and the conscious. The possibility must always be considered that in the unconscious, feeling and concept are not clearly separated, perhaps even are one. The intellectual elevation which many somnambulists display in ecstasy, is certainly a rare thing, but none the less one that has sometimes been observed.[1] I would designate the scheme composed by our patient as just one of those pieces of creative work that exceed the normal intelligence. We have already seen whence one portion of this scheme probably came. A second source is no doubt the life-crisis of Frau Hauffe, portrayed in Kerner’s book. The external form seems to be determined by these adventitious facts. As already observed in the presentation of the case, the idea of dualism arises from the conversations picked up piecemeal by the patient during those dreamy states occurring after her ecstasies. This exhausts my knowledge of the sources of S. W.’s creations. Whence arose the root-idea the patient is unable to say. I naturally examined occultistic literature pertinent to the subject, and discovered a store of parallels from different centuries with our gnostic system, but scattered through all kinds of work mostly quite inaccessible to the patient. Moreover, at her youthful age, and with her surroundings, the possibility of any such study is quite excluded. A brief survey of the system in the light of her own explanations shows how much intelligence was used in its construction. How highly the intellectual work is to be estimated is a matter of opinion. In any case, considering her youth, her mentality must be regarded as most extraordinary.
- ↑ Gilles de la Tourette says, “We have seen somnambulic girls, poor, uneducated, quite stupid in the waking state, whose whole appearance altered so soon as they were sent to sleep. Whilst previously they were boring, now they are lively, alert, sometimes even witty” (Cf. Loewenfeld, l.c., p. 132).
