[ Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation; changes (corrections of spelling and punctuation) made to the original text are listed at the end of this file. ]



Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series No.31

SLEEP WALKING AND MOON WALKING

A MEDICO-LITERARY STUDY

BY DR. J. SADGER VIENNA

TRANSLATED BY LOUISE BRINK

NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON

NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE PUBLISHING COMPANY

1920



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CONTENTS

Translator's Preface v

Introduction vii

PART I. Medical 1

PART II. Literary Section 45

Conclusion and Rsum 137

Index 139



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

Psychoanalysis holds a key to the problem of sleep walking, which alone has been able to unlock the mysteries of its causes and its significance. This key is the principle of wish fulfilment, an interpretative principle which explains the mechanisms of the psyche and illuminates the mental content which underlies these. Sleep walking as a method of wish fulfilment evidently lies close to the dream life, which has become known through psychoanalysis. Most of us when we dream, according to the words of Protagoras, "lie still, and do not stir." In some persons there is however a special tendency to motor activity, in itself a symptomatic manifestation, which necessitates the carrying out of the dream wish through walking in the sleep. The existence of this fact, together with the evidence of an influence of the shining of the moon upon this tendency to sleep walking, give rise to certain questions of importance to medical psychology. The author of this book has pursued these questions in relation to cases which have come to him for psychoanalysis, in the investigation of actual records of sleep walking given in literature and in the study of rare instances where it has been made the subject of a literary production or at least an episode in tale or drama. In each case the association with moonlight or some other light has been a distinct feature.

The author's application of psychoanalysis to these problems has the directness and explicitness which we are accustomed to find in Freud's own writings. This is as true in the literary portion of the work as in the medical but it never intrudes to mar the intrinsic beauty of certain of the selections nor the force of the intuitive revelations which the writers of the preceding science have made in regard to sleep walking and walking in the moonlight. Sadger has skilfully utilized these revelations to convince us of the truth of the psychoanalytic discoveries and has used the latter only to make still more explicitly and scientifically clear the testimony of the poetic writers and to point out the applicability of their material to medical problems. The choice of this little understood and little studied subject and its skilful presentation on the part of the author, as well as the introduction to the reader of the literary productions of which use has been made, give the book a peculiar interest and value. It is also of especial service in its brief but profoundly suggestive study of the psychic background of Shakespeare's creative work as illustrated in the sleep walking of Lady Macbeth. The endeavor in the translation has been to make accessible to our English readers the clear and direct psychoanalysis of the author and the peculiar psychologic and literary value of the book.



INTRODUCTION[1]

[1] ber Nachtwandeln und Mondsucht. Eine medizinisch-literarische Studie, von Dr. J. Sadger, Nervenarzt in Wien; Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde, Herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Sigm. Freud, Sechzehntes Heft, Leipzig und Wien, Franz Deuticke, 1914.

Sleep walking or night wandering, known also by its Latin name of noctambulism, is a well-known phenomenon. Somnambulism is not so good a term for it, since that signifies too many things. In sleep walking a person rises from his bed in the night, apparently asleep, walks around with closed or half opened eyes, but without perceiving anything, yet performs all sorts of apparently purposeful and often quite complicated actions and gives correct answers to questions, without afterward the least knowledge of what he has said or done. If this all happens at the very time and under the influence of the full moon, it is spoken of as moon walking or being moonstruck.

Under the influence of this heavenly body the moonstruck individual is actually enticed from his bed, often gazes fixedly at the moon, stands at the window or climbs out of it, "with the surefootedness of the sleep walker," climbs up upon the roof and walks about there or, without stumbling, goes into the open. In short, he carries out all sorts of complex actions. Only it would be dangerous to call the wanderer by name, for then he would not only waken where he was, but he would collapse frequently and fall headlong with fright if he found himself on a height.

Besides there is absolute amnesia succeeding this. Upon persistent questioning there is an attempt to fill in the gaps in memory by confabulation, like the effort to explain posthypnotic action. Furthermore, it is asserted that a specially deep sleep always ushers in night wandering, that indeed the latter in general is only possible in this condition. It is more frequent with children up to puberty and throughout that period than with adults. At the same time the first outbreak of sleep walking occurs often at the first appearance of sexual maturity. According to a widespread folk belief sleep walking will cease in a girl when she becomes pregnant with her first child.

It seems to me that practically no scientific treatment of this problem exists. Modern psychiatry, so far as it takes a sort of general notice of it, contents itself, as Krafft-Ebing does, with calling night wandering "a nervous disease," "apparently a symptomatic manifestation of other neuroses, epilepsy, hysteria, status nervosus."[2] The older literature is more explicit. It produces not only a full casuistic but seeks to give some explanation aside from a reference to neurology.[3] So, for example, the safety in climbing upon dangerous places finds this explanation, that the sleep walker goes there with closed eyes and in this way does not see the danger, knows no giddiness and above all is in possession of a specially keen muscular sense.

[2] Lehrbuch der gerichtlichen Psychopathologie.

[3] I introduce as the most important sources Peter Jessen: "Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Begrndung der Psychologie," Berlin, 1855 (with many examples); Heinrich Spitta: "Die Schlaf- und Traumzustnde der menschlichen Seele," 2d edition, 1882 (with abundant casuistic and literature); finally based upon these L. Lwenfeld: "Somnambulismus und Spiritismus," Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens, Vol.I, 1900.

The phenomena of sleep walking and moon walking must be acknowledged, as far as I can see, almost entirely as pathological yet connected or identical with analogous manifestations of normal profound sleep. The dreams in such sleep, in contrast with those of light sleep, are characterized by movements. These often amount merely to speaking out, laughing, weeping, smacking, throwing oneself about and so on, or occasionally to complicated actions, which begin with leaving the bed. Further comparison shows the night wandering as symptomatically similar to hysterical and hypnotic somnambulism. This interpretation might be objected to upon the ground that unfortunately we know nothing of the origin of the motor phenomena of the dream and that understanding of the hysterical and hypnotic somnambulism is deplorably lacking. Still less has science to say about the influence of the moon upon night wandering. The authors extricate themselves from the difficulty by simply denying its influence. They bring forward as their chief argument for this that many sleep walkers are subject to their attacks as frequently in dark as in moonlight nights and when sleeping in rooms into which no beam of moonlight can penetrate. Spitta indeed explains it thus: "The much discussed and romantically treated 'moon walking' is a legend which stands in contradiction to hitherto observed facts. That the phantasy of the German folk mind drew to itself the pale ghostly light of the moon and could reckon from it all sorts of wonderful things, proves nothing to us." I can only say here that ten negative cases signify nothing in the face of a single positive one and a thousand-fold experience undoubtedly represents a certain connection between the light of the full moon and the most complicated forms of sleep walking.

Not merely does science avoid these things on account of their strangeness, but also the poets best informed in the things of the soul, whom the problems of night wandering and moon walking should stimulate. From the entire province of artistic literature I can mention only Shakespeare's "Macbeth," Kleist's "Prinz von Homburg," the novel "Maria" by Otto Ludwig, "Das Sndkind" by Anzengruber, "Jrn Uhl" by Gustav Frenssen and "Aebel" by Sophus Michaelis.[4] Finally Ludwig Ganghofer has briefly sketched his own sleep walking in his autobiographical "Lebenslauf eines Optimisten," and Ludwig Tieck has given unrestrained expression to his passionate love toward this heavenly body in different portions of his works.

