Sleep Walking and Moon Walking: A Medico-Literary Study — John Shaqi
Sleep Walking and Moon Walking: A Medico-Literary StudySadger, J.
Science
Sleep Walking and Moon Walking: A Medico-Literary Study
Sadger, J.
Psychoanalysis; Sleepwalking
"From this time nothing is known of my walking in my sleep even on
moonlight nights. Only I have sometimes since that time put on my
underclothes in the night, but always my own. That is I have often
discovered in the morning, up till quite recently, that I had on my
linen or my stockings. Besides I often dressed my hair during the night,
and if I had had my hair, for example, braided or loose when I went to
sleep, I would awaken in the morning with my hair put upon my head. This
unconscious hair dressing happened most frequently before menstruation
and was then an absolute sign that this would take place very soon. This
has the following connection. Mother never went to sleep with her hair
done up, but when in bed had it always hanging down in a braid. Only,
when she was suffering from the hemorrhages--at the time of menstruation
I also lost a good deal of blood--she did not have the braid hanging
down but put up upon her head. Before the appearance of menstruation
this braid hanging down annoyed me very much. Furthermore, the doing of
my hair in my sleep, which occurred a few days before, is only the wish
again to see blood, for which reason it appears only usually before
menstruation." I will add to complete this that the ceasing of her sleep
walking at her eighteenth year was contemporaneous with her taking up
regular sexual relations with different men.
The patient gives still other important illustrations of her awaking at
the calling of her name by her mother, and of staring into the light,
particularly the moon. "In school my thoughts were always on the sexual
and therefore I heard nothing when an example was explained. I often
resolved to listen attentively, but in a few minutes I was again
occupied with sexual phantasies. Then if I heard my name called I woke
up suddenly but had first to orient myself and think where I was. This
awaking at the calling of my name at school was exactly like that when
my mother called me by name during my sleep walking. Both times I was
startled and awoke as if from a heavy dream. That excessive dreaming
while awake goes back however to my earliest childhood, when I sat
evenings on my mother's lap, while my parents were talking together, and
excited myself with her. Oh, what wonderful things I dreamed! I always
revelled then in sexual phantasies, and, completely lost in them, forgot
entirely where I was until I suddenly heard my name called, when I
started up frightened and had first to orient myself. Mother always
called my name softly and usually added, when I began to yawn, 'the
pillow is calling you,' and imitating a wee voice, 'You ought to come to
it in bed.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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