l'esprit, la concentration de l'attention pour un point unique; il résulte de cet état de concentration que l'esprit devient distrait pour la reste et en quelque sorte insensible, ce qui ouvre la carrière aux actions automatiques, et ces actions peuvent prendre un caractère psychique et constituer des intelligences parasites, vivant côte à côte avec la personnalité normale qui ne les connaît pas."[83]
Our subject's romances throw a most significant light on the subjective roots of her dreams. They swarm with secret and open love-affairs, with illegitimate births and other sexual insinuations. The central point of all these ambiguous stories is a lady whom she dislikes, who is gradually made to assume the form of her polar opposite, and whilst Ivenes becomes the pinnacle of virtue, this lady is a sink of iniquity. But her reincarnation doctrines, in which she appears as the mother of countless thousands, arises in its naïve nakedness from an exuberant phantasy which is, of course, very characteristic of the period of puberty. It is the woman's premonition of the sexual feeling, the dream of fruitfulness, which the patient has turned into these monstrous ideas. We shall not go wrong if we seek for the curious form of the disease in the teeming sexuality of this too-rich soil. Viewed from this standpoint, the whole creation of Ivenes, with her enormous family, is nothing but a dream of sexual wish-fulfilment, differentiated from the dream of a night only in that it persists for months and years.
Relation to the Hysterical Attack.
So far one point in S. W.'s history has remained unexplained, and that is her attack. In the second séance she was suddenly seized with a sort of fainting fit, from which she awoke with a recollection of various hallucinations. According to her own statement, she had not lost consciousness for a moment. Judging from the external symptoms and the course of the attack, one is inclined to regard it as a narcolepsy, or rather a lethargy; such, for example, as Loewenfeld has described, and the more readily as we know that previously one member of her family (her grandmother) has had an attack of lethargy. It is possible to imagine that the lethargic disposition (Loewenfeld) had descended to our subject. In spiritualistic séances it is not usual to see hysterical convulsions. Our subject showed no sort of convulsive symptoms, but in their place, perhaps, the peculiar sleeping-states. Ætiologically, at the outset, two moments must be taken into consideration:
1. The irruption of hypnosis.
2. The psychic stimulation.
1. Irruption of Partial Hypnosis.—Janet observes that the subconscious automatisms have a hypnotic influence and can bring about complete somnambulism.[84]
He made the following experiment: While the patient, who was in the completely waking state, was engaged in conversation by a second observer, Janet stationed himself behind her and by means of whispered suggestions made her unconsciously move her hand and by written signs give an answer to questions. Suddenly the patient broke off the conversation, turned round and with her supraliminal consciousness continued the previously subconscious talk with Janet. She had fallen into hypnotic somnambulism.[85]
There is here a state of affairs similar to our patient's. But it must be noted that, for certain reasons discussed later, the sleeping state is not to be regarded as hypnotic. We therefore come to the question of—
2. The Psychic Stimulation.—It is told of Bettina Brentano that the first time she met Goethe she suddenly fell asleep on his knee.[86]
This ecstatic sleep in the midst of extremest torture, the so-called "witch-sleep," is well known in the history of trials for witchcraft.[87]
With susceptible subjects relatively insignificant stimuli suffice to bring about the somnambulic state. Thus a sensitive lady had to have a splinter cut out of her finger. Without any kind of bodily change she suddenly saw herself sitting by the side of a brook in a beautiful meadow, plucking flowers. This condition lasted as long as the slight operation and then disappeared spontaneously.[88]
Loewenfeld[89] has noticed unintentional inducement of hysterical lethargy through hypnosis.
Our case has certain resemblances to hysterical lethargy[90] as described by Loewenfeld, viz. the shallow breathing, the diminution of the pulse, the corpse-like pallor of the face, and further the peculiar feeling of dying and the thoughts of death.[91]
The retention of one sense is not inconsistent with lethargy: thus in certain cases of trance the sense of hearing remains.[92]
In Bonamaison's[93] case not only was the sense of touch retained, but the senses of hearing and smell were quickened. The hallucinatory content and loud speaking is also met with in persons with hallucinations in lethargy.[94] Usually there prevails total amnesia for the lethargic interval. Loewenfeld's[95] case D. had, however, a fleeting recollection; in Bonamaison's case there was no amnesia. Lethargic patients do not prove susceptible to the usual waking stimuli, but Loewenfeld succeeded with his patient St. in turning the lethargy into hypnosis by means of mesmeric passes, thus combining it with the rest of consciousness during the attack.[96] Our patient showed herself absolutely insusceptible in the beginning of the lethargy, but later on she began to speak spontaneously, was incapable of giving any attention when her somnambulic ego was speaking, but could attend when it was one of her automatic personalities. In this last case it is probable that the hypnotic effect of the automatisms succeeded in achieving a partial transformation of the lethargy into hypnosis. When we consider that, according to Loewenfeld's view, the lethargic disposition must not be "too readily identified with the peculiar condition of the nervous apparatus in hysteria," then the idea of the family heredity of this disposition in our case becomes not a little probable. The disease is much complicated by these attacks.
So far we have seen that the patient's consciousness of her ego is identical in all the states. We have discussed two secondary complexes of consciousness and have followed them into the somnambulic attack, where they appear as the patient's vision when she had lost her motor activity during the attack. During the next attacks she was impervious to any external incidents, but on the other hand developed, within the twilight state, all the more intense activity, in the form of visions. It seems that many secondary series of ideas must have split off quite early from the primary unconscious personality, for already, after the first two séances, "spirits" appeared by the dozen. The names were inexhaustible in variety, but the differences between the personalities were soon exhausted and it became apparent that they could all be subsumed under two types, the serio-religious type and the gay-hilarious. So far it was really only a matter of two different unconscious personalities, which appeared under different names but had no essential differences. The older type, the grandfather, who had initiated the automatisms, also first began to make use of the twilight state. I am not able to remember any suggestion which might have given rise to the automatic speaking. According to the preceding view, the attack in such circumstances might be regarded as a partial auto-hypnosis. The ego-consciousness which remains and, as a result of its isolation from the external world, occupies itself entirely with its hallucinations, is what is left over of the waking consciousness. Thus the automatism has a wide field for its activity. The independence of the individual central spheres which we have proved at the beginning to be present in the patient, makes the automatic act of speaking appear intelligible. Just as the dreamer on occasion speaks in his sleep, so, too, a man in his waking hours may accompany intensive thought with an unconscious whisper.[97] The peculiar movements of the speech-musculature are to be noted. They have also been observed in other somnambulists.[98]
These clumsy attempts must be directly paralleled with the unintelligent and clumsy movements of the table or glass, and most probably correspond to the preliminary activity of the motor portion of the presentation; that is to say, a stimulus limited to the motor-centre which has not previously been subordinated to any higher system. Whether the like occurs in persons who talk in their dreams, I do not know. But it has been observed in hypnotised persons.[99]
Since