[4] The text of Bellini's "Nachtwandlerin" could hardly be called literature, nor Theodor Mundt's fabulous novel, "Lebensmagie, Wirklichkeit und Traum." The latter I will mention later in the text.

Only in "Maria" and in "Aebel" however do these themes play an important part, while in the other works mentioned they serve properly only as adornment and episodic ornament. I am not able to explain this unusual restraint, unless we accept the fact that our best poets shrink from touching upon questions which they themselves can so little understand.

It has been expected that the psychoanalytic method, which casts such light upon the unconscious, might do much to advance the understanding of the problems of sleep walking and moon walking. But unfortunately no one undergoes such an expensive and time-consuming treatment as psychoanalysis for moon walking, so that the hoped for illumination can come at the best only as a by-product in the psychoanalysis of neurotics. That has in fact been my good fortune twice, where I have been able to lift the curtain, though only a little, in two cases among my patients and also in individuals who were otherwise healthy. What I discovered there, I will relate in detail in what follows.

One point of view I will first set forth. Two questions appear to me to stand out among those closely bound with our theme. First on the motor side. Why does not the sleep walker, who is enjoying apparently a specially deep slumber, sleep on quietly and work out the complexes of his unconscious somehow in a dream, even though with speech or movement there? Why instead is he urged forth and driven to wander about and engage in all sorts of complicated acts? It is one of the most important functions of the dream to prolong sleep quietly. And then in the second place, What value and significance must be attributed to the moon and its light? These two chief questions must be answered by any theory that would do justice to the question of sleep walking and moon walking.



PART I

Medical

CASE I. Some years ago I treated a hysterical patient, exceedingly erotic. She was at that time twenty-two years old, and on her father's as well as on the mother's side, from a very degenerate family. Alcoholism and epilepsy could be traced with certainty to the third ascendant on both sides. The father's sister is mentally diseased, the patient's mother was an enuretic in her earlier years and a sleep walker. This mother, like her father when he was drunk, was markedly cruel and given to blows, characteristics, which according to our patient, sometimes almost deprived her of her senses and in her anger bordered upon frenzy.

The patient herself had been as the youngest child the spoiled darling of both parents and until her seventh year had been taken by them into their bed in the morning to play. In her first three years she always slept between the parents, preferably on the inner side of one of the two beds and with her legs spread, so that, in her mother's words: "One foot belongs to me and one to her father!" She was most strongly drawn, however, to the mother, toward whom at an early age she was sexually stimulated, already in her first year, if her statements can be relied upon, when she sat upon her mother's lap while nursing.

The little one early learned also that, when one is sick, one receives new playthings and especially much petting and tenderness, on account of which she often pretended to be sick purposely or she phantasied about dark forms and ugly faces, which of course she never saw, except to compel the mother to stay with her and show her special love and tenderness. Already in her second year she would go to bed most dutifully, "right gladly" to please father and mother and gain sexual pleasure thereby. The father then let her ride on his knee, stroked her upon her buttocks and kissed her passionately upon the lips. The desire after the mother became the stronger. When the latter had lain down and the little one had been good, then the child would creep to the mother under the feather bed and snuggle close to her body ("wind herself fast like a serpent"). The mother's firm body gave her extraordinary pleasure, yes, not infrequently it led to the expulsion of a secretion from the cervix uteri. ("The good comes," as she expressed it.) I mention convulsive attacks and enuresis nocturna, as pathological affections of her childhood which belong to my theme. The patient had in fact suffered in her first year a concussion of the brain, through being thrown against a brick wall, with organic eclamptic attacks as a result. The great love which she had experienced because of this led her also later to imitate those attacks hysterically. In the fourth year, for example, when she had to sleep in a child's crib, no longer between the beloved parents, she immediately produced attacks of anxiety in which she saw ugly faces and witches as in the beginning of the eclamptic convulsions. Thereupon the frightened mother took her again into her own bed. Later also she often began to moan and fret until the mother would take her in her arms to ward off the threatened attacks, and thus she could stimulate herself to her heart's content. As she reports, at the height of the orgasm she expelled a secretion, her body began to writhe convulsively, her face became red as fire, her eyes rolled about and she almost lost herself in her great pleasure.

Concerning her enuresis, in its relation to urethral eroticism, the patient relates the following: "When I pressed myself against my mother's or brother's thigh, not only 'the good' came, but frequently also urine with it. At about eight years old there was often a very strong compulsion to urinate, especially at night, which would cause me to wet my bed. This was however according to my wish to pass not urine but that same secretion which I had voided at two or three years old, when I became so wildly excited with my mother, that is when, lying in bed with her, I pressed her thigh between mine. I could not stop it in spite of all threats or punishments. Very curiously I usually awoke when I voided urine, but I could not retain it in the face of the great pleasure."

I lay emphasis upon a specially strong homosexual tendency[5] among her various perversions, although she had the usual sex relations with a legion of men with complete satisfaction. Furthermore, as sadistic-masochistic traits, there was an abnormal pleasure in giving and receiving blows and a passionate desire for blood. It was a sexual excitement that occurred when she saw her own blood or that of others. I have elsewhere[6] described this blood sadism and I will refer here to only two features, which are of significance also in regard to her moon walking. The first is her greatly exaggerated vaginal eroticism, which at menstruation especially was abnormally pleasurably excited. The second, on the other hand, was that our patient already at the age of two years should have experienced sexual pleasure in the mother's hemoptysis. Sitting on the mother's lap she stimulated herself upon the latter's breast, when she began to scrape and then to cough up blood. She reached after her bloody lips in order afterward to lick off her own fingers. As a result of the sexual overexcitement which occurred then, blood has afforded her enormous pleasure ever since, when she has looked upon it.

[5] This homosexual tendency was first directed toward her own mother in childhood and early puberty.

[6] "ber den sado-masochistischen Komplex," Jahrb. f. psychoanal. Forsch., Vol.5, pp.224-230.

As for the rest of her life, I will refer to two other points only, which are not without importance for our problem. First of all was the change of dwelling after the father's death in our patient's seventh year. The other is her burning desire, arising in her third or fourth year, to play mother and most eagerly with a real live child. A baby doll, of which she came into possession, was only a substitute, although for want of something better she carried this around passionately and did not once lay it out of her arms while asleep. At the age of eight it was her greatest delight to trudge around with a small two year old girl from the house and sing her to sleep as her mother had once done to her. "Carrying that child around was my greatest delight until I was fourteen years old."

I mentioned above that her mother had been sadistic and at the same time a sleep walker. "Mother herself told me that she also rather frequently walked at night. As a child she would wander around in her room without being able to find her bed again. Over and over again she would pass it without finding her way into it. Then she would begin to cry loudly with fright for her bed until Grandmother awoke and lifted her into bed. In the morning she remembered nothing at all about it.

