Note 224 — Chapter IX

'Epilepsy' wrote Binns long ago (Anatomy of Sleep, 1845, p. 431), 'is a disease which in some of its symptoms strongly resembles abnormal sleep.' The conditions under which a paramnesic manifestation may really replace an epileptic fit are well described by a literary man with hereditary epilepsy whose case has been recorded by Haskovec of Prague (XIIIe. Congrès International de Médecine: Comptes Rendus, vol. viii., 'Psychiatrie' p. 125): 'One day at the theatre, under the influence of the heat and perhaps the music, I experienced extreme excitement and fatigue. I thought I was about to have an attack, and resisted with all my strength, and it failed to take place. But I found myself in a strange psychic state. On leaving the theatre I seemed to be dreaming. I saw and heard everything and talked as usual. But everything seemed strange. Nothing seemed to reach directly me or to be a real impression, but merely the automatic reproduction of something learnt, only I felt that I had lived it all before and felt it; at that moment I simply seemed to be observing it.'