (p. 71). The death of the dearest one to him on earth, his mother, followed close upon this and brought an end to it. ”I became convinced that happiness would be found for me only where I shared it with another being, and that I could be satisfied only by a relations.h.i.+p similar to that in which I had stood toward my mother; an inner bond where only a single mutual interest controlled, where one soul found its happiness only in the other.

Without such an absolute love, penetrating the whole being, life seemed to me worthless and stale. My mother, whose unbounded love I had enjoyed, was torn from me; my excellent uncle, heartily devoted to me, I saw in the enjoyment of his own family happiness. And an unconquerable desire for the same happiness tortured me as I felt my utter loneliness”

(p. 79). So he concluded to marry although he had only limited prospects for supporting a family.

”The first intimation that my wife was pregnant filled me with delight.

I took it for granted that Heaven would send me a daughter. With my idea of the value of woman all my wishes tended thither, to possess a daughter and to be able to watch over her while she unfolded to a n.o.ble womanhood. She should have my mother for her pattern and therefore also be named Caroline after her.[16a] I spoke so confidently, after I had left Vienna, of 'our daughter Caroline' in my letters to my wife that she was finally quite concerned and sought to prepare me for the birth of a son. I had not however made a mistake and my confidence was in the end justified” (pp. 83 ff.). His wife was confined at some distance from him and then as soon as possible journeyed to him with the little one.

He relates as follows: ”I went in Borsdorf with a beating heart to the carriage which brought her to me, kissed her hastily, took my child out of her arms and carried it hastily into the inn, laid it upon the table, loosed the bindings which bound it to its tiny bed and was lost in happy contemplation of the beautifully formed, lovely, vigorous and lively little girl and then first threw myself into the arms of my wife, who in her mother's pride and joy was feasting her eyes upon us, and then I had again to observe the lovely child. What cared I for mankind! What cared I for the whole world! I was more than happy” (pp. 85 ff.).

[16a] Cf. Barrie: ”Dear Brutus,” Act. II. for the dream daughter, who bears the name of the author's mother. See also ”Margaret Ogilvy.” The dream daughter's apostrophe to the moon is also interesting in connection with the present study. Tr.

The manner also in which he brought up his child is highly significant: ”Our hearts clung mostly to our daughter.... I enjoyed the pleasure of possessing her with full consciousness of her worth, gazed upon her with rapture and was delighted when I observed in her a new trait of beautiful womanly character. She recognized by my serious treatment of her the entire depth of my love, repaid it with inner devotion and challenged it with merry playfulness. From her first year I delighted to lift her from her bed in the morning and even when she was eight years old she often got up of herself, knocked on the window of the alcove door leading into my work room and whisked back to her bed, so that when I came she could throw herself with hearty laughter into my arms and let me take her up. Or she slipped behind my chair and climbed up behind my back, while I was deep in my work, so that she could fall triumphantly upon my neck.

”I must refrain from mentioning more of her winsome childhood. She was the most beautiful ornament of my life and in the possession of her I felt myself, in spite of all pecuniary need, immeasurably happy.” It will not surprise any one with knowledge of these things that a child so insatiable for love should become hysterical. ”Her sensitiveness was unnaturally exaggerated,” also she was seized once with a hysterical convulsion, as Burdach relates. She died young and ”the flower of my life was past. The fairest, purest joy was extinguished for me. I had wished her for myself and Heaven had heard me. Finding in her the fulfilment of my warmest wishes, I had never thought it would be possible that I should outlive this daughter. Nevertheless I bore the pain ... confident of being reunited with her.... For thirty years scarcely a day has pa.s.sed on which I have not at least once thought in my inmost soul of my Caroline” (pp. 142-147).

I will cite in conclusion still one more fragment of self characterization: ”A chief trait in my character was the need for love, not that everyday love which limits itself to a personal pleasure and delight, but that unbounded, overflowing love which feels itself completely one with the beloved.... The ideal of marriage was before me in youth, for this need for love has been mine all my life.... I remember as a student having written in my diary that I would rather forego life itself than the happiness of family life” (pp. 53 ff.).

The center of this interesting life is Burdach's deep oneness with his mother. She on her part took him from the beginning unconsciously as a s.e.xual object, as a subst.i.tute for her husband, who was failing in health and soon after died. She lay in bed near her little one, her arm twined about his body and slept with him until morning. No wonder that the boy was so sensitive to womanly charm and likewise that later different women looked upon him as their lover. The thought early established itself with Burdach that only such a relations.h.i.+p could satisfy him as that in which he had stood toward his mother. And as he stood for the father it seemed to him a certain fact that now a little girl should come to be the surrogate for his mother. Noteworthy also is his att.i.tude toward the mother who had just been confined and the child.

