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Fig. 3.

As stated, the patient's automatic writing never came to any very great development. In these experiments, generally carried out in darkness, she passed over into semi-somnambulism, or into ecstasy. The automatic writing had thus the same effect as the preliminary table-turning.

3. The Hallucinations.—The nature of the passing into somnambulism in the second séance is of psychological importance. As stated, the automatic phenomena were progressing favourably when darkness came on. The most interesting event of this séance, so far, was the brusque interruption of the communication from the grandfather, which was the starting-point of various debates amongst the members of the circle. These two momentous occurrences, the darkness and the striking event, seem to have been the foundation for a rapid deepening of hypnosis, in consequence of which the hallucinations could be developed. The psychological mechanism of this process seems to be as follows. The influence of darkness upon the suggestibility of the sense-organs is well known.[39] Binet[40] states that it has a special influence on hysterics, producing a state of sleepiness. As is clear from the foregoing, the patient was in a state of partial hypnosis and had constituted herself one with the unconscious personality in closest relationship to her in the domain of speech. The automatic expression of this personality is interrupted most unexpectedly by a new person, of whose existence no one had any suspicion. Whence came this cleavage? Obviously the eager expectation of this first séance had very much occupied the patient. Her reminiscences of me and my family had probably grouped themselves around this expectation; hence these suddenly come to light at the climax of the automatic expression. That it was just my grandfather and no one else—not, e.g., my deceased father, who, as she knew, was much closer to me than the grandfather whom I had never known—perhaps suggests where the origin of this new person is to be sought. It is probably a dissociation of the personality already present which seized upon the material next at hand for its expression, namely, upon the associations concerning myself. How far this is parallel to the experiences revealed by dream investigation (Freud's[41]) must remain undecided, for we have no means of judging how far the effect mentioned can be considered a "repressed" one. From the brusque interruption of the new personality, we may conclude that the presentations concerned were very vivid, with corresponding intensity of expectation. This perhaps was an attempt to overcome a certain maidenly shyness and embarrassment. This event reminds us vividly of the manner in which the dream presents to consciousness, by a more or less transparent symbolism, things one has never said to oneself clearly and openly. We do not know when this dissociation of the new personality occurred, whether it had been slowly prepared in the unconscious, or whether it first occurred in the séance. In any case, this event meant a considerable increase in the extension of the unconscious sphere rendered accessible through the hypnosis. At the same time this event must be regarded as powerfully suggestive in regard to the impression which it made upon the waking consciousness of the patient. For the perception of this unexpected intervention of a new power must inevitably excite a feeling of the strangeness of the automatisms, and would easily suggest the thought that an independent spirit is here making itself known. Hence the intelligible association that she would finally be able to see this spirit. The situation that ensued at the second séance is to be explained by the coincidence of this energising suggestion with the heightened suggestibility conditioned by the darkness. The hypnosis, and with it the series of dissociated presentations, break through to the visual area, and the expression of the unconscious, hitherto purely motor, is made objective, according to the measure of the specific energy of the new system, in the shape of visual images with the character of hallucinations; not as a mere accompanying phenomenon of the word-automatism, but as a substituted function. The explanation of the situation that arose in the first séance, at that time unexpected and inexplicable, is no longer presented in words, but as a descriptive allegorical vision. The sentence "they do not hate one another, but are friends," is expressed in a picture. We often encounter events of this kind in somnambulism. The thinking of somnambulists is given in plastic images which constantly break into this or that sense-sphere and are made objective in hallucinations. The process of reflection sinks into the subconscious; only its end-results arise to consciousness either as presentations vividly tinged by the senses, or directly as hallucinations. In our case the same thing occurred as in the patient whose anæsthetic hand Binet pricked nine times, making her think of the figure 9; or as in Flournoy's[42] Helen Smith, who, when asked during business-hours about certain patterns, suddenly saw the number of days (18) for which they had been lent, at a length of 20 mm. in front of her. The further question arises, why does the automatism appear in the visual and not in the acoustic sphere? There are several grounds for this choice of the visual sphere.

(1) The patient is not gifted acoustically; she is, for instance, very unmusical.

(2) There was no stillness corresponding to the darkness which might have favoured the appearance of sounds; there was a lively conversation.

(3) The increased conviction of the near presence of spirits, because the automatism felt so strange, could easily have aroused the idea that a spirit might be seen, thus causing a slight excitation of the visual sphere.

(4) The entoptic phenomena in darkness favoured the occurrence of hallucinations.

The reasons (3) and (4)—the entoptic phenomena in the darkness and the probable excitation of the visual sphere—are of decisive importance for the appearance of hallucinations. The entoptic phenomena in this case play the same rôle in the auto-suggestion, the production of the automatism, as the slight tactile stimuli in hypnosis of the motor centre. As stated, flashes preceded the first hallucinatory twilight-state. Obviously attention was already at a high pitch, and directed to visual perceptions, so that the retina's own light, usually very weak, was seen with great intensity. The part played by entoptic perceptions of light in the origin of hallucinations deserves further consideration. Schüle[43] says: "The swarming of light and colour which stimulates and animates the field of vision, although in the dark, supplies the material for phantastic figures in the air before falling asleep. As we know, absolute darkness is never seen; a few particles of the dark field of vision are always illumined; flecks of light move here and there, and combine into all kinds of figures; it only needs a moderately active imagination to create out of them, as one does out of clouds, certain known figures. The power of reasoning, fading as one falls asleep, leaves phantasy free play to construct very vivid figures. In the place of the light spots, haziness and changing colours of the dark visual field, there arise definite outlines of objects."[44]

In this way hypnagogic hallucinations arise. The chief rôle naturally belongs to the imagination, hence imaginative people in particular are subject to hypnagogic hallucinations.[45] The hypnopompic hallucinations described by Myers arise in the same way.