"It was the same way with her desire to urinate. Every night she had a frightful need to urinate and hunted for the chamber, but, although it always stood in its accustomed place, she was not able to find it. Meanwhile the desire grew more severe, so that she began moaning fearfully in her sleep while hunting. She sought all over the room, even crept around under the bed without touching or noticing the chamber, which was there. Often she did not then return to her bed until Grandmother was awakened by her moans, brought her what she wanted and helped her to bed. It happened rather frequently that, because of the very great need, she wet the bed or the room while on her search, whereupon naturally a whipping followed. Sometimes she lay quite quiet later on in her sleep, but when she could not find her bed, was obliged to pass half the night in the cold room. Once when I myself wet my bed, she struck me with the words: 'Every time that this happens you will be whipped; my mother whipped me for this reason.' Although she knew from her own experience that it could not be helped, yet she struck me.

"Besides the moon exercised a great power over my mother. Since the house in which she lived was low and stood out in the open country, and there were no window blinds, on bright moonlight nights the moon shone into the farthest corner. In the corner stood a box, on which were a number of flower pots, figures and glass covers. Upon this box she climbed, after she had first taken down one object after another and placed them on the floor without breaking anything. Then she began to dance upon the top of the box, but only on bright moonlight nights. Finally she put everything back in exactly the same place to a hair's breadth and climbed out of the window, but not before she had removed there a number of flower pots out of the way. From the window she reached the court where she rambled about, climbed over the garden fence and walked around at least an hour. Then she went back, arranged the flowers on the window in exact order and—could not find her way to bed. There was always a scene the next day if Grandmother had been wakened in the night."

The most noteworthy feature in this statement, beside the phenomenon of sadism, later taken over by the daughter, the urethral eroticism and the susceptibility toward the moonlight, is the behavior of the mother while walking in her sleep. She plainly has an idea where the flower pots stand, which she removes from the box and the window, but on the other hand she comes in contact neither with the bed nor the chamber, which yet are in their usual places. We will also take note further on of the dancing upon the box in the bright moonlight as well as the climbing out of the window, climbing and walking about.

Before I go on with my patient's story, something should be said concerning its origin. She had been undergoing psychoanalytic treatment with me for nine months on account of various severe hysterical symptoms, which I will not here touch upon further, when she one day came out with the proposal that she write for me her autobiography. I agreed to it and she brought me little by little about two hundred fifty pages of folio, which she had prepared without any influence on my part, except of course that she had, in those months of treatment, made the technique of the analysis very much her own as far as it touched upon her case. Practically nothing in our work together in solving her difficulties was said of her sleep walking. I have also in no way influenced or been able to influence her explanation. It originates solely from the patient's associations and the employment of her newly acquired knowledge of the unconscious in the interpretation of her symptoms.

I find then in her account of her life some highly interesting points. "Even at two or three years old Mother at my entreaties must soothe me to sleep. As we lay together in bed I pretended often to be asleep and reached as if 'in my sleep' after my mother's breast in order to revel in sensation there. Also I often uncovered myself, again ostensibly in my sleep, and laid myself down quite contentedly. Then I awoke my mother by coughing, and when she awoke she stroked me and fondled me, and as was her custom kissed me also upon the genitals. Frequently I stood up in bed between my parents—a forerunner of my later sleep walking—and laid myself down at my mother's feet, asleep as she thought, but in reality awake only with eyes closed. Then I pulled the feather bed away from Mother and blinked at her in order to see her naked body, which I could do better from the foot than if I had lain near her.

"If she awoke she took me up to my place, kissed me repeatedly over my whole body and covered me up. I opened my eyes then as if just awakening, she kissed me on the eyes and said I should go quietly to sleep again, which I then did.

"Still earlier, at one or two years, I pretended to be asleep when my parents went to bed, that I might obtain caresses, because Father and Mother always said, 'See, how dear, what a little angel!' They kissed me then and I opened my eyes as if waking from deep sleep. This was the first time that I pretended to be asleep. I often lay thus for a long time apparently asleep but really awake. For when the parents saw that I was asleep, they told one another all sorts of things about us children. Especially Mother often spoke of my fine traits, or that people praised me and found me 'so dear' which she never said in my presence lest she should make me vain."

Here is an early preceding period when the little one deliberately pretends to be asleep in order to hear loving things, receive caresses and experience sexual activity without having to be held accountable or to be afraid of receiving punishment, because everything happens in sleep. In the same way similar erotic motives and analogous behavior may be found in the account of her other actions while asleep. As she began to talk at two years old her parents begged her to tell everything that had happened to her, for example in the absence of either of them. She must tell to the minutest detail, when she awoke early lying between her parents, what had happened to her during the day before, what she had done with her brothers and sisters, what had taken place for her at school, and so on. She responded so much the more gladly, because in narrating all this she could excite herself more or less as well upon the father's as upon the mother's body.

In fact, this was the very source of a direct compulsion to have to tell things, from which she often had to suffer frightfully. The very bigoted mother sent her regularly from her sixth year on with her sister to the preaching services with the express injunction to report the sermons at home. And although on account of her poor head she had to struggle grievously with every poem or bit of lesson which she had to learn for school, yet now at home she would seat herself upon a hassock, spread a handkerchief over her shoulders and begin to drone out the whole sermon as she had heard it in the church from the minister. And this all merely out of love for her mother! Furthermore she was, according to her own words, directly in love with her teacher in the school, who often struck her on account of her inattentiveness and certainly did not treat her otherwise with fondness. Here is a motive for the later learning, singing and reciting of poetry during the sleep walking, while the pleasure in being struck when at fault was increased by self reproach, that she in spite of all her pains was so bad at learning.

"During my whole childhood," the patient states, "I talked a great deal in my sleep. When I had a task to learn by heart, I said over the given selection or the poem in my sleep. This happened the first time when I was eight years old, on a bright moonlight night. I was sleeping at the time in the bed with my sister and I arose in the night, recited a poem and sang songs. At about the same period, standing on a chair or on the bed, I repeated parts of sermons which I had heard the day before at church. Besides I prattled about everything which I had done the previous day or about my play. How often I was afraid that I would divulge something from my sexual play with my brother! That must never have happened, however, or mother would have mentioned it to me, for she always told me everything that I said during the night." I might perhaps sum up this activity in her sleep after this fashion: Day and night she is studying for the beloved but unresponsive teacher and strives to win and to keep her good will as well as that of the mother through the repeating of sermons and relating of all the events of the day.

"As for the talking in my sleep, I began at the age of two or three, though awake, to pretend to be asleep and to speak out as if asleep. For example I acted as if I were tormented with frightful dreams and cried out with great terror, ostensibly in a dream: 'Mother, Mother, take me!' or 'Stay with me!' or something of the sort. Then Mother took me, as I had anticipated, under her feather bed and quieted me, but I naturally became excited while I pressed my legs about her body presumably from fear of witches and immediately there occurred a 'convulsive attack,' that is I now experienced such lustful pleasure that 'the good' came."

Attention may further be called to the fact that she threw herself about violently in her sleep, which caused her, as the daughter of so brutal a mother, who was herself a sado-masochist, an excessive amount of pleasurable sensation. When only two or three years old, as she lay between the parents, she pushed them with hands and feet, of which she was quite conscious, while they thought it happened in sleep. This brought the advantage that she was not responsible for anything which happened in sleep, for it occurred when she was in an unconscious condition.

