She arrived at the cemetery in a somnambulic state, which on this occasion was specially intense in consequence of her having taken alcohol. She performed actions almost instinctively about which her subconsciousness nevertheless did receive certain impressions. (The part played here by alcohol must not be under-estimated. We know from experience that it does not only act adversely upon these conditions, but, like every other narcotic, it gives rise to a certain increase of suggestibility.) The impressions received in somnambulism subconsciously form independent growths, and finally reach perception as hallucinations. Thus our case closely corresponds to those somnambulic dream-states which have recently been subjected to a penetrating study in England and France.
These lapses of memory, which at first seem without content, gain a content by means of accidental auto-suggestion, and this content automatically builds itself up to a certain extent. It achieves no further development, probably on account of the improvement now beginning, and finally it disappears altogether as recovery sets in. Binet and Féré have made numerous experiments on the implanting of suggestions in states of partial sleep. They have shown, for example, that when a pencil is put in the anæsthetic hand of a hysteric, letters of great length are written automatically whose contents are unknown to the patient’s consciousness. Cutaneous stimuli in anæsthetic regions are sometimes perceived as visual images, or at least as vivid associated visual presentations. These independent transmutations of simple stimuli must be regarded as primary phenomena in the formation of somnambulic dream-pictures. Analogous manifestations occur in exceptional cases within the sphere of waking consciousness. Goethe,[1] for instance, states that
- ↑ Goethe: Zur Naturwissenschaft in Allgemeinen. “I was able, when I closed my eyes and bent my head, to conjure the imaginary picture of a flower. This flower did not retain its first shape for a single instant, but unfolded out of itself, new flowers composed of coloured petals and green leaves. They were not natural flowers, but phantastic ones. They were as regular in shape as a sculptor’s rosettes. It was impossible to fix the creation which sprang up, nevertheless the dream image lasted as long as I desired it to last; it neither faded nor got stronger.”