It is highly probable that hypnagogic pictures are identical with the dream-pictures of normal sleep—forming their visual foundation. Maury[46] has proved from self-observation that the pictures which hovered around him hypnagogically were also the objects of the dreams that followed. G. Trumbull Ladd[47] has shown this even more convincingly. By practice he succeeded in waking himself suddenly two to five minutes after falling asleep. He then observed that the figures dancing before the retina at times represented the same contours as the pictures just dreamed of. He even states that nearly every visual dream is shaped by the retina's own light-figures. In our case the fantastic rendering of these pictures was favoured by the situation. We must not underrate the influence of the over-excited expectation which allowed the dull retina-light to appear with increased intensity.[48] The further formation of the retinal appearances follows in accordance with the predominating presentations. That hallucinations appear in this way has been also observed in other visionaries. Jeanne d'Arc[49] first saw a cloud of light, and only after some time there stepped forth St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. For a whole hour Swedenborg[50] saw nothing but illuminated spheres and fiery flames. He felt a mighty change in the brain, which seemed to him "release of light." After the space of one hour he suddenly saw red figures which he regarded as angels and spirits. The sun visions of Benvenuto Cellini[51] in Engelsburg are probably of the same nature. A student who frequently saw apparitions stated: "When these apparitions come, at first I only see single masses of light and at the same time am conscious of a dull noise in the ears. Gradually these contours become clear figures."

The appearance of hallucinations occurred in a quite classical way in Flournoy's Helen Smith. I quote the cases in question from his article.[52]

"18 Mars. Tentative d'expérience dans l'obscurité. Mlle. Smith voit un ballon tantôt luminieux, tantôt s'obscurcissant.

"25 Mars. Mlle. Smith commence à distinguer de vagues lueurs, de longs rubans blancs, s'agitant du plancher au plafond, puis enfin une magnifique étoile qui dans l'obscurité s'est montrée à elle seule pendant toute la séance.

"1 Avril. Mlle. Smith se sent très agitée, elle a des frissons, est partiellement glacée. Elle est très inquiète et voit tout à coup se balançant au-dessus de la table une figure grimaçante et très laide avec de longs cheveux rouges. Elle voit alors un magnifique bouquet de roses de nuances diverses; tout à coup elle voit sortir de dessous le bouquet un petit serpent, qui, rampant doucement, vient sentir les fleurs, les regarde," etc.

Helen Smith[53] says in regard to the origin of her vision of March:

"La lueur rouge persista autour de moi et je me suis trouvée entourée de fleurs extraordinaires."

At all times the complex hallucinations of visionaries have occupied a peculiar place in scientific criticism. Macario[54] early separated these so-called intuition-hallucinations from others, since he maintains that they occur in persons of an eager mind, deep understanding and high nervous excitability. Hecker[55] expresses himself similarly but more enthusiastically.

His view is that their condition is "the congenital high development of the spiritual organ which calls into active, free and mobile play the life of the imagination, bringing it spontaneous activity." These hallucinations are "precursors or signs of mighty spiritual power." The vision is "an increased excitation which is harmoniously adapted to the most complete health of mind and body." The complex hallucinations do not belong to the waking state, but prefer as a rule a partial waking state. The visionary is buried in his vision even to complete annihilation. Flournoy was also always able to prove in the visions of H.S. "un certain degré d'obnubilation." In our case the vision is complicated by a state of sleep whose peculiarities we shall review later.

The Change in Character.

The most striking characteristic of the second stage in our case is the change in character. We meet many cases in the literature which have offered the symptom of spontaneous character-change. The first case in a scientific publication is Weir-Mitchell's[56] case of Mary Reynolds.

This was the case of a young woman living in Pennsylvania in 1811. After a deep sleep of about twenty hours she had totally forgotten her entire past and everything she had learnt; even the words she spoke had lost their meaning. She no longer knew her relatives. Slowly she re-learnt to read and write, but her writing was from right to left. More striking still was the change in her character. Instead of being melancholy, she was now cheerful in the extreme. Instead of being reserved, she was buoyant and sociable. Formerly taciturn and retiring, she was now merry and jocose. Her disposition was totally changed.[57]

In this state she renounced her former retired life and liked to undertake adventurous excursions unarmed, through wood and mountain, on foot and horseback. In one of these excursions she encountered a large black bear, which she took for a pig. The bear raised himself on his hind legs and gnashed his teeth at her. As she could not drive her horse on any further, she took an ordinary stick and hit the bear until it took to flight. Five weeks later, after a deep sleep, she returned to her earlier state with amnesia for the interval. These states alternated for about sixteen years. But her last twenty-five years Mary Reynolds passed exclusively in her second state.

Schroeder von der Kalk[58] reports on the following case: The patient became ill at the age of sixteen with periodic amnesia, after a previous tedious illness of three years. Sometimes in the morning after waking she passed through a peculiar choreic state, during which she made rhythmical movements with her arms. Throughout the whole day she would then exhibit a childish, silly behaviour and lost all her educated capabilities. (When normal she is very intelligent, well-read, speaks French well.) In the second state she begins to speak faulty French. On the second day she is again at times normal. The two states are completely separated by amnesia.[59]

Hoefelt[60] reports on a case of spontaneous somnambulism in a girl who, in her normal state, was submissive and modest, but in somnambulism was impertinent, rude and violent. Azam's[61] Felida was, in her normal state, depressed, inhibited, timid; and in the second state lively, confident, enterprising to recklessness. The second state gradually became the chief one, and finally so far suppressed the first state that the patient called her normal states, lasting now but a short time, "crises." The amnesic attacks had begun at 14½. In time the second state became milder and there was a certain approximation between the character of the two states. A very striking example of change in character is that worked out by Camuset, Ribot, Legrand du Saulle, Richer, Voisin, and put together by Bourru and Burot.[62] It is that of Louis V., a severe male hysteric with amnesic alternating character. In the first stage he is rude, cheeky, querulous, greedy, thievish, inconsiderate. In the second state he is an agreeable, sympathetic character, industrious, docile and obedient. This amnesic change of character has been used by Paul Lindau[63] in his drama "Der Andere" (The Other One).

