The existence of diseases of the heart and larger vessels is often revealed by frightful dreams when there is no other evidence of their presence. Macario states that a young lady was under his care in whom violent palpitations of the heart were preceded by painful dreams. She subsequently died of disease of the heart.
Moreau (de la Sarthe),[89] in a very elaborate treatise on dreams, relates the case of a French nobleman, whom he had attended during several months for threatened chronic pericarditis, and who was at first tormented every night by painful and frightful dreams. These dreams, attracting attention, gave the earliest indication of the real condition, and excited fears as to the result, which were soon verified.
He cites another case in illustration of the fact that periodical hemorrhages are sometimes preceded by morbid dreams. A physician had, in his youth, been subject to periodical hemorrhages, but without dreams or other trouble during sleep. As he advanced in years, the hemorrhages were not so frequent, but were always preceded by a condition of general irritation, characterized during wakefulness by heat of skin and frequency of the pulse, and during sleep by painful dreams. These dreams almost always related to violent actions, such as giving and receiving heavy blows, walking on a volcano, or being precipitated into lakes of fire.
Many cases of insanity being preceded by frightful dreams are on record. Falret,[90] in calling attention to the remarkable analogy which exists between mental alienation and dreams, says that it is an incontestable fact that insanity is often preceded by significant dreams, and that these constitute the whole essence of the disorder by becoming firmly fixed in the patient’s mind. Thus, he relates that Odier of Geneva was consulted in 1778 by a lady, who, during the night preceding the outbreak of her insanity, dreamed that her step-mother approached her with a dagger in order to kill her. This dream made so strong an impression upon her that she ultimately accredited it as true, and thus became the victim of a delusion which rendered her a lunatic. He declares that numerous similar instances have come under his observation, and refers to the case of a young lady, subject to periodical attacks of mental derangement, whose paroxysms are always preceded by notable dreams.
Morel[91] affirms that many patients before becoming completely insane have frightful dreams, which they regard as evidences that they are about to lose their reason. Sometimes they are afraid to go to sleep on account of the terrifying apparitions which then visit them.
The following cases, related by Dr. Forbes Winslow,[92] are interesting in this connection:
“A gentleman, who had previously manifested no appreciable symptoms of mental disorder, or even of disturbed and anxious thought, retired to bed apparently in a sane state of mind. Upon arising in the morning, to the intense terror of his wife, he was found to have lost his senses! He exhibited his insanity by asserting that he was going to be tried for an offense which he could not clearly define, and of the nature of which he had no right conception. He declared that the officers of justice were in hot pursuit of him,—in fact, he maintained that they were actually in the house. He begged and implored his wife to protect him. He walked about the bed-room in a state of great agitation, apprehension, and alarm, stamping his feet, and wringing his hands in the wildest agony of despair. Upon inquiring into the history of the case, his wife said that she had not observed any symptoms that excited her suspicions as to the state of her husband’s mind, but upon being questioned very closely, she admitted that during the previous night he appeared to have been under the influence of what she considered to be the nightmare, or a frightful dream. While apparently asleep he cried out several times, evidently in great distress of mind, ‘Don’t come near me!’ ‘Take them away!’ ‘Oh, save me; they are pursuing me!’ It is singular that in this case the insanity which was clearly manifested in the morning appeared like a continuation of the same character and train of perturbed thought that existed during his troubled sleep when, according to the wife’s account, he was evidently dreaming.”
Dr. Winslow’s second case is equally to the point: “I am indebted to a medical friend for the particulars of the following case. During the winter of 1849 he was called to see H. B., about five or six o’clock in the morning. The patient was the wife of a tailor and mother of three children. At this time she was rather emaciated and debilitated in bodily health, and anemic in appearance. She was of a religious turn of mind, and belonged to the Wesleyan persuasion. On the morning of the narrator’s visit, he found the woman in a state of great mental excitement and under the influence of hallucinations. She had gone to bed apparently well, but during the night was the subject of a vivid dream, imagining that she saw her sister, long since dead and to whom she was much attached, suffering the pains of hell. When quite awake, no one could persuade her that she had been under the influence of an agitated dream. She stoutly persisted in maintaining the reality of her vision. During the whole of that day she was clearly insane; but on the following morning her mind appeared to have recovered its balance. She continued tolerably well, mentally, for four years, with the exception of her occasionally having moments of despondency arising from real or fancied troubles.” * * *
The further particulars of this case, relating as they do to another division of the subject,—“sleep-drunkenness,” as the Germans designate it,—will be considered under that head.
Without pretending to indorse all the conclusions of Albers,—as set forth in the following summary, and which I quote from a very learned and philosophical writer,[93]—there is no doubt that some of his dicta are well founded.