The changing of the home in her seventh year, after the death of the father, led to her sharing the bed of her sister six years older than she. "My sister had the habit of throwing off the covers in her sleep or twisting her legs about mine. I, on the other hand, always hit her in my sleep with hands or feet. Naturally I could not help it since it actually happened while I was asleep, yet when my sister could stand it no longer I had to go and lie with Mother. I also struck her in my sleep. Besides I nestled up against her body, especially her buttocks, and experienced very pleasurable excitement. For it was simply impossible with her strong body and in the narrow bed to avoid touching my mother. Only I did it to her quite consciously, but she was of the impression that I pressed upon her in my sleep because I had no room in bed. The reason that I as a small child pushed against my parents in bed was simply the wish to be able to strike them once to my heart's desire, and since this was impossible during the day, I did it while asleep, when no one is responsible for what one does. Striking my sister then actually in my sleep, when I was seven years old, was again the wish to be able to excite myself pleasurably by the blows as when a smaller child." Here her sadism again breaks through in this desire to strike mother and sister according to her heart's desire and it especially excited her because of her constitutionally exaggerated muscle erotic. I have discussed this sadism at length elsewhere.[7]

[7] Cf. note6, p.163.

It can be affirmed, if we examine her behavior in sleep, that without exception sexual wishes lay at the bottom of it, just as the dream also, as is well known, always represents the fulfilment of infantile wishes. The plainly erotic character is never wanting in an apparently asexual action, if we penetrate it more deeply. So for example this patient repeated the sermon at her mother's bidding in order to receive her love and praise. Saying her lessons at night arose from her strong attachment to her teacher, which again in turn was a stage of her love for her mother. Naturally this was all concerned with wishes, which, strictly tabooed when awake, could only be gratified in unconsciousness, somehow carried out in sleep, or, as with the simulated convulsions, only in the mother's bed. The behavior during sleep served especially well to grant sexual pleasure but without guilt or liability to punishment.

It was quite in order further that a conscious activity preceded the unconscious activity in sleep, that is, that for a time the patient while awake, but with closed eyes and therefore apparently asleep, did the very thing which later was done in actual unconsciousness. What then impressed itself as an unconscious performance during sleep, had been earlier done consciously, almost I might say as "a studied action." Only in special cases is there any need for playing such a comedy, for the direct demand of a beloved individual—"You must tell everything," "You must learn diligently," "Repeat the sermon accurately,"—when the eroticism is well concealed, permits of open action without more hindrance. It may be noted further that the patient never betrayed in the least in her sleep what she must have been at pains carefully to conceal, as, for example, the sexual play with her brother. Finally the striking participation of the muscle erotic at times in sleep must be emphasized.

We have found already as roots and motives of her sleep activity sexual, strongly forbidden wishes, which particularly could often be gratified only in bed; the striving that she might commit misdemeanor without being held guilty or answerable; further the practicing of these things first while awake; and finally, as an organic root, at least the pleasure in blows in sleep, the undeniably exaggerated muscle erotic. Nearly everything takes place in bed, only occasionally outside it, and then always near it. Complicated actions are completely wanting. Likewise nothing was said of the influence of the light or of the moon. Only in passing was it mentioned that the patient arose in the moonlight for her first nightly recitation of lessons.

The group of phenomena which we will now take up displays complicated performances and stands above all under the evident influence of the light of the moon. "In my fourth year," the patient relates, "I was put for the first time into a little bed of my own, so that my mother, who the day before had begun to cough up blood, should have more rest. She had closed the net of my crib and that I should not be frightened moved the crib up to her large bed. I pretended to be asleep and as soon as my parents had fallen asleep I climbed over the side but was so unfortunate as to fall into my mother's bed. I was quickly laid back in my own bed, without having seen the blood, which was my special longing. Often after this, almost every night, I tried again to climb into Mother's bed, so that finally she placed my bed by the wall in order to prevent my climbing over to her. For some months I slept alone in my little bed. She caught me one night, however, this time actually in my sleep, trying to climb over the side but entangled in the net. Fortunately I did not fall out but back into bed. At that time I produced also my pretended convulsive attacks that I might be taken by Mother into her bed and be able to excite myself upon her.

"Mother began raising blood again when I was ten years old and we had already moved into the new home. That year she was seized twice with such severe hemorrhages that for weeks she hovered between life and death. Then in my eleventh year I began my sleep walking. What urged me to it was again Mother's coughing of blood as well as the desire to see her blood, both reasons why I had already at four years old pretended sleep so that I could climb into Mother's bed."

The patient proved herself such an ideal nurse on the occasion of the mother's severe hemorrhage that the mother would have no one else. She watched tirelessly day and night together with her sisters, changing every few minutes the icebags which had been ordered. "Scarcely a moment did I tear myself away from my mother's bedside and, if one of my sisters relieved me, I often could hardly move, undress myself and lie down for an hour. If I did lie down, I threw myself about restlessly, torn with anxiety, and was only happy again when I sat by my mother's bed." This fearful anxiety was not however merely fear for the precious life of the mother, but still more, repressed libido. In spite of all her concern for the mother's suffering she could not prevent the strongest sexual pleasurable sensations at the sight of the mother's snow white breast in putting on the applications or when she raised blood. This intensive nursing lasted four weeks until finally a nursing Sister came to assist.

"As I now for the first time could enjoy a full night's rest, I fell into a deep sleep, as from this time on I always did before every sleep walking. Near my bed stood the table with Mother's medicine and on the window ledge, behind the curtain, a lamp, which threw its light upon my bed. Suddenly I arose in my sleep, went to my mother's bed, bent over her. Mother opened her eyes but did not rouse herself. Then the Sister, who was dozing on the sofa near Mother's bed, awoke and rushed forward frightened as she saw me there in my nightgown. She thought something had happened to Mother, but the latter motioned with her hand to leave me alone and to keep still. I kissed Mother and changed the icebag, apparently in order to see her breast. I could see no blood this time, so without a sound I moved away and went to the table, where I put all the medicines carefully together to make a place and then went out into the pitch dark kitchen without stumbling against anything. There I took from the kitchen dresser a bowl with a saucer and a spoon and came back again to the room. Next I seized a glass of water which stood there and poured the water carefully into the bowl without spilling more than a drop. With this I spoke out half aloud to myself: 'Now Emil (my brother-in-law, who had for a long time taken his breakfast with us) can come to his breakfast without disturbing Mother, who had always prepared it for him.' Then I went to bed and slept soundly for some hours, as I sleep only at my periods of sleep walking, without crying out. All that I have described the Sister of Charity told me afterward. Naturally I did everything with closed eyes, without knowing it, and moved about as securely in the darkness as if it had been bright day. The next morning they told me about it and laughed over it."

This is what she has to say of the influence of the light upon her sleep walking. "Here also Mother's coughing was the external cause as it had been when I was four years old. When Mother was ill, the lamp was left upon the window sill behind the curtain, burning brightly so that she would not be afraid. Now also, at the time of my first complicated sleep walking, such a light was burning behind the curtain throwing its light upon my bed and the wall. Mother had always left the light burning in order to see me at once, after I had sometimes climbed over the side of my crib at the age of four, when she was ill. The light however made me climb over to her, because in the dark no blood could be seen. Also when I began to moan, during my convulsive attacks, she made a light and came to my bed. Or she said, when my bed was pushed close to hers: 'Wait a moment; I will make a light and take you or you can climb over to me.' Next day I laughed with my parents over my visit at night, without suspecting that I would soon be repeating it actually in my sleep. And it was only for this, that I might, as at the very first time, enjoy the sight of Mother's blood. Now, when she had a light burning during her illness, this allured me in my sleep to climb out to her, as at that first time when she had made a light especially for me to climb over to her."