Rieger[64] reports on a case parallel to Lindau's criminal lawyer. The unconscious personalities of Janet's Lucie and Léonie (Janet, l.c.) and Morton Prince's[65] may also be regarded as parallel with our case. There are, however, therapeutic artificial products whose importance lies in the domain of the dissociation of consciousness and of memory.

In the above cases, the second state is always separated from the first by an amnesic dissociation, and the change in character is, at times, accompanied by a break in the continuity of consciousness. In our case there is no amnesic disturbance; the passage from the first to the second stage follows quite gradually and the continuity of consciousness remains. The patient carries out in her waking state everything, otherwise unknown to her, from the field of the unconscious that she has experienced during hallucinations in the second stage.

Periodic changes in personality without amnesic dissociation are found in the region of folie circulaire, but are rarely seen in hysterics, as Renaudin's[66] case shows. A young man, whose behaviour had always been excellent, suddenly began to display the worst tendencies. There were no symptoms of insanity, but, on the other hand, the whole surface of the body was anæsthetic. This state showed periodic intervals, and in the same way the patient's character was subject to vacillations. As soon as the anæsthesia disappeared he was manageable and friendly. When the anæsthesia returned he was overcome by the worst instincts, which, it was observed, even included the wish to murder.

Remembering that our patient's age at the beginning of the disturbances was 14–½, that is, the age of puberty had just been reached, one must suppose that there was some connection between the disturbances and the physiological character-changes at puberty. "There appears in the consciousness of the individual during this period of life a new group of sensations, together with the feelings and ideas arising therefrom; this continuous pressure of unaccustomed mental states makes itself constantly felt because the cause is always at work; the states are co-ordinated because they arise from one and the same source, and must little by little bring about deep-seated changes in the ego."[67] Vacillating moods are easily recognisable; the confused new, strong feelings, the inclination towards idealism, to exalted religiosity and mysticism, side by side with the falling back into childishness, all this gives to adolescence its prevailing character. At this epoch the human being first makes clumsy attempts at independence in every direction; for the first time uses for his own purposes all that family and school have contributed hitherto; he conceives ideals, constructs far-reaching plans for the future, lives in dreams whose content is ambitious and egotistic. This is all physiological. The puberty of a psychopathic is a crisis of more serious import. Not only do the psychophysical changes run a stormy course, but features of a hereditary degenerate character become fixed. In the child these do not appear at all, or but sporadically. For the explanation of our case we are bound to consider a specific disturbance of puberty. The reasons for this view will appear from a further study of the second personality. (For the sake of brevity we shall call the second personality Ivenes—as the patient baptised her higher ego).

Ivenes is the exact continuation of the everyday ego. She includes the whole of her conscious content. In the semi-somnambulic state her intercourse with the real external world is analogous to that of the waking state, that is, she is influenced by recurrent hallucinations, but no more than persons who are subject to non-confusional psychotic hallucinations. The continuity of Ivenes obviously extends to the hysterical attack with its dramatic scenes, visionary events, etc. During the attack itself she is generally isolated from the external world; she does not notice what is going on around her, does not know that she is talking loudly, etc. But she has no amnesia for the dream-content of her attack. Amnesia for her motor expressions and for the changes in her surroundings is not always present. That this is dependent upon the degree of intensity of her somnambulic state and that there is sometimes partial paralysis of individual sense organs is proved by the occasion when she did not notice me; her eyes were then open, and most probably she saw the others, although she only perceived me when I spoke to her. This is a case of so-called systematised anæsthesia (negative hallucination) which is often observed in hysterics.

Flournoy,[68] for instance, reports of Helen Smith that during the séances she suddenly ceased to see those taking part, although she still heard their voices and felt their touch; sometimes she no longer heard, although she saw the movements of the lips of the speakers, etc.

Ivenes is just the continuation of the waking self. She contains the entire consciousness of S. W.'s waking state. Her remarkable behaviour tells decidedly against any analogy with cases of double consciousness. The characteristics of Ivenes contrast favourably with the patient's ordinary self. She is a calmer, more composed personality; her pleasing modesty and accuracy, her uniform intelligence, her confident way of talking must be regarded as an improvement of the whole being; thus far there is analogy with Janet's Léonie. But this is the extent of the similarity. Apart from the amnesia, they are divided by a deep psychological difference. Léonie II. is the healthier, the more normal; she has regained her natural capabilities, she shows remarkable improvement upon her chronic condition of hysteria. Ivenes rather gives the impression of a more artificial product; there is something thought out; despite all her excellences she gives the impression of playing a part excellently; her world-sorrow, her yearning for the other side of things, are not merely piety but the attributes of saintliness. Ivenes is no mere human, but a mystic being who only partly belongs to reality. The mournful features, the attachment to sorrow, her mysterious fate, lead us to the historic prototype of Ivenes—Justinus Kerner's "Prophetess of Prevorst." Kerner's book must be taken as known, and therefore I omit any references to these common traits. But Ivenes is no copy of the prophetess; she lacks the resignation and the saintly piety of the latter. The prophetess is merely used by her as a study for her own original conception. The patient pours her own soul into the rôle of the prophetess, thus seeking to create an ideal of virtue and perfection. She anticipates her future. She incarnates in Ivenes what she wishes to be in twenty years—the assured, influential, wise, gracious, pious lady. It is in the construction of the second person that there lies the far-reaching difference between Léonie II. and Ivenes. Both are psychogenic. But Léonie I. receives in Léonie II. what really belongs to her, while S. W. builds up a person beyond herself. It cannot be said "she deceives herself" into, but that "she dreams herself" into the higher ideal state.[69]

