Reverie, The Catenation of Ideas, and Muscular Motions

Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Erasmus Darwin is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here: [LINK TO TABLE OF LINK]. Section XIX: Of Reverie

SECTION 19. OF REVERIE

1. When we are employed with a great sensation of pleasure, or with great efforts of volition, in the pursuit of some interesting train of ideas, we cease to be conscious of our existence, are inattentive to time and place, and do not distinguish this train of sensitive and voluntary ideas from the irritative ones excited by the presence of external objects, though our organs of sense are furnished with their accustomed stimuli, till at length this interesting train of ideas becomes exhausted, or the appulses of external objects are applied with unusual violence, and we return with surprise, or with regret, into the common track of life. This is termed reverie or studium.

In some constitutions these reveries continue a considerable time, and are not to be removed without greater difficulty, but are experienced in a less degree by us all; when we attend earnestly to the ideas excited by volition or sensation, with their associated connexions, but are at the same time conscious at intervals of the stimuli of surrounding bodies. Thus in being present at a play, or in reading a romance, some persons are so totally absorbed as to forget their usual time of sleep, and to neglect their meals; while others are said to