The following memory leads still deeper into the etiology: "Mother always had the habit of going from bed to bed, when we children were asleep, and lighting us with her lamp to make sure that we were asleep. I perceived the light in my sleep, which called me to Mother. She had lighted me that first time so that I might climb into bed with her. Now I thought in my sleep, when I saw the light, that she was calling me again and she found me often at the very point of climbing over to her. I see myself yet today with one foot over the bars, almost in a riding position. Yet nothing ever happened to me. A complete change took place within me when the light of a candle or a lamp fell upon my face. I might almost say that I experienced a great feeling of pleasure. I seemed to myself in my sleep to be a supernatural being. I immediately perceived the light even when I lay in deepest sleep. There was however no sign of waking. This must represent a second form of consciousness, which possessed me at such times. I often asked my mother all sorts of things while wandering about, always knew to whom I spoke although I did not see the person and before I heard anyone speak I already mentioned the person's name. My orientation in sleep walking was so exact that I never once stubbed my toe against anything. It was just so with urination, which was probably connected with the moon or with a night light accidentally falling upon me. As soon as I pressed out secretion or the urine came, I found myself in a half sleep without being able to prevent an excessive feeling of pleasure. Then first I came to myself. This seems to me to go back to the fact that Mother often awoke me on special occasions in the night, holding a lamp or a candle in her hand to set me on the chamber, especially when she heard me moaning in my sleep and suspected a convulsive attack."

In what follows a complete identification with the mother is reported in detail. That has come in part to our notice in the first sleep walking, when our patient prepares the breakfast for her brother-in-law. "After that first sleep walking when Mother was having hemorrhages, they took place now rather frequently, when the least glimmer of light fell upon me, when Mother, for instance, lighted a candle at night to take some drops for her cough. Thus it happened that almost every night, as long as our beds stood together, I acted this little part. Often my family did not awaken and yet we knew the next day, when something was missing, that I had been the culprit in my sleep, as the next little example will show.

"My greatest wish at that time, at ten years old, was to be 'Mother' and have a child that I might bring up as I pleased. One morning when Mother got up and wished to dress herself she did not find her underclothing. We sisters were still fast asleep and Mother did not wish to waken us. She could remember exactly that she had laid her clothing as she always did on the chair near her bed. When she saw that search was in vain she put on fresh linen. Fully an hour later I awoke and was completely astonished to find myself dressed and in Mother's clothing. The puzzle was now solved. The putting on of Mother's clothing during the sleep walking had plainly been merely my wish to put myself into the mother's place and also to play mother, as I did with the children day after day. It was just at this time that I was always seeking to trail around all day with children, whom I tormented, treated cruelly, often even struck them for no cause whatever, always with a great feeling of pleasure, as I myself fared at my mother's hands. It was very frequently the case that I spread the table for a meal, in Mother's place, or put on her linen or outer clothing. This happened most often when she was ill again with her cough or the light shone upon me in my sleep. The light of the candle was sufficient for this."

At thirteen years she began to be directly affected by the moonlight. "At that time I had to sleep in a small room which my brother had occupied before this. This room looked out upon the court and was, especially on the nights when the moon was full, as bright as if a lamp were burning in the room. I was very much afraid to sleep alone in a room. This was the first time in my life that it had happened. I feared that in every corner some one might be standing and suddenly step forth or might lie hidden behind the bed and although I first let the candle light shine over everything, I had no rest but was in continual fear. I slept here perhaps only fourteen days in all, but it was full moon just at this time and rather bright in the small room.

"Before going to sleep I always barred the door of the room, which near the other door of our house opened upon a small passage. On account of the shop we lived on an upper floor. When I lay in bed I was always thinking that I had not bolted the door well and every night I arose three or four times before going to sleep in order to make sure whether I had actually bolted the door carefully. This I did while awake. Finally I fell asleep. I knew nothing in the morning of what happened in the night. Yet for several days, when I arose in the morning, I found the door which led out of my room upon the passage standing open. I must also have gone about the house during the night, at least have been in the passage. It alarmed Mother and, when early the next day the door was once more open, she said that I need never sleep alone again. I had not had the remotest thought that she would watch me the next night. As usual she could, when I talked in my sleep, ask me about everything and obtain correct answers without wakening me. If however she called my name in fright, when I was walking, as in the scene about to be described, then I awoke. Some nights apparently I roamed about in the house, God knows where, in the moonlight, without any one noticing it. Now it was the window in the passage, which looked into the court and was always closed at night, that was left open. What took place there I cannot say, since no one observed me. I can however describe clearly what my mother saw happen and which she told me afterward.

"Before I lay down I tried the door several times to see if it were securely bolted, then slept until about twelve o'clock. Between twelve and one o'clock, when I as a child had always been most afraid because this was a ghostly hour, my mother, who compelled herself this night to remain awake, heard my door creak slightly. She watched and saw the following: I went out in my nightgown softly to the door and to the window on the passage, which I opened. I swung myself upon that rather high window and remained there a while without moving, sitting there while I gazed straight at the moon. Then—it seemed to my mother like an eternity—I climbed down softly and went quietly along the passage into the first story. Half way along however I considered, turned back and went into my room. Having reached the door I turned once again and went along the passage to the door of the court. This was fastened. Again I turned and now went to the house gate. There I remained standing. I even tried to open it, as if I heard my name called. Then I was frightened, looked about me and was awake. Shaking with cold, for I was there half naked, I could scarcely orient myself. Then I crept to my bed and slept without waking.

"This happened in the second week. Every morning my door was open so that I had to sleep again in Mother's room. The moon never shone in there and the night light was covered. Nevertheless the sleep walking began also in this room in two weeks, if only the light of the candle fell upon me in my sleep. More often I lighted the candle myself in my sleep and went around in the room and the kitchen. Sometimes Mother found me standing by the door of the shop apparently about to open it and walk out. Now I have frequently, when I am lying in bed, the desire to spring out of the window, or to open both casements to get air for I am often afraid of choking. Mother had often felt this way in her illness. It also happened that Mother found me sitting by my chest, where I was looking for something which I had needed the day before and intended looking for the next day. I had laid out all my possessions about me. If Mother called me by name, I awoke; if she did not call me but only spoke in a certain way to me, I answered her everything without waking. I got up in my sleep, put on my mother's clothes, put on a cape and a nightcap, bade farewell to the children, to whom I wanted to be the mother, charged them to be brave and promised to bring them something. Then I took a piece of wood in my hand for an umbrella and walked about the room as if holding it opened out over my head because the sun shone. In reality it was the shining of the lamp. Mother's clothes were long and yet I wore the train beautifully and gracefully, without stepping on the skirt. My mother doubled herself with laughter when she saw such a caricature. Mostly I played the mother. Often I carried a small piece of wood wrapped in a cloth as a child in my arm and laid it on my breast. I sang songs, hushed at the same time other children—and knew nothing at all of it next day. Mother laughed most over this, that when I dressed myself, I first turned everything wrong side out. This goes back to the fact that Mother sometimes, when she had to get up in the night on my account and was half asleep, slipped her robe on twisted and wrong side out. These things lasted until my seventeenth year, when Mother was sick and I, as related above, made coffee in the presence of the Sister of Mercy.[8]