The realisation of this dream recalls vividly the psychology of the pathological cheat. Delbruck[70] and Forel[71] have indicated the importance of auto-suggestion in the formation of pathological cheating and reverie. Pick[72] regards intense auto-suggestibility as the first symptom of the hysterical dreamer, making possible the realisation of the "day-dream." One of Pick's patients dreamt that she was in a morally dangerous situation, and finally carried out an attempt at rape on herself; she lay on the floor naked and fastened herself to a table and chairs. Or some dramatic person will be created with whom the patient enters into correspondence by letter, as in Bohn's case.[73] The patient dreamt herself into an engagement with a totally imaginary lawyer in Nice, from whom she received letters which she had herself written in disguised handwriting. This pathological dreaming, with auto-suggestive deceptions of memory amounting to real delusions and hallucinations, is pre-eminently to be found in the lives of many saints.[74]

It is only a step from the dreamlike images strongly stamped by the senses to the true complex hallucinations.[75] In Pick's case, for instance, one sees that the patient, who persuades herself that she is the Empress Elizabeth, gradually loses herself in her dreams to such an extent that her condition must be regarded as a true "twilight" state. Later it passes over into hysterical delirium, when her dream-phantasies become typical hallucinations. The pathological liar, who becomes involved through his phantasies, behaves exactly like a child who loses himself in his play, or like the actor who loses himself in his part.[76] There is here no fundamental distinction from somnambulic dissociation of personality, but only a difference of degree, which rests upon the intensity of the primary auto-suggestibility or disintegration of the psychic elements. The more consciousness becomes dissociated, the greater becomes the plasticity of the dream situation, the less becomes the amount of conscious lying and of consciousness in general. This being carried away by interest in the object is what Freud calls hysterical identification. For instance, to Erler's[77] acutely hysterical patient there appeared hypnagogically little riders made of paper, who so took possession of her imagination that she had the feeling of being herself one of them. Similar phenomena normally occur to us in dreams in general, in which we think like "hysterics."[78]

The complete abandonment to the interesting image explains also the wonderful naturalness of pseudological or somnambulic representation—a degree unattainable in conscious acting. The less waking consciousness intervenes by reflection and reasoning, the more certain and convincing becomes the objectivation of the dream, e.g. the roof-climbing of somnambulists.

Our case has another analogy with pseudologia phantastica: The development of the phantasies during the attacks. Many cases are known in the literature where the pathological lying comes on in attacks and during serious hysterical trouble.[79]

Our patient develops her systems exclusively in the attack. In her normal state she is quite incapable of giving any new ideas or explanations; she must either transpose herself into somnambulism or await its spontaneous appearance. This exhausts the affinity to pseudologia phantastica and to pathological dream-states.

Our patient's state is even differentiated from pathological dreaming, since it could never be proved that her dream-weavings had at any time previously been the objects of her interest during the day. Her dreams occur explosively, break forth with bewildering completeness from the darkness of the unconscious. Exactly the same was the case in Flournoy's Helen Smith. In many cases (see below), however, links with the perceptions of the normal states can be demonstrated: it seems therefore probable that the roots of every dream were originally images with an emotional accentuation, which, however, only occupied waking consciousness for a short time.[80] We must allow that in the origin of such dreams hysterical forgetfulness[81] plays a part not to be underestimated.

Many images are buried which would be sufficient to put the consciousness on guard; associated classes of ideas are lost and go on spinning their web in the unconscious, thanks to the psychic dissociation; this is a process which we meet again in the genesis of our dreams.

"Our conscious reflection teaches us that when exercising attention we pursue a definite course. But if that course leads us to an idea which does not meet with our approval, we discontinue and cease to apply our attention. Now, apparently, the chain of thought thus started and abandoned, may go on without regaining attention unless it reaches a spot of especially marked intensity, which compels renewed attention. An initial rejection, perhaps consciously brought about by the judgment on the ground of incorrectness or unfitness for the actual purpose of the mental act, may therefore account for the fact that a mental process continues unnoticed by consciousness until the onset of sleep."[82]

In this way we may explain the apparently sudden and direct appearance of dream-states. The entire carrying over of the conscious personality into the dream-rôle involves indirectly the development of simultaneous automatisms. "Une seconde condition peut amener la division de conscience; ce n'est pas une altération de la sensibilité, c'est une attitude particulière de l'esprit, la concentration de l'attention pour un point unique; il résulte de cet état de concentration que l'esprit devient distrait pour la reste et en quelque sorte insensible, ce qui ouvre la carrière aux actions automatiques, et ces actions peuvent prendre un caractère psychique et constituer des intelligences parasites, vivant côte à côte avec la personnalité normale qui ne les connaît pas."[83]

Our subject's romances throw a most significant light on the subjective roots of her dreams. They swarm with secret and open love-affairs, with illegitimate births and other sexual insinuations. The central point of all these ambiguous stories is a lady whom she dislikes, who is gradually made to assume the form of her polar opposite, and whilst Ivenes becomes the pinnacle of virtue, this lady is a sink of iniquity. But her reincarnation doctrines, in which she appears as the mother of countless thousands, arises in its naïve nakedness from an exuberant phantasy which is, of course, very characteristic of the period of puberty. It is the woman's premonition of the sexual feeling, the dream of fruitfulness, which the patient has turned into these monstrous ideas. We shall not go wrong if we seek for the curious form of the disease in the teeming sexuality of this too-rich soil. Viewed from this standpoint, the whole creation of Ivenes, with her enormous family, is nothing but a dream of sexual wish-fulfilment, differentiated from the dream of a night only in that it persists for months and years.

Relation to the Hysterical Attack.

