III Somnambulism and Hysteria as Mental Relics
Fear as the primary cause of hysteria—Natural somnambulism—Doubling of personality—Some examples of somnambulists—Analogy between somnambulism and the life of anthropoid apes—The psychology of crowds—Importance of the investigation of hysteria for the problem of the origin of man
The study of fear is interesting in other respects than those with which I have been dealing. It is also a primary cause of the obscure and complicated phenomena of hysteria.
Thus, for instance, amongst twenty-two hysterical women observed by Georget162 the primary causes were: terror, 13 cases; extreme grief, 7 cases; extreme annoyance, one case. A patient of M. Pitres, of Bordeaux, first exhibited hysteria after being extremely terrified. A man with a tame bear had come to the village. The patient went to see the performance and elbowed her way through the crowd until she got to the front row. The bear, whilst dancing, passed so close that its cold muzzle touched the cheek of the young girl. Marie—for that was the patient’s name—was terrified. She ran quickly home, and almost on her arrival fell on her bed in an attack of convulsion and extreme delirium. Since then the attacks have been repeated many times, and the delirium associated with them always turns upon the terror caused by the bear touching her.
A hysterical woman at the Salpétrière is haunted by terrifying dreams. She thinks someone is trying to murder her, or to cut her throat, or that she is falling into water, and she keeps crying for help.163
Some of the most curious phases of hysteria are the paradoxical and extraordinary cases of so-called natural somnambulism, in which the patients, whilst asleep, perform all sorts of acts of which they remember nothing in their waking hours. Cases of duplication of personality are also known, in which the patients live in two different states without, in one of these, having the slightest remembrance of what takes place in the other. One of the most curious observations was that of the somnambulist who became enceinte whilst in her second state. In her first, or normal condition, she was ignorant of the reason of her physical changes, although in the second state she knew about it quite well and spoke freely of it (Pitres, op. cit. II, 215).
In the state of natural somnambulism the patients generally reproduce the normal acts of their daily life which they have acquired the habit of performing unconsciously. Artisans devote themselves to their manual work, sempstresses begin to sew, maid servants brush shoes or clothes, lay the table and so forth. Educated persons devote themselves to intellectual work to which they are accustomed. Clergymen have been known to compose their sermons in the somnambulistic condition, and to read them over to correct mistakes in style or in spelling.
However, besides somnambulists who during slumber simply repeat the usual acts of their life, there are others who do special things to which they are unaccustomed.
It is these cases which are most interesting from my point of view. I shall take one case which has been specially well reported. A hysterical patient, a girl of 24 years of age, was admitted as an in-patient to the hospital Laënnec. One Sunday, she got up about one o’clock in the morning. The night watchman, who was alarmed, went for the night doctor, who witnessed the following scene. “The patient went to the staircase leading to the nurses’ quarters, then suddenly turned round and walked towards the wash-house. The door of that being closed, she then groped for a time and turned towards the women’s dormitory in which she had formerly slept. She went up to the top of the house where this dormitory was, and when she got on the landing, opened a window leading to the roof, went out of the window, walked along the gutter, under the horrified eyes of the nurse who followed her and who did not dare to speak to her, went in again by another window and went down the stairs.” “It was at this moment that I saw her,” said the night doctor; “she was walking noiselessly, her gait was automatic, her arms hanging by her sides, a little bent, the head erect and fixed, her hair disordered, her eyes wide open; she seemed like some strange apparition.”164 This is obviously the case of a hysterical subject, who in a normal condition was not accustomed to climb upon roofs and walk along the gutters.
Another observation, reported by Charcot, related to a young man, seventeen years old, the son of a large manufacturer, and of good address. Tired out by working for his final examination, he had gone to bed early. Some time later he rose from the bed in his college dormitory, went out by a window, and without accident climbed on the roof and took a long and dangerous walk along the gutters. He was awakened before any accident occurred (Feinkind, p. 70).
A case observed by Dr. Mesnet and M. Mottet was still more interesting. A lady thirty years old and extremely hysterical got out of bed in the night, “dressed herself, completed her toilet without help, removed the furniture in her way without stumbling against it. She was indifferent and idle by day, but strenuous at night in performing the most varied acts. I have seen her walking about in her rooms, opening doors, going down to the garden, leaping on seats with the utmost agility, running about, in fact doing all these things much better than in her waking hours, in which she got about only slowly and with aid” (Feinkind, p. 84).
Horst has related an extraordinary incident which took place in the sixteenth century. “A soldier walked in his sleep to a window, and with the help of a rope climbed a high tower, secured a jackdaw’s nest with its young birds, and regained his bed, where he remained asleep until the morning.”165 Unfortunately there are not sufficiently detailed facts regarding this incident, and for fully described cases we must return to modern times. Dr. Guinon has related one case in ample detail. A man thirty-four years of age, by occupation an interpreter, was taken into hospital for hysterical attacks. “One night soon after he came under the care of the physicians, this patient, towards one o’clock in the morning, suddenly arose from bed, threw open a window and jumped across the sill into the courtyard of the hospital. The attendants on duty ran after him, and saw him hurrying away, undressed and carrying a pillow in his arms. He traversed a series of gardens and walks, with the topography of which he was unacquainted, climbed a ladder and got on the roof of the hydrotherapeutic establishment, up and down which he proceeded to run with the greatest agility. Sometimes he stopped in his flight and rocked the pillow he was carrying, kissing and soothing it as if it were a child. Then he retraced the route he had taken.” On being questioned next morning, he had not the faintest remembrance of his nocturnal exploit. “A similar fit came on him five or six times” (Feinkind, p. 108).
