“You have asked me to tell you more in detail about the attacks or nightmares to which my step-father was subject, and which always frightened me greatly, especially when a child. “My step-father had the habit of falling asleep quite often, even in the day time, and I have never known him to go to sleep without having an attack in some form. If one watched him asleep, as I often did, one could tell by his respiration when an attack was coming. His breathing would become slower and hardly perceptible, and finally he would begin to moan, and cry out; then, when shaken vigorously and spoken to, he would awaken in great fear and apparent suffering. If he had an attack, and we did not respond soon enough, he would be very angry and say that we cared not if he should die. We were so afraid of these attacks that we had trained ourselves to be ever on the look-out for his cries, even at night. “It really seemed as if his life rested in our hands. I might say that sometimes these attacks lasted several minutes, before he could be awakened. He used to say that at such times he always dreamed someone was choking, beating, or otherwise torturing him. He had been told by some physician that he would ultimately die in such an attack. “These attacks were sufficient to precipitate a small panic in the house. I know not a single hour of the day or night, but that I have either been called or awakened by my mother in her efforts to awaken him. With the attack over, I would be trembling all over, and my heart would be beating madly. I can remember these attacks from my earliest childhood, and it seems to me that on one occasion, at your office, I was startled just as these attacks used to make me.” While in the hypnoidal state, patient exclaimed: “I am afraid. All my life I lived under terror.... This is just my disease,--fear.” II “I lived from infancy in a state of apprehension and fear. In my home there seemed to be always a tension. I don’t know that I ever relaxed there during my waking hours. I was never at peace mentally. This was largely brought about by my mother’s chronic condition of fear. I should not have had such a large development of the fear habit had there been any neutralizing influence. But my father was a weak character, living under fear, being afraid of responsibility, so that my character was closely molded on his. He gave me no moral fiber to resist fears of mother, and so did not help me to build any character of my own. I still carry with me the state of apprehension and fear that I contracted in my early life. I had only one serious illness in my life outside of my nervous troubles. Had an attack of bowel trouble somewhere near the age of six. I was once struck in the face by a dog’s teeth. I have had various cancer experiences.