So far one point in S. W.'s history has remained unexplained, and that is her attack. In the second séance she was suddenly seized with a sort of fainting fit, from which she awoke with a recollection of various hallucinations. According to her own statement, she had not lost consciousness for a moment. Judging from the external symptoms and the course of the attack, one is inclined to regard it as a narcolepsy, or rather a lethargy; such, for example, as Loewenfeld has described, and the more readily as we know that previously one member of her family (her grandmother) has had an attack of lethargy. It is possible to imagine that the lethargic disposition (Loewenfeld) had descended to our subject. In spiritualistic séances it is not usual to see hysterical convulsions. Our subject showed no sort of convulsive symptoms, but in their place, perhaps, the peculiar sleeping-states. Ætiologically, at the outset, two moments must be taken into consideration:

1. The irruption of hypnosis.

2. The psychic stimulation.

1. Irruption of Partial Hypnosis.—Janet observes that the subconscious automatisms have a hypnotic influence and can bring about complete somnambulism.[84]

He made the following experiment: While the patient, who was in the completely waking state, was engaged in conversation by a second observer, Janet stationed himself behind her and by means of whispered suggestions made her unconsciously move her hand and by written signs give an answer to questions. Suddenly the patient broke off the conversation, turned round and with her supraliminal consciousness continued the previously subconscious talk with Janet. She had fallen into hypnotic somnambulism.[85]

There is here a state of affairs similar to our patient's. But it must be noted that, for certain reasons discussed later, the sleeping state is not to be regarded as hypnotic. We therefore come to the question of—

2. The Psychic Stimulation.—It is told of Bettina Brentano that the first time she met Goethe she suddenly fell asleep on his knee.[86]

This ecstatic sleep in the midst of extremest torture, the so-called "witch-sleep," is well known in the history of trials for witchcraft.[87]

With susceptible subjects relatively insignificant stimuli suffice to bring about the somnambulic state. Thus a sensitive lady had to have a splinter cut out of her finger. Without any kind of bodily change she suddenly saw herself sitting by the side of a brook in a beautiful meadow, plucking flowers. This condition lasted as long as the slight operation and then disappeared spontaneously.[88]

Loewenfeld[89] has noticed unintentional inducement of hysterical lethargy through hypnosis.

Our case has certain resemblances to hysterical lethargy[90] as described by Loewenfeld, viz. the shallow breathing, the diminution of the pulse, the corpse-like pallor of the face, and further the peculiar feeling of dying and the thoughts of death.[91]

The retention of one sense is not inconsistent with lethargy: thus in certain cases of trance the sense of hearing remains.[92]

In Bonamaison's[93] case not only was the sense of touch retained, but the senses of hearing and smell were quickened. The hallucinatory content and loud speaking is also met with in persons with hallucinations in lethargy.[94] Usually there prevails total amnesia for the lethargic interval. Loewenfeld's[95] case D. had, however, a fleeting recollection; in Bonamaison's case there was no amnesia. Lethargic patients do not prove susceptible to the usual waking stimuli, but Loewenfeld succeeded with his patient St. in turning the lethargy into hypnosis by means of mesmeric passes, thus combining it with the rest of consciousness during the attack.[96] Our patient showed herself absolutely insusceptible in the beginning of the lethargy, but later on she began to speak spontaneously, was incapable of giving any attention when her somnambulic ego was speaking, but could attend when it was one of her automatic personalities. In this last case it is probable that the hypnotic effect of the automatisms succeeded in achieving a partial transformation of the lethargy into hypnosis. When we consider that, according to Loewenfeld's view, the lethargic disposition must not be "too readily identified with the peculiar condition of the nervous apparatus in hysteria," then the idea of the family heredity of this disposition in our case becomes not a little probable. The disease is much complicated by these attacks.

So far we have seen that the patient's consciousness of her ego is identical in all the states. We have discussed two secondary complexes of consciousness and have followed them into the somnambulic attack, where they appear as the patient's vision when she had lost her motor activity during the attack. During the next attacks she was impervious to any external incidents, but on the other hand developed, within the twilight state, all the more intense activity, in the form of visions. It seems that many secondary series of ideas must have split off quite early from the primary unconscious personality, for already, after the first two séances, "spirits" appeared by the dozen. The names were inexhaustible in variety, but the differences between the personalities were soon exhausted and it became apparent that they could all be subsumed under two types, the serio-religious type and the gay-hilarious. So far it was really only a matter of two different unconscious personalities, which appeared under different names but had no essential differences. The older type, the grandfather, who had initiated the automatisms, also first began to make use of the twilight state. I am not able to remember any suggestion which might have given rise to the automatic speaking. According to the preceding view, the attack in such circumstances might be regarded as a partial auto-hypnosis. The ego-consciousness which remains and, as a result of its isolation from the external world, occupies itself entirely with its hallucinations, is what is left over of the waking consciousness. Thus the automatism has a wide field for its activity. The independence of the individual central spheres which we have proved at the beginning to be present in the patient, makes the automatic act of speaking appear intelligible. Just as the dreamer on occasion speaks in his sleep, so, too, a man in his waking hours may accompany intensive thought with an unconscious whisper.[97] The peculiar movements of the speech-musculature are to be noted. They have also been observed in other somnambulists.[98]

These clumsy attempts must be directly paralleled with the unintelligent and clumsy movements of the table or glass, and most probably correspond to the preliminary activity of the motor portion of the presentation; that is to say, a stimulus limited to the motor-centre which has not previously been subordinated to any higher system. Whether the like occurs in persons who talk in their dreams, I do not know. But it has been observed in hypnotised persons.[99]

Since the convenient medium of speech was used as the means of communication, the study of the subconscious personalities was considerably lightened. Their intellectual compass is a relatively mediocre one. Their knowledge is greater than that of the waking patient, including also a few occasional details, such as the birthdays of dead strangers and the like. The source of these is more or less obscure, since the patient does not know whence in the ordinary way she could have procured the knowledge of these facts. These are cases of so-called cryptomnesia, which are too unimportant to deserve more extended notice. The intelligence of the two subconscious persons is very slight; they produce banalities almost exclusively, but their relation to the conscious ego of the patient when in the somnambulic state is interesting. They are invariably aware of everything that takes place during ecstasy and occasionally they render an exact report from minute to minute.[100]

The subconscious persons only know the patient's phantastic changes of thought very superficially; they do not understand these and cannot answer a single question concerning the situation. Their stereotyped reference to Ivenes is: "Ask Ivenes." This observation reveals a dualism in the character of the subconscious personalities difficult to explain; for the grandfather, who gives information by automatic speech, also appears to Ivenes and, according to her account, teaches her about the objects in question. How is it that, when the grandfather speaks through the patient's mouth, he knows nothing of the very things which he himself teaches her in the ecstasies?