[8] I have here given word for word what the patient wrote down. When I then pointed out to her the evident contradiction, that she had misplaced something into the seventeenth year, which according to an earlier statement must have happened in the eleventh year, she answered that here was in fact an earlier mistake, since her brother-in-law Emil had first taken breakfast with her mother in her seventeenth year. The facts were these: She had walked a great deal in her sleep from her eleventh to her seventeenth year, for her mother had always suffered from hemoptysis, with occasional intermissions, and on this account had a nurse at various times. She had in fact at eleven years done everything which she has described above, only the making of the coffee for the brother-in-law happened in the seventeenth year. Besides, all the other actions performed in sleep are correctly given. On being questioned, she stated that her menses occurred first between her thirteenth and fourteenth years and at the time of menstruation particularly she had walked a great deal. She was always very much excited sexually before her period, slept very restlessly and had always at that time arisen in her sleep. Blood always excited her excessively sexually, as has been already mentioned in the text. I will add just at this place that her exact dates, when an event appears in the very first years of her life, must be taken with a grain of salt, because falsification of memory is always to be found there. This, however, is not of great importance because the facts are authentically correct and at least agree approximately with the times specified, as I have convinced myself through questioning her relatives.

"Mother was rather often ill, so that beside the care of her, in which later a nurse assisted us, the shop had also to be looked after, which always demanded one person during the day. If I lay down upon my bed after two or three weeks of nursing, I fell into a deep sleep. This never hindered me however from being in my place to the minute, when my mother's medicine was to be taken. My mother could have anything from me, although I lay in a deep sleep. She did not need to speak, and if she wanted anything, she spoke it half aloud. The Sister, over weary from night watching, slept lightly, but if Mother needed anything, it was sufficient for her to breathe my name and I was awake, although otherwise I did not hear well and must always be aroused for some time before I was fully awake.

"In reality I merely imitated my mother in my sleep walking. In the first place it was my wish to hold some object in my arms during the night, or lay it near me, as if it were my child, to have one that I might play with it sexually. In the second place this went back to my early childhood when I lay near my mother and she played thus with me. In the third place it referred to a later time when I felt as a mother toward my doll, and never allowed it out of my lap by day nor out of my arms at night. When Mother wished to quiet me if I was suddenly afraid of ugly creatures at night, she had to make a light as quickly as possible. Then she took me upon her arm or laid me close to her. The light must however remain burning until I had fallen asleep so that the horrible faces could not torture me. As a child I often cried only for the light; it was the light that first completely quieted me. I longed indeed for the light that I might see the blood, and at the same time excite myself upon my mother."

The patient proceeds in her story: "This continued until the seventeenth year. At eighteen I had to go into the country because of a nervous trouble. There I was quite alone and also had to sleep alone in a room. I always went to sleep very late and once—my small room was bright with moonlight—I arose, went into the small passageway, which opened into the court, and was going out of the courtyard gate. I was obliged to turn back, however, because this was fastened. Yet instead of going back to my room, I went into the sleeping room of my landlady, who was sleeping there with her daughter, a girl of about twenty-six years. The moon was also shining into this room and I slowly opened the door. Both of them then awoke and were, as they told me next day, frightened to death. It affected the daughter especially, so that she was terrified and at once sought refuge in her mother's bed. I went back. What happened further I cannot say, for the daughter had immediately bolted the door behind me. I had made it impossible for me to stay longer in the little country village, and although I had paid for my room for a month I preferred to go away two days later. All the people avoided me and looked at me askance. Most of all the people with whom I was stopping! I saw that a stone rolled from their hearts when I departed." At my question, whether she perhaps had been especially attracted by her landlady, she answered: "No, but in fact with another woman of the village. And it seems that I at that time wished to go to this woman in my sleep walking. At least the landlady's room, into which I went, after I found the gate of the courtyard fastened, lay in the direction of the house where she lived.

"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.'"

Once more: "When evenings I began to dream on mother's lap, I was compelled to look directly into the flame of the lamp. I looked straight into it and was as if hypnotized. I laid both hands upon my mother's breasts and traced their form. Besides I had my braid lying upon her left breast, which I liked very much, because it lay as softly as upon a pillow. I was also compelled to look into the light, gazed steadily at the flame until my eyes were closed. Then I lay in a half sleep, in which I heard the voices of the family without understanding what was said. Thus I could dream best, until my mother called my name and I awoke.

"Every day I took delight in this sleep by the light of the lamp and the pleasure experienced upon my mother's lap. I lay quietly and with eyes closed so that they all thought I was fast asleep. Yet I knew indeed that it was no ordinary sleep, but merely a 'daydream,' from which I only awoke when Mother called me by name. When she did not do this, but quietly undressed me and put me into bed, I began to be restless. I stood up in bed, lay down at their feet and took care to cry out and throw myself about until Mother, quite alarmed, called me by name and quieted me. I believe that in these experiences lies another root for my staring at the moon when sleep walking, as well as for the dreamy state occasioned by the fixed gazing at the light."

In conclusion there are still some less important psychic overdeterminations. "I often had the desire, when looking at the moon at the age of four or five, to climb over the houses into the moon. I knew nothing at that time of sleep walkers. About the same time my sisters often sang the well-known song: 'What sort of a wry face are you making, oh Moon?' I stared immovably also at the moon, when I had the opportunity to look at it once from my window, in order that I might discover its face and eyes. Then, too, my eyes grew weary and began to close. Later, when nine or ten years old, I heard other children say that people dwelt in the moon. I would have given anything to know how these people looked, and whenever it was full moon, I gazed fixedly at it. I had understood that another people dwelt there of a different race. I wished to have another race of men. Perhaps they had other customs, thought differently, ran about naked as in Paradise and there I wished to go, and lead a free life with boys as with girls. Even as a child I seemed to myself quite different from the rest of humankind on account of my sexual concerns and sexual phantasies in school. I always believed that I was something peculiar and for that reason belonged not on the earth but upon the moon. Once when I heard the word 'mooncalf' and asked what it meant, some one at home told me that mooncalves were deformed children.

"I thought however that they did not understand; the children were quite differently formed, just as were all the people in the moon, so that their feelings were altogether different and they led a sexual life of a quite different kind. I thought they were kind to both sexes, because Mother always said, 'You must not be alone with boys!' and that in the moon this was permitted, for there no distinction was made between the sexes in play."

I asked her more particularly in conclusion whether her explanation for staring at the moon, that she identified moon and lamplight, was all there was of it. She answered immediately that another explanation had pressed itself upon her earlier, which she had rejected as "too foolish." "The moon's shining disk reminded me in fact of a woman's smooth body, the abdomen and most of all the buttocks. It excited me very greatly if I saw a woman from behind. Whenever I am fondling any one erotically and have my hand on the buttocks—I always think then of a woman—the moon always occurs to me but in the thought of a woman's body."

According to this explanation the sleep walker would have also stared at the planet, because the round sphere awoke sexual childhood memories of the woman's body, or, as I learned from another source, of the woman's breast, most frequently however of her buttocks. It is moreover noteworthy that it was always only the full moon that worked thus attractively, not by chance the half moon or the sickle. An everyday experience agrees very well with this. Children, when they see the full moon or their attention is called to it, begin to snigger. Every one familiar with the child psyche knows that such giggling is based on sexual meaning, because the little ones usually think of the nates. Not infrequently will children, when they are placed on the chamber, pull away their nightclothes with the words, "Now the full moon is up," likewise when a child accidentally or intentionally bares himself at that spot.

