Sleep Walking and Moon Walking: A Medico-Literary StudySadger, J.
Science
Sleep Walking and Moon Walking: A Medico-Literary Study
Sadger, J.
Psychoanalysis; Sleepwalking
How did it appear at this time to her, herself? The first weeks after
that moonlight night the woman in her bloomed forth more and more, in
spite of the fact that her lover tarried at a distance. Yet when in her
body a new life began to develop and Eisener still did not appear, she
was seized suddenly with a hysterical convulsion--she was wearing
significantly the same rose-colored dress in which he had seen her that
morning--which lasted twelve hours so that every one looked upon her as
dead. The despairing father threw himself across her feet and lay
there--a situation which will occupy us later--and Eisener, who was just
now returning, was driven by the bitterest self reproaches across the
ocean. After waking from her catalepsy Maria did not regain her former
blooming health but grew more and more ill, which the family physician
finally discovered as the result of her pregnancy.
"The good girl herself believed at first that what she felt and what
they told her was a vivid troubled dream." This idea will not appear
strange to us who know so much about moon walking and that one does
everything merely "in sleep" in order to remain blameless. "That she
should become a mother seemed to her so strange and wonderful that she
appeared to herself as some one else (this might well read, as her own
mother dead at so early an age) or as suddenly transplanted into another
world with strange people, animals and trees. The sound of her own
voice, the tone of the bells seemed to her as other and strange sounds."
We may bring forward in explanation in this place the case analyzed at
the beginning, where a moon walker had abandoned herself to all sorts of
dreams. In the moon must be living men of another sort with other
feelings, customs and manners, and the sexual, strongly forbidden upon
earth, must be freely permitted upon this planet. She seemed to herself
on account of her sexual phantasies already as a child quite different
from other people, as if she belonged not upon this earth but upon the
moon. Could not a similar thought process have taken place with Maria?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account