We must again return to the discussion of the first appearance of the hallucinations. We picture the vision, then, as an irruption of hypnosis into the visual sphere. That irruption does not lead to a "normal" hypnosis, but to a "hystero-hypnosis," that is, the simple hypnosis is complicated by a hysterical attack.

It is not a rare occurrence in the domain of hypnotism for normal hypnosis to be disturbed, or rather to be replaced by the unexpected appearance of hysterical somnambulism; the hypnotist in many cases then loses rapport with the patient. In our case the automatism arising in the motor area plays the part of hypnotist; the suggestions proceeding from it (called objective auto-suggestions) hypnotise the neighbouring areas in which a certain susceptibility has arisen. At the moment when the hypnotism flows over into the visual sphere, the hysterical attack occurs which, as remarked, effects a very deep-reaching change in a large portion of the psychical region. We must now suppose that the automatism stands in the same relationship to the attack as the hypnotist to a pathological hypnosis; its influence upon the further structure of the situation is lost. The hallucinatory appearance of the hypnotised personality, or rather of the suggested idea, may be regarded as the last effect upon the somnambulic personality. Thenceforward the hypnotist becomes only a figure with whom the somnambulic personality occupies itself independently: he can only state what is going on and is no longer the conditio sine qua non of the content of the somnambulic attack. The independent ego-complex of the attack, in our case Ivenes, has now the upper hand. She groups her own mental products around the personality of the hypnotiser, that is, of the grandfather, now degraded to a mere image. In this way we are enabled to understand the dualism in the character of the grandfather. The grandfather I. who speaks directly to those present, is a totally different person and a mere spectator of his double, grandfather II., who appears as Ivenes' teacher. Grandfather I. maintains energetically that both are one and the same person, and that I. has all the knowledge which II. possesses, and is only prevented from giving information by the difficulties of speech. (The dissociation was of course not realized by the patient, who took both to be one person.) Grandfather I., if closely examined, however, is not altogether wrong, judging from one fact which seems to make for the identity of I. and II., viz. that they are never both present together. When I. speaks automatically, II. is not present; Ivenes remarks on his absence. Similarly, during the ecstasy, when she is with II., she cannot say where I. is, or she may learn only on returning from an imaginary journey that meanwhile I. has been guarding her body. Conversely I. never says that he is going on a journey with Ivenes and never explains anything to her. This behaviour should be noted, for if I. is really separate from II., there seems no reason why he should not speak automatically at the same time that II. appears, and be present with II. in the ecstasy. Although this might have been supposed possible, as a matter of fact it was never observed. How is this dilemma to be resolved? At all events there exists an identity of I. and II., but it does not lie in the region of the personality under discussion; it lies in the basis common to both; that is, in the personality of the subject which in deepest essence is one and indivisible. Here we come across the characteristic of all hysterical dissociations of consciousness. They are disturbances which only belong to the superficial, and none reaches so deep as to attack the strong-knit foundation of the ego-complex.

In many such cases we can find the bridge which, although often well-concealed, spans the apparently impassable abyss. For instance, by suggestion, one of four cards is made invisible to a hypnotised person; he thereupon names the other three. A pencil is placed in his hand with the instruction to write down all the cards lying there; he correctly adds the fourth one.[101]

In the aura of his hystero-epileptic attacks a patient of Janet's[102] invariably had a vision of a conflagration, and whenever he saw an open fire he had an attack; indeed, the sight of a lighted match was sufficient to bring about an attack. The patient's visual field on the left side was limited to 30°, the right eye was shut. The left eye was fixed in the middle of a perimeter whilst a lighted match was held at 80°. The hystero-epileptic attack took place immediately. Despite the extensive amnesia in many cases of double consciousness, the patients' behaviour does not correspond to the degree of their ignorance, but it seems rather as if a deeper instinct guided their actions in accordance with their former knowledge. Not only this relatively slight amnesic dissociation, but the severe amnesia of the epileptic twilight-state, formerly regarded as irreparabile damnum, does not suffice to cut the inmost threads which bind the ego-complex in the twilight-state to the normal ego. In one case the content of the twilight-state could be grafted on to the waking ego-complex.[103]

Making use of these experiments for our case, we obtain the helpful hypothesis that those layers of the unconscious beyond reach of the dissociation endeavour to present the unity of automatic personality. This endeavour is shattered in the deeper-seated and more elemental disturbance of the hysterical attack,[104] which prevents a more complete synthesis by the tacking on of associations which are to a certain extent the most original individual property of supraliminal personality. As the Ivenes dream emerged it was fitted on to the figures accidentally in the field of vision, and henceforth remains associated with them.

Relationship to the Unconscious Personality.

