“I appeared to be resting on the roadside when a woman (unknown) called me to see her husband’s (a comrade) body which was about to be buried. I went to a field in which was a pit, and near the edge four or five dead bodies. In a hand-cart nearby was a legless body, the head of which was hidden from sight by a slab of stone. [He had seen a legless body, which was covered with a mackintosh sheet, which he removed.] On moving the stone I found the body alive, and the head spoke to me, imploring me to see that it was not buried. Burial party arrived, and I was myself about to be buried with legless body when I awoke.”
The second dream was as follows:
“After spending an evening with a brother (dead 11 years ago) I was making my way home when a violent storm compelled me to take shelter in a kind of culvert, which later turned into a quarry, situated between two houses. Men were doing blasting operations in the quarry, and whilst watching them I saw great upheavals of rock, and eventually the building all around collapsed (explosion of a mine). Amongst the débris were several mutilated bodies, the most prominent of which was legless. I tried to proceed to the body, but found that I was myself pinned down by masonry which had fallen on top of me. As I struggled to get free the whole scene appeared to change to a huge fire, everything being enveloped in flames, and through the flames I could still see the legless body which now bore the head of my wife, who was calling for me. I was struggling to get free when my mother seemed to be coming to my assistance, and I awoke to find the nurses and orderlies standing over me.”
It appears that the patient had been shouting in his sleep, beginning in a low voice and gradually becoming louder until at last he was shrieking. The legless body occurred in all his dreams; the sight of this had evidently produced a profound emotional shock. He had worried a great deal about his wife, who was much younger than himself, so that we have this incongruous association of the legless body and the head of his wife calling him; finally, what more natural than the mother to come to his help. The emotional complex is not incongruous in this dream, for fear is linked up with the tender emotion.
Re war dreams, see remarks under [Case 333] concerning oniric delirium. Roussy and Lhermitte say that emotion and concussion are the causal factors; but in a case like 341 we have persistent war dreams of the same general nature. Such a case as Mott’s would not be regarded as one of oniric delirium, for the patient is not living throughout the day in a dream, but merely has certain set dreams. The true oniric delirium cases may lead to fugues of medicolegal importance. Mott’s conception is that the terrifying experiences that come to light in the dreams are repressed by the conscious activity of the mind in the waking state. For this process, the phrase psychic trauma might be used. Rows speaks of a prolongation of mental disorder through memories which get revived in dreams. The memories of past and recent events pile up on one another. Elliot Smith remarks on the number of cases in which the dreams show a coalescence and blending of episodes alien to the war. Re such combinations, see [Case 342] of Rows, below.
Trench experience: War dreams, shifting to sex dreams. Recovery on giving the patient an insight into the nature of his dreams.
Case 342. (Rows, April, 1916.)
A patient broke out of a hospital after being refused permission to leave the grounds. He grew much depressed and said he had been disgraced and would commit suicide rather than bring disgrace on his family. Investigation into this emotional outburst showed that his father had deserted the family, that he had gotten into prison, and “tainted me.” The patient was worried also about an idea of loss of sex power, gathered from a book by a quack doctor, read years ago. It appeared also that this doctor had advertised a special bread and special medicine which would preserve the nervous system, and that for years the patient had fed himself and his family with the bread and medicine. When the true state of affairs was shown to the patient, his restlessness at night disappeared. The mental condition of this man in fact became practically normal, and the marked tic of facial muscles and the general tremulousness of the man disappeared.
It is of note that this man’s dreams began with a terrible incident in the trenches and then shifted to sex acts. He woke to find the clothes disturbed.