We have now the explanation, if we put together that which has just been told us, why our sleep walker wakes up on the spot and comes to herself as soon as she is called by name. This corresponds to her starting awake when in school she was recalled from her sexual daydreams and the earlier being startled when the mother called her out of similar sexual phantasies to go to sleep. The inference may be drawn from this however that one is startled from sexual dreaming also when the name is called during sleep walking, or going a step further, that sexual phantasies are at the bottom of sleep walking in the moonlight and first find their fulfilment here.

Could the interpretation of our patient be generalized, it might be said that the sleep walker climbs upon the roofs as a fulfilment of a childish wish to climb up into the very moon. It is of significance also how far we may consider universal her infantile belief that everything sexual is permitted upon the moon, that what was strongly forbidden her upon earth was there allowed to other children, and further the opinion that she was quite different because of her sexual phantasying and did not after all belong upon the earth but on the moon. At any rate the two motives introduced for staring at the moon's disk may be frequently met, are perhaps constantly present, that is the similarity of the moonlight and lamplight and the comparison of the moon's disk to the human body, especially the nates.

Let us attempt to realize now what this case before us may have to teach, the first and so far the only one of its kind to be submitted to a careful analysis. It must naturally be candidly confessed from the start that from a single case history, be it ever so clearly and fully set forth, no general conclusions may be drawn. Moreover certain factors resist generalization because they are of a more specialized character and at most will only occasionally reappear, as for example, the strong sadistic note, the desire for blood, the hemoptysis of the beloved mother. More frequently, also with the female sex, there may be the wish to climb into bed with the parents or their substitutes, to play the rle of mother or father, out of love for them, and finally in general homosexuality may be a driving factor.

It is the sexual coloring and motivation of the sleep walking, especially by the light of the moon, which gives throughout the strongest tone to our case. This is something which the scientific authors have so far as good as completely overlooked, even where it has forced itself into view, as in a series of cases cited by Krafft-Ebing.[9] We shall hear, in discussing the works of the poets, that they and the folk place this very motive before all others, indeed often take it as the only one. We have here once more before us, if this opinion be correct, a scientific erotophobia, that is the dread—mostly among physicians and psychologists—of sexuality, although this is at least one of the chief driving instincts of human life.

[9] E.g., "A monk of a melancholy disposition and known to be a sleep walker, betook himself one evening to the room of his prior, who, as it happened, had not yet gone to bed, but sat at his work table. The monk had a knife in his hand, his eyes were open and without swerving he made straight at the bed of the prior without looking at him or the light burning in the room. He felt in the bed for the body, stuck it three times with the knife and turned with a satisfied countenance back to his cell, the door of which he closed. In the morning he told the horrified prior that he had dreamed that the latter had murdered his mother, and that her bloody shadow had appeared to him to summon him to avenge her. He had hastened to arise and had stabbed the prior. Immediately he had awakened in his bed, bathed in perspiration, and had thanked God that it had been only a frightful dream. The monk was horrified when the prior told him what had taken place." The following cases besides: "A shoemaker's apprentice, tortured for a long time with jealousy, climbed in his sleep over the roof to his beloved, stabbed her and went back to bed." Another, "A sleep walker in Naples stabbed his wife because of an idea in a dream that she was untrue to him!" We may conclude, on the ground of our analytical experiences, that the untrue maiden always represents the mother of the sleep walker, who has been faithless to him with the father. The hatred thoughts toward this rival lead in the first dream to the reverse Hamlet motive, the mother has demanded that the son take revenge upon the father. Finally Krafft-Ebing gives still other cases: "A pastor, who would have been removed from his post on account of the pregnancy of a girl, was acquitted because he proved that he was a sleep walker and made it appear that in this condition(?) the forbidden relationship had taken place." Also, "The case of a girl who was sexually mishandled in the somnambulistic condition. Only in the attacks had she consciousness of having submitted to sexual relations, but not in the free intervals."

There exists a better agreement of opinion over the relationship between sleep walking and the dream. Sleep walking, analogously to the latter, fulfills also wishes of the day, behind which stand always wishes from childhood. Only it must also be emphasized that the old, like the recent wishes, are exclusively or predominantly of a sexual nature. Because however that sexual desire is forbidden in the waking life, it must even as in the dream take refuge in the sleeping state, where it can be gratified unconsciously and therefore without guilt or punishment. Most of the sleep activities of our patient were performed originally in a state of apparent sleep, that is actually practiced in the conscious state until later they were carried out quite unconsciously. She would never then betray what when feigning sleep she had to conceal as causes. Finally the directly precipitating causes in her erotic nature for the sleep walking and moon walking seem especially to have been light and the shining of the moon, her puberty and her mother's sickness.

All of our patient's sleep walking, in accordance with the etiology and interpretation, since it goes back to infantile sexuality, is half sexual, half outspokenly infantile. It reaches the greatest degree, indeed the moon walking sets in just at the time of sexual maturity and leads to the most complicated actions before the menses, that is at the time of the greatest sexual excitement. And this activity in sleep and the moon walking too almost cease when the patient enters upon regular sexual intercourse. The shining of every light stimulates her sexually, especially that of the moon. The wandering about in her nightgown or in the scantiest clothing is plainly erotically conditioned (exhibition), but also the going about in the ghostly hours (see later), finally the being wakened through the softest calling of her name by the mother, with whom alone she stands in a contact like that of hypnotic somnambulism.

Purely childish moreover is the clever technique of disguise. First she simulates illness or fear in order to be taken into the mother's bed. Then she pretends to be asleep, talks in her sleep, throws herself about in her sleep, that she may be able to do everything without punishment and without being blamed, finally plays the mother in a manner which corresponds completely to child's play. Also later, before and after wandering in the bright moonlight, she produces specially deep sleep and first as if in an obsession tries the door repeatedly to see if it is closed. I see in this, naturally apart from possible organic causes of profound sleep, an unconscious purpose, which plainly insists: "Just see, how sound-asleep I am (we are reminded of the earlier pretending to be asleep) and how afraid I am that the door might be left open! Whoever has to walk about in spite of such sound sleep and such precaution, and even perhaps do certain things which might be sexually interpreted, he plainly is not to blame for it!"

We might add from knowledge of the neuroses that the fear that some one might be hiding in the room signifies the wish that this might be so in order that the subject might be sexually gratified. There was one circumstance most convincing in regard to this, which I will now add. Even during the time of her psychoanalytic treatment, when she did not wander at night any more nor perform complicated acts in her sleep, she had a number of times in the country carefully locked the door of her room in the evening, only to find it open again in the morning. To be sure, her lover of that period slept under the same roof, though at some distance from her.

Before I go more closely into the question as to what share the light had upon the sleep walking of our patient, I will recall once more that her actions during sleep were at first but few and had nothing to do with the light. As the years went by they became more complicated and finally took place only under the influence of the light, whether it was artificial or natural, that is of the moon. More extended walks were in general possible only in the light of the moon, which as a heavenly body shining everywhere threw its brightness over every thing, in the court, garden and over the street, while candles or lamps at the best lighted one or two rooms. The patient, given to sleep walking or moon walking, went after the light, which meanwhile represented to her from childhood on a symbol of the parents' love and gave hope of sexual enjoyment.