As we have seen, the numerous personalities become grouped round two types, the grandfather and Ulrich von Gerbenstein. The first produces exclusively sanctimonious religiosity and gives edifying moral precepts. The latter is, in one word, a "flapper," in whom there is nothing male except the name. We must here add from the anamnesis that at fifteen the patient was confirmed by a very bigoted clergyman, and at home she is occasionally the recipient of sanctimonious moral talks. The grandfather represents this side of her past, Gerbenstein the other half; hence the curious contrast. Here we have personified the chief characteristics of her past. On the one hand the sanctimonious person with a narrow education, on the other the boisterousness of a lively girl of fifteen who often overshoots the mark.[105] We find both sets of traits mixed in the patient in sharp contrast. At times she is anxious, shy, and extremely reserved; at others boisterous to a degree. She is herself often most painfully aware of these contradictions. This circumstance gives us the key to the source of the two unconscious personalities. The patient is obviously seeking a middle path between the two extremes; she endeavours to repress them and strains after some ideal condition. These strainings bring her to the puberty dream of the ideal Ivenes, beside whose figure the unacknowledged trends of her character recede into the background. They are not lost, however, but as repressed ideas, analogous to the Ivenes idea, begin an independent existence as automatic personalities.

S. W.'s behaviour recalls vividly Freud's[106] investigations into dreams which disclose the independent growth of repressed thoughts. We can now comprehend why the hallucinatory persons are separated from those who write and speak automatically. The former teach Ivenes the secrets of the Other Side, they relate all those phantastic tales about the extraordinariness of her personality, they create scenes where Ivenes can appear dramatically with the attributes of power, wisdom and virtue. These are nothing but dramatic dissociations of her dream-self. The latter, the automatic persons, are the ones to be overcome, they must have no part in Ivenes. With the spirit-companions of Ivenes they have only the name in common. A priori, it is not to be expected that in a case like ours, where these divisions are never clearly defined, that two such characteristic individualities should disappear entirely from a somnambulic ego-complex having so close a relation with the waking consciousness. And in fact, we do meet them in part in those ecstatic penitential scenes and in part in the romances crammed with more or less banal, mischievous gossip.

Course.

It only remains to say a few words about the course of this strange affection. The process reached its maximum in four to eight weeks. The descriptions given of Ivenes and of the unconscious personalities belong generally to this period. Thenceforth a gradual decline was noticeable; the ecstasies grew meaningless and the influence of Gerbenstein became more powerful. The phenomena gradually lost their distinctive features, the characters which were at first well demarcated became by degrees inextricably mixed. The psychological contribution grew smaller and smaller until finally the whole story assumed a marked effect of fabrication. Ivenes herself was much concerned about this decline; she became painfully uncertain, spoke cautiously, feeling her way, and allowed her character to appear undisguised. The somnambulic attacks decreased in frequency and intensity. All degrees from somnambulism to conscious lying were observable. Thus the curtain fell. The patient has since gone abroad. We should not underestimate the importance of the fact that her character has become pleasanter and more stable. Here we may recall the cases cited in which the second state gradually replaced the first state. Perhaps this is a similar phenomenon.

It is well known that somnambulic manifestations sometimes begin at puberty.[107] The attacks of somnambulism in Dyce's case[108] began immediately before puberty and lasted just till its termination. The somnambulism of H. Smith is likewise closely connected with puberty.[109]

Schroeder von der Kalk's patient was 16 years old at the time of her illness; Felida 14–½, etc. We know also that at this period the future character is formed and fixed. In the case of Felida and of Mary Reynolds we saw that the character in state II. replaced that of state I. It is not therefore unthinkable that these phenomena of double consciousness are nothing but character-formations for the future personality, or their attempts to burst forth. In consequence of special difficulties (unfavourable external conditions, psychopathic disposition of the nervous system, etc.), these new formations, or attempts thereat, become bound up with peculiar disturbances of consciousness. Occasionally the somnambulism, in view of the difficulties that oppose the future character, takes on a marked teleological meaning, for it gives the individual, who might otherwise be defeated, the means of victory. Here I am thinking first of all of Jeanne d'Arc, whose extraordinary courage recalls the deeds of Mary Reynolds' II. This is perhaps the place to point out the similar function of the "hallucination téléologique" of which the public reads occasionally, although it has not yet been submitted to a scientific study.

The Unconscious Additional Creative Work.

We have now discussed all the essential manifestations offered by our case which are of significance for its inner structure. Certain accompanying manifestations may be briefly considered: the unconscious additional creative work. Here we shall encounter a not altogether unjustifiable scepticism on the part of the representative of science. Dessoir's conception of a second ego met with much opposition, and was rejected, as too impossible in many directions. As is known, occultism has proclaimed a pre-eminent right to this field and has drawn premature conclusions from doubtful observations. We are indeed very far from being in a position to state anything conclusive, since we have at present only most inadequate material. Therefore if we touch on the field of the unconscious additional creative work, it is only that we may do justice to all sides of our case. By unconscious addition we understand that automatic process whose result does not penetrate to the conscious psychic activity of the individual. To this region above all belongs thought-reading through table movements. I do not know whether there are people who can divine a whole long train of thought by means of inductions from the intentional tremulous movements. It is, however, certain that, assuming this to be possible, such persons must be availing themselves of a routine achieved after endless practice. But in our case long practice can be excluded without more ado, and there is nothing left but to accept a primary susceptibility of the unconscious, far exceeding that of the conscious.

This supposition is supported by numerous observations on somnambulists. I will mention only Binet's[110] experiments, where little letters or some such thing, or little complicated figures in relief were laid on the anæsthetic skin of the back of the hand or the neck, and the unconscious perceptions were then recorded by means of signs. On the basis of these experiments he came to the following conclusion: "D'après les calculs que j'ai pu faire, la sensibilité inconsciente d'une hystérique est à certains moments cinquante fois plus fine que celle d'une personne normale." A second additional creation coming under consideration in our case and in numerous other somnambulists, is that condition which French investigators call "cryptomnesia."[111] By this term is meant the becoming conscious of a memory-picture which cannot be regarded as in itself primary, but at most is secondary, by means of subsequent recalling or abstract reasoning. It is characteristic of cryptomnesia that the picture which emerges does not bear the obvious mark of the memory-picture, is not, that is to say, bound up with the idiosyncratic super-conscious ego-complex.