The same patient, “after having turned over in bed several times, seized a pillow and held it to his breast. He then got out of bed, and, in his nightgown, ran through the dormitory to a door leading to the lavatories. He opened the door, readily but with violence, and entered one of the closets. Then, still holding the pillow against his chest with one arm, by a gymnastic feat both difficult and dangerous, yet which he performed with the utmost precision, using his feet and the free arm, he got hold of the edge of the frame of an open window, through which he swung himself to the sill, alighting on both feet, after which, preserving the pillow carefully from contact or shocks, he jumped to the ground (the infirmary ward was on the ground floor). He then ran quickly to the opposite corner of the courtyard, passing the whole length of the great building at full speed, holding the pillow carefully. By a path which led round the building, he reached a corner where there was a tower supporting a great water-tank. A kind of metallic ladder, placed almost vertically and with rounded steps, led up the side of the tower to a sort of observation-landing which at one point was adjacent to the edge of the roof of the bath-house.
“The patient set himself to climb this ladder without any hesitation, holding on by his free hand and placing his naked feet on the rounded steps with extreme precision. When he reached the nearest point to the roof of the bath-house he leapt upon that, and at a running pace climbed the zinc roof to the crest, looking round him from time to time to see if his imaginary pursuers were near. He ran along the crest which was so narrow that his feet had to be placed alternately on either side on the slopes of the steep-pitched roof, a performance so dangerous that none of the officials would follow him, and which none the less he performed with complete assurance and without a single slip.
“When he reached the middle of the building he sat down on the crest of the roof, leaning against a ventilating chimney. He then took the pillow which he had been carrying carefully, placed it on his knees with a corner against his shoulder, and began to rock it as if it were a child, crooning to it, stroking it with his hand or with his cheek that he pressed gently against the corner. From time to time his eyebrows contracted and his looks hardened, and he gazed around him as if he were being pursued or watched, then gave a growl of rage, and took to flight again, carrying the pillow on his dangerous path. All the time he kept speaking, but we could not hear what he said. He saw nothing that was not in his dream; he did not understand when his name was called aloud; but he could hear, for at the slightest sound near him he rushed off again as if his pursuers were upon him. This episode lasted about two hours, during which he had climbed over all the roofs in the vicinity, defying our pursuit of him” (Feinkind, pp. 106-112).
I could give other similar cases, but I think that I have shown sufficiently that man, when in the condition of natural somnambulism, exhibits qualities that he does not possess in the normal state, becoming strong, adroit, and a good gymnast, like his anthropoid ancestors. The close resemblance between the manœuvres of Martin’s gibbon, which I described earlier in this chapter, and the dangerous exploits of some sleep walkers is most striking.
The impulses to climb on roofs and poles, to run along in rain gutters, to climb a tower to take a bird’s nest, are characteristic examples of the instinctive actions of climbing animals, like the anthropoid apes. Dr. Barth166 defines somnambulism as “a dream with exaltation of the memory and automatic action of the nervous centres, without voluntary and conscious control.” “The striking exaltation of the memory is the dominating condition. The extreme exactness of the memory of places displayed by the somnambulist makes us understand how he performs his nocturnal wanderings, doing almost without the aid of his senses numberless deeds of which he would be practically incapable in a waking condition.” However, as such a patient performs new acts which he has never accomplished before in his own individual life, we must suppose that the exaltation of memory includes extremely ancient facts, dating perhaps from the pre-human period. Man has inherited from his ancestors a number of mechanisms of the brain, the activity of which is inhibited by restraints which have been developed later. Just as man possesses mammary glands which under ordinary conditions cannot secrete milk, so also, in his brain, there are contained groups of cells which are inactive in the normal condition, but, also, just as in some exceptional cases man and the males of several species of mammals are able to give milk, so also in abnormal conditions the atrophied mechanisms of other nervous centres begin to act.
The secretion of milk by males is a return to an extremely ancient condition in which both sexes were able to nourish the young; so, also, the gymnastic feats and the extraordinary strength of somnambulists are a return to a normal condition much less remote from us than lactation in males.
It is curious to find that, in some cases, natural somnambulism is associated with power to move the shell of the ear. I know two brothers, who, when they were young, used to walk in their sleep in the most typical way. One of them, a chemist, used to climb on a high cupboard, or simply walk about in the room. The other brother, a sailor, in a fit of somnambulism, climbed to the top mast of a sailing ship. These brothers, who were somnambulists, had the cutaneous muscles extremely well developed and were able to move their ears voluntarily.
