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 rôle 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.
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.