Three ways may be distinguished in which the cryptomnesic picture is brought to consciousness.

1. The picture enters consciousness without any intervention of the sense-spheres (intra-psychically). It is an inrushing idea whose causal sequence is hidden within the individual. In so far cryptomnesia is quite an everyday occurrence, concerned with the deepest normal psychic events. How often it misleads the investigator, the author or the composer into believing his ideas original, whilst the critic quite well recognises their source! Generally the individuality of the representation protects the author from the accusation of plagiarism and proves his good faith; still, cases do occur of unconscious verbal reproduction. Should the passage in question contain some remarkable idea, the accusation of plagiarism, more or less conscious, is justified. After all, a valuable idea is linked by numerous associations with the ego-complex; at different times, in different situations, it has already been meditated upon and thus leads by innumerable links in all directions. It can therefore never so disappear from consciousness that its continuity could be entirely lost from the sphere of conscious memory. We have, however, a criterion by which we can always recognise objectively intra-psychic cryptomnesia. The cryptomnesic presentation is linked to the ego-complex by the minimum of associations. The reason for this lies in the relation of the individual to the particular object, in the disproportion of interest to object. Two possibilities occur: (1) The object is worthy of interest but the interest is slight in consequence of dispersion or want of understanding; (2) The object is not worthy of interest, consequently the interest is slight. In both cases an extremely labile connection with consciousness arises which leads to a rapid forgetting. The slight bridge is soon destroyed and the acquired presentation sinks into the unconscious, where it is no longer accessible to consciousness. Should it enter consciousness by means of cryptomnesia, the feeling of strangeness, of its being an original creation, will cling to it because the path by which it entered the subconscious has become undiscoverable. Strangeness and original creation are, moreover, closely allied to one another if one recalls the numerous witnesses in belles-lettres to the nature of genius ("possession" by genius).[112]

Apart from certain striking cases of this kind, where it is doubtful whether it is a cryptomnesia or an original creation, there are some cases in which a passage of no essential content is reproduced, and that almost verbally, as in the following example:—

About that time when Zarathustra lived on the blissful islands, it came to pass that a ship cast anchor at that island on which the smoking mountain standeth; and the sailors of that ship went ashore in order to shoot rabbits! But about the hour of noon, when the captain and his men had mustered again, they suddenly saw a man come through the air unto them, and a voice said distinctly: "It is time! It is high time!" But when that person was nighest unto them (he passed by them flying quickly like a shadow, in the direction in which the volcano was situated) they recognised with the greatest confusion that it was Zarathustra. For all of them, except the captain, had seen him before, and they loved him, as the folk love, blending love and awe in equal parts. "Lo! there," said the old steersman, "Zarathustra goeth unto hell!"

An extract of awe-inspiring import from the log of the ship "Sphinx" in the year 1686, in the Mediterranean.

Just. Kerner, "Blätter aus Prevorst," vol. IV., p, 57.

The four captains and a merchant, Mr. Bell, went ashore on the island of Mount Stromboli to shoot rabbits. At three o'clock they called the crew together to go aboard, when, to their inexpressible astonishment, they saw two men flying rapidly over them through the air. One was dressed in black, the other in grey. They approached them very closely, in the greatest haste; to their greatest dismay they descended amid the burning flames into the crater of the terrible volcano, Mount Stromboli. They recognised the pair as acquaintances from London.

Frau E. Förster-Nietzsche, the poet's sister, told me, in reply to my inquiry, that Nietzsche took up Just. Kerner between the age of twelve and fifteen, when stopping with his grandfather, Pastor Oehler, in Pobler, but certainly never afterwards. It could never have been the poet's intention to commit a plagiarism from a ship's log; if this had been the case, he would certainly have omitted the very prosaic "to shoot rabbits," which was, moreover, quite unessential to the situation. In the poetical sketch of Zarathustra's journey into Hell there was obviously interpolated, half or wholly unconsciously, that forgotten impression from his youth.

This is an instance which shows all the peculiarities of cryptomnesia. A quite unessential detail, which deserves nothing but speedy forgetting, is reproduced with almost verbal fidelity, whilst the chief part of the narrative is, one cannot say altered, but recreated quite distinctively. To the distinctive core, the idea of the journey to Hell, there is added a detail, the old, forgotten impression of a similar situation. The original is so absurd that the youth, who read everything, probably skipped through it, and certainly had no deep interest in it. Here we get the required minimum of associated links, for we cannot easily conceive a greater jump, than from that old, absurd story to Nietzsche's consciousness in the year 1883. If we picture to ourselves Nietzsche's mood at the time when "Zarathustra" was composed,[113] and think of the ecstasy that at more than one point approached the pathological, we shall comprehend the abnormal reminiscence. The second of the two possibilities mentioned, the acceptance of some object, not itself uninteresting, in a state of dispersion or half interest from lack of understanding, and its cryptomnesic reproduction we find chiefly in somnambulists; it is also found in the literary chronicles dealing with dying celebrities.[114]

Amid the exhaustive selection of these phenomena we are chiefly concerned with talking in a foreign tongue, the so-called glossolalia. This phenomenon is mentioned everywhere when it is a question of similar ecstatic conditions. In the New Testament, in the Acta Sanctorum,[115] in the Witchcraft Trials, more recently in the Prophetess of Prevorst, in Judge Edmond's daughter Laura, in Flournoy's Helen Smith. The last is unique from the point of view of investigation; it is found also in Bresler's[116] case, which is probably identical with Blumhardt's[117] Gottlieben Dittus. As Flournoy shows, glossolalia is, so far as it really is independent speech, a cryptomnesic phenomenon, [Greek: Kat' exochên]. The reader should consult Flournoy's most interesting exposition.