Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology — John Shaqi
Collected Papers on Analytical PsychologyJung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Science
Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Psychoanalysis
V. Somnambulic attacks in September, 1899. S. W. sits upon the sofa,
leans back, shuts her eyes, breathes lightly and regularly. She
gradually becomes cataleptic, the catalepsy disappears after about
two minutes, when she lies in an apparently quiet sleep with complete
muscular relaxation. She suddenly begins to speak in a subdued voice:
"No! you take the red, I'll take the white, you can take the green,
and you the blue. Are you ready? We will go now." (A pause of several
minutes during which her face assumes a corpse-like pallor. Her hands
feel cold and are very bloodless.) She suddenly calls out with a
loud, solemn voice: "Albert, Albert, Albert," then whispering: "Now
you speak," followed by a longer pause, when the pallor of the face
attains the highest possible degree. Again, in a loud solemn voice,
"Albert, Albert, do you not believe your father? I tell you many errors
are contained in N.'s teaching. Think about it." Pause. The pallor
of the face decreases. "He's very frightened. He could not speak any
more." (These words in her usual conversational tone.) Pause. "He will
certainly think about it," S. W. now speaks again in the same tone,
in a strange idiom which sounds like French or Italian, now recalling
the former, now the latter. She speaks fluently, rapidly, and with
charm. It is possible to understand a few words but not to remember the
whole, because the language is so strange. From time to time certain
words recur, as _wena_, _wenes_, _wenai_, _wene_, etc. The absolute
naturalness of the proceedings is bewildering. From time to time she
pauses as if some one were answering her. Suddenly she speaks in German,
"Is time already up?" (In a troubled voice.) "Must I go already?
Goodbye, goodbye." With the last words there passes over her face an
indescribable expression of ecstatic blessedness. She raises her arms,
opens her eyes,--hitherto closed,--looks radiantly upwards. She remains
a moment thus, then her arms sink slackly, her eyes shut, the expression
of her face is tired and exhausted. After a short cataleptic stage she
awakes with a sigh. She looks around astonished: "I've slept again,
haven't I?" She is told she has been talking during the sleep, whereupon
she becomes much annoyed, and this increases when she learns she has
spoken in a foreign tongue. "But didn't I tell the spirits I don't want
it? It mustn't be. It exhausts me too much." Begins to cry. "Oh, God!
Oh, God! must then everything, everything, come back again like last
time? Is nothing spared me?" The next day at the same time there was
another attack. When S. W. has fallen asleep Ulrich von Gerbenstein
suddenly announces himself. He is an entertaining chatterer, speaks very
fluently in high German with a North-German accent. Asked what S. W. is
now doing, after much circumlocution he explains that she is far away,
and he is meanwhile here to look after her body, the circulation of the
blood, the respiration, etc. He must take care that meanwhile no black
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