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
"The following often happened to me after I was married but never in my
maidenhood. I awoke in the night, sat up in bed and did not know what
was the matter with me. I could not think consciously, I was quite
incapable of thought. I knew neither where I was nor what was happening
to me; I could remember nothing. I did not know whether I was Jew or
Christian, man or woman, a human being or a beast, only stared straight
ahead into the next room, at a point of light. That was the only thing
that appeared clear to me. I held myself to it to regain clearness. I
always said to myself: 'What, what then? Where, how and why?' My powers
of thought went no further. I was like a newborn child. I stared fixedly
at this point of light because I unconsciously thought I would obtain
clearness there for everywhere else it was dark. This lasted for a long
time until through the light I could distinguish what it was that caused
the light. It was from a street lamp, so apparently before midnight, and
the lamp lighted a bit of the wall in the next room. After I had said to
myself for a long time 'What, what?' and stared straight at that light,
I learned gradually to distinguish what made the light, that is to
recognize, That there above, is a bit of lamplight; again after some
time; That is my lamp. Upon this I recollected my home and then for the
first time everything else. When I had made out the outlines of things
around me, then returned the consciousness that I was a human being and
was married. Of all that I had not before been aware. I do not remember
that I had dreamed anything before this came on, or that anything had
excited me, nor that anything special had happened beforehand. Beside
nothing like it has ever happened to me when I have been greatly
excited. At the most, after my marriage I led a life of strain. I was
tied to a shop which was damp, unwholesome and full of bad air, and I am
a friend of fresh air. I suffered very much mentally under these
conditions, because I love light and air."--"Did you think that you were
indeed not a human being?"--"No; only that with God's help I would
endure this life." I will add here that her second sister also
manifested similar disturbances of consciousness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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