Sleep Walking and Moon Walking: A Medico-Literary StudySadger, J.
Science
Sleep Walking and Moon Walking: A Medico-Literary Study
Sadger, J.
Psychoanalysis; Sleepwalking
His sexual excitement, heightened besides through the plentiful
indulgence in alcohol and the general boisterousness, was brought to a
high pitch by an episode with the passionate Julie. Eisener had to leave
the room with her during a social game. "A strange thing happened to
him, for as he bent down in the adjoining room in the dark to the quick
breathing Julie, instead of her ear her burning mouth met his mouth, and
the soft pulsating form fell as if fainting into his arms. Wrestling
with himself, striving to keep his senses, he seized her arm
involuntarily and stood again with her in the assembly room before he
was conscious what it was all about."
Is not this behavior of the youth burning with desire peculiarly
strange? What if behind it there is fixed a memory perhaps of a scene
with the mother, who brought him to his senses by seizing his arm? Yet,
it might always be so for him, he had found the power once more to
withstand the hot temptation. Not to be sure without subsequent regret.
For when he later sought his room he could not go to sleep and "his
phantasy conjured up again, as often as he resisted it, that dark room
about him and the bewitching Julie in his arms. He regretted a thousand
times, so much did he distress himself, his joy at his instinctive
flight, that he had not drunk that sweet poison to the full, whose mere
touch had brought his whole being to this feverish pulsation."
He sought now to find cooling for his heated blood in the garden, and in
fact the fragrance of the flowers and the rustling of the leaves so
soothed his excited mind that gradually the sense of a pleasant languor
came over him. In a half unconsciousness he went upstairs again and back
to bed. He was just falling asleep when he saw a white form enter, whose
features he could not make out because of his shortsightedness. As it
disrobed and came toward him, he first, as if seeking for help, reached
with his hands toward the side where his friend should be sleeping. He
did not however find him, he apparently had been put into another room.
"The thought of being alone for the first time with a womanly being in
the security of night crept over him at first like icecold drops, then
like the glow of fire over all his nerves. His heart pounded audibly as
the figure climbed into his bed. The strangeness and adventure of the
situation was not fitted to work rationally upon the intoxicated man,
whose excitement throbbed into his finger tips. The power of the warning
inner voice disappeared with his reason and the strife was brief before
nature came off conqueror."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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