The former is to him almost incidental, while in the contemplation of his child, in whom he secures his mother again, he can scarcely get his fill, and he overwhelms her later with such pa.s.sionate love as he had once obtained from his mother. When the girl was torn from him, he was consoled only by the thought of being united again with her in heaven.

We may see finally in the fond play in bed with his daughter a repet.i.tion of that which he carried on with his mother, and we may remember also that as a child he always slept with his mother. From all this it seems to me a light falls upon the unexplained purpose of Burdach's sleep walking. If this seems completely clear to him but so objectionable that he not only concludes to keep it secret, but, more than that, forgets it on the spot, then the probability is, that he desired that night to climb into bed with his beloved mother.

CASE 7. A second autobiographical account of repeated sleep walking I find in the ”Buch der Kindheit,” the first volume of Ludwig Ganghofer's ”Lebenslauf eines Optimisten.” When the boy had to go away to school his mother gave him four b.a.l.l.s of yarn to take with him, so that he might mend his own clothing and underwear. She had hidden a gulden deep within each ball, a proof of mother love, which he later discovered. In the course of time while at the school the impulses of p.u.b.erty began to stir in him and pressed upon him so strongly at first that frequent pollutions occurred. He thought he must surely be ill, until finally a colleague explained to him that this was on the contrary a special sign of health. This calmed him and now he could sleep splendidly.

”One night I awoke suddenly as if roused by a burning heat. I experienced a horrible suffering and believed I felt a hand on my body.

I cried out and pushed with my feet, and as I lay there in a half consciousness it was as if many of my dormitory companions were awake and I heard them ask, 'What is it? Who has called out this way?' A voice, 'Some one has been dreaming!' And another voice, 'Silence in the dormitory!' And all was gone from me as if under a heavy veil. Once again quiet. Am I asleep or am I awake? A wild beating in the arteries of my neck, a roaring in my ears. Yet in the dormitory all is quiet. The lamp is burning, I see the white beds. I see the copper of the washstand glimmer like red gold. Must I have dreamed--an oppressive, frightful dream? Drops of sweat stood out on my forehead. Then came a heavy sleep.

What was this? I rarely had days of depression or restless, disturbed nights. And yet in these weeks I entered upon this uncomfortable experience.

”One night I awoke. Darkness was round about me. And I was cold. And I saw no lamp, no bed, no s.h.i.+ning copper. Was this also a dream? Yet my hands felt plainly the hard wood in front of me. Slowly I recognized a number of vaguely outlined squares, the great windows. Clad only in my s.h.i.+rt, I sat in the study room before my desk. Such a horror fell upon me as I cannot describe. I ran wildly up the stairs, threw myself into my bed and shook. Another night I awoke. Darkness was about me. Again I was cold. And I believed that I was again sitting at my desk. No; I was standing. My hands however felt no wood, my eyes found not the gray windows. As I moved, my head struck against something hard. I became aware of a feeble light s.h.i.+ning. As I went towards it, I came from some dark room upon the dimly lighted stair landing.

”I awoke again in the night. I was cold. A semi-darkness was about me and over me many stars twinkled. I sat upon the s.h.i.+ngle roof of the bowling alley. It was not a far leap to the ground below. But the pebble stones of the seminary garden p.r.i.c.ked my bare feet. Moreover, when I wanted to get into the house, I found the gate closed. My G.o.d! how had I then come out? Somewhere I found an open window and climbed into the house and noiselessly up to the dormitory. The window near my bed stood open--and there outside, I believe, was a lightning rod.

”All day I racked my brains to find a way to escape from the fear of this dreadful thing. I dared not confide in anyone, for fear of the ridicule of the others, for fear--I never knew just what I feared. In the evening I took one of Mother's b.a.l.l.s of yarn to bed with me, bound two double strands about my wrists and tied the ends around the k.n.o.bs of the bedstead. In the night, as I was about to wander again, I felt the pull of Mother's threads and awoke. It never came again. I was cured.”

This appears at the first glance a non-s.e.xual sleep walking. This is only however in its first appearance, although it is to be regretted that the full explanation can scarcely be given in the absence of any a.n.a.lysis. It is first to be noted that sleep walking sets in at p.u.b.erty and is ushered in by anxiety dreams, pollutions and various anxiety equivalents. The hammering in the arteries, the roaring in the ears, the restless, disturbed nights, as well as the unusually disturbed days, we know these all as manifestations of an unsatisfied libido. The first ”frightful” anxiety dream seems to lead deeper, as well, as the ”horrible suffering” started by a hand, which he felt upon his body.

Must not this hand, which causes this ”horrible suffering” to the youth who had never yet known trouble, have touched his genitals?[17] Behind this perhaps, moreover, are very early memories of the care bestowed upon the nursing infant and the child.

[17] One may also think of the fear of castration, a.s.sociated with the threats of parents so very frequently made when children practice masturbation.