In this case the abnormality was hereditary in the family, and the two daughters of one of the brothers were also somnambulistic and had control over the muscles of the ears. Here, then, is a case of the simultaneous recurrence of two characters of our ancestors: mobility of the ear and agility in gymnastic feats. M. Barth characterises the somnambulist as “a living automaton in whom conscious will is for the time being destroyed.” According to him, the somnambulist “acts at the suggestion of circumstances, and what seem most extraordinary in what he does are in reality instinctive reactions.” This description agrees well with my view that in natural somnambulism the instincts of our pre-human ancestors are awakened, instincts which under normal conditions are latent and rudimentary.
Sometimes, under the stimulus of fear, the instinctive mechanism of swimming is awakened in man. It would be extremely interesting to know if a similar occurrence took place in somnambulists. I have been unable to find in literature any sufficient facts upon this subject. I can quote only one case, and that with all reserve, which was published in the article “Somnambulism” in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales. “It is related that a somnambulist who took to swimming during one of his fits was called by his name several times, and became so frightened when he awoke that he was drowned.” It would be extremely interesting to collect more numerous facts on the instincts shown by somnambulists.
I have given a good deal of attention to natural somnambulism with the idea that I should find in it traits recalling those of the life of anthropoid apes. I think that the extremely varied phenomena of hysteria could supply us with other facts, useful in investigating the psycho-physiological history of man. Perhaps some of the facts of so-called “lucidity” which are well established could be explained as the awakening of special sensations atrophied in the human race, but present in animals. It is known that in vertebrate anatomy organs are found which have the structures of organs of sense, but which are absent or quite rudimentary in the human body. On the other hand, it is known that animals perceive some phenomena of the surrounding world, for the perception of which man has no organs of sense. Fish, for instance, appreciate gradations in the depth of water, birds and mammals have a sense of orientation and can anticipate changes in the weather more exactly than our meteorological science. When under the influence of hysteria, man may possibly be able to recover these senses of our remote ancestors, and to know things of which he is ignorant in the normal condition.
Hysteria is common to man and animals. Amongst the numerous chimpanzees which I have owned, several have shown signs of hysteria. Some, when they were in the slightest degree annoyed, lay on the ground, screaming terribly, and rolling about like children in a fit of passion. One young chimpanzee used to pull out its hair when it was in a fit of temper. The view that hysteria is a relapse to the condition of our animal ancestors is supported by the conception of hysterical phenomena, suggested by Dr. Babinsky.167 This well-known neurologist thinks that “the phenomena of hysteria have two special characters, the one being that they can be reproduced by suggestion in some cases with the most complete fidelity, and the other that they can disappear under the sole influence of persuasion.” M. Babinsky thinks that “the hysteric patient is neither unconscious nor completely conscious, but is in a state of special consciousness.” In my opinion the latter condition corresponds to the state of mind of our more or less remote ancestors.
Occasionally a man, under some sudden impulse, falls into a condition of extreme violence, and, being unable to control himself, commits acts of which he repents immediately afterwards. It is the custom to say that at such times the brute has awakened in the man. This is more than a metaphor. (Probably some nervous mechanism from a remote ancestor has come into action, at the call of some stimulation.) As our anthropoid ancestors and primitive man lived in tribes, it is natural that when men are grouped together, certain savage instincts should awaken. In this connection it is interesting to study the psychology of crowds. When man is surrounded by a great many of his fellows, he becomes particularly responsive to suggestion. This condition is characterised as follows by M. G. Le Bon,168 the author of a study on the psychology of crowds: “The most careful observations seem to prove that an individual immerged for some length of time in a crowd in action soon finds himself—either in consequence of the magnetic influence given out by the crowd, or from some other cause of which we are ignorant—in a special state, which much resembles the state of fascination in which the hypnotised individual finds himself in the hands of the hypnotiser. The activity of the brain being paralysed in the case of the hypnotised subject, the latter becomes the slave of all the unconscious activities of his spinal cord, which the hypnotiser directs at will. The conscious personality has entirely vanished; will and discernment are lost. All feelings and thoughts are bent in the direction determined by the hypnotiser” (p. 11). Man, under the influence of the crowd, gets into a condition like that of a hysterical patient and displays a state of mind identical with that of our ancestors. “Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organised crowd, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilisation. Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian—that is, a creature acting by instinct” (p. 13).
It is quite natural to find relics of our prehistoric past in all kinds of hysterical phenomena. We could reach extremely interesting facts regarding the tribal and sexual life of apes, if we tried to compare with them the phenomena of human hysteria. The passionate gestures which are characteristic of some hysterical cases could probably be explained in this way quite simply, and the wild cries uttered by patients in acute hysteria would be similarly explicable.
I think that just as anatomists seek for points of comparison between man and animals, as palæontologists make excavations to discover the buried remains of creatures intermediate between man and apes, so also, psychologists and doctors should investigate the rudimentary psycho-physical functions with the object of building up the history of the evolution of our psychical life. It cannot be doubted that in this branch of science new arguments would be found to support the already well founded theory of the simian origin of the human race.