It was also bound inseparably within with motor activities of an erotic nature. When her mother approached her bed with the light it was a reminder to the child, Now you must go upon the chamber and you can pass "the good," or, when she sat on the mother's lap and gazed into the lamplight, Now you may stimulate yourself according to your heart's desire. Then the lamp was shining when the little one wished to climb into bed with the mother in order that, while exhibiting herself, she might see her as scantily covered as possible. And finally the striking of the light announced, "the mother is sick, in nursing her you will have the opportunity to see her bared breasts and her blood." Evidently the light thus led, when she climbed after it, to the greatest experience of sexual pleasure of her earliest childhood. On account of this strong libido possession the memory of the light was kept alive in the unconscious and it needed only that the light of the lamp or the candle should fall upon the face of the wanderer to permit her to experience in the most profound sleep the same pleasure, the unconscious was set into activity and everything was accomplished most manifestly according to the purpose that served her strong libido.

It is remarkable that our patient distinguished immediately a strong feeling of pleasure by the shining of every light, that moreover she seemed to herself as a supernatural being (glorification through the sexual feeling of pleasure[10]), that she herself imagined it must represent a second sort of consciousness, and finally that she stood in such contact with the beloved person as that of a hypnotized subject—somnambulist—with her hypnotist. For she perceived also the mother's lightest word when most soundly asleep, in spite of her difficulty in hearing at other times.

[10] One thinks of the halo in religious pictures, which indeed is nothing else than the shining of the light about the head.

What was the patient's intention in her longer walks under the moon's influence, that she, for instance, climbed to the first story, reflected for a moment and then started to go out at the gate? That becomes comprehensible when it is remembered that she once opened the door in her sleep for her lover in the country and furthermore in her first complicated sleep walking. The purpose of the latter has been stated, to climb into her mother's bed in order to obtain the greatest sexual pleasure. I do not believe I am far astray when I assume that this erotic desire of the child lies also essentially at the basis of her more extensive wandering in the moonlight. She simply wishes each time to go to the bed of some beloved one, which, as we shall hear later, is accepted by poets and the folk mind as a chief motive, and a fundamental one for many instances of sleep walking, especially with maidens.

It becomes clear now, likewise, why the patient climbs into the first story, then recollects herself and seeks to go out at the gate. In her seventh year she and her family had changed their abode and this had been before in the first story but was now on an upper floor. She is trying yet to climb into the mother's bed, this still remaining as a fundamental motive. Only she is not seeking the bed where it stands at the present time but where it stood in childhood, in the first story and in another house. She goes, therefore, downstairs but remembers, unconsciously of course, that this is not the right floor and wants now to go out at the gate to find the home of her childhood. Later in the country when she so thoroughly frightens her landlady and her daughter, there she is also going to a woman she loves and she leaves the house for this purpose and goes at least into the room that lies in the direction of the house where the beloved lies. Later still she opens the door wide in her sleep so that her lover can have free entrance.

We might also explain now in great part the sleep walking of the mother. As far as I can discover, the mother also as a very small child lived in another home than the one in which her sleep walking began. She ran about her room at night and could not find her bed and felt around in distress without coming upon the chamber, both of which stood in the usual places. This may be explained by the fact that in phantasy she was seeking the bed and chamber of her earliest childhood, which of course stood elsewhere. Moreover she attained by her moaning the fulfilment of her unconscious wish to be set by her mother upon the chamber and then lifted into bed. The wanderings in the moonlight, after which likewise she could not find her way back to bed, may be similarly explained, though I learned only this much about her dancing in the moonlight, that in her childhood she was very fond of dancing, which is also the case with our patient. Perhaps she wished also to play elves in the moonlight, according to poems or fairy tales or had, like her daughter, earned the special love of her parents through her skill in dancing.

We are now at the chief problem. How is it then that the night's rest, the guarding of which is always the goal of the dream, is motorially broken through in sleep walking? There is first a special organic disposition, which is absent from no sleep walker, a heightened motor stimulability[11]. This appears clearly with children, and so for example with our patient as a tendency to convulsive attacks, pavor nocturnus and terrifying dreams, from which she starts up.

[11] Cf. with this Krafft-Ebing, l.c. "Slight convulsions or cataleptic muscular rigidity sometimes precede the attacks."

As far as my observations go, it seems to me that there is a special disposition to sleep walking in the descendants of alcoholics and epileptics, of individuals with a distinctively sadistic character, finally of hysterics, whose motor activity is strongly affected, who also suffer with convulsions, tremor, paralyses or contractures. It should be merely briefly mentioned that the heightened motor excitability also establishes a disposition to a special muscle erotic, which in fact was easily demonstrable in every one of the cases of sleep walking and moon walking which have become known to me. The disturbance of the night's rest was made desirable through the satisfaction of the muscle erotic to every one for whom the excessive muscular activity offered an entirely specialized pleasure, even sexual enjoyment.

Moreover in our case a series of features besides those already mentioned bear undoubted testimony to the abnormally increased muscle erotic. I have already elsewhere discussed them in detail[12] and will here merely name briefly the chief factors. The patient had an epileptic alcoholic grandfather on the mother's side, who was notorious when under the influence of alcohol for his cruelty and pleasure in whipping. She had, besides a strongly sadistic mother, two older brothers, of whom the elder was frightfully violent and brutal, often choking his brothers and sisters, while the other found an actually diabolical pleasure in destroying and demolishing everything. Our patient exhibited already at two years old as well as through her whole life a pleasure in striking blows, and also conversely a special pleasure in receiving them, further at four years old an intensive delight in dancing, an enjoyment that was unmistakably sexual. We have learned above how she delighted to press herself upon her mother's body or twine herself about her legs. Moreover, finally, one of her very earliest hysterical symptoms was a paralysis of the arm.

[12] Cf. note6, p.163.

More difficult seems to me the answer to the second main question: What influence does the moon exercise upon the sleeper? It was earlier discussed, along with the various psychical overdeterminations, that the moonlight awoke first the infantile pleasure memories, among other things that that light shining everywhere lighted the way which led to the house and the dwelling of the earliest childhood. Mention was made of the infantile comparison of the moon's disk with the childish nates and perhaps the gazing upon the nightly orb, which seems besides most like a hypnotic fixation, may be also referred back to the same. Since we know today that the love transference constitutes the essential character of hypnotism, that symptom brings us once more to the eroticism. Beside there was not wanting with our patient a grossly sensual relationship. Finally there is also the infantile desire to climb over the houses into the moon, realizing itself in part at least in the moon-inspired climbing upon the roof.

Yet the second leading problem appears to me, in spite of all this, not completely exhausted. It might not thus be absolutely ruled out that more than a mere superstition lurks behind the folk belief which conceives of a "magnetic" influence by which the moon attracts the sleeper. Such a relationship is indeed conceivable when we consider the motor overexcitability of all sleep walkers and the effecting of ebb and flow through the influence of the moon. Furthermore no one, in an epoch which brings fresh knowledge each year of known and unknown rays, can deny without question any influence to the rays of moonlight. Perhaps in time the physicist and the astronomer will clear up the matter for us. Meanwhile the question is raised and can be answered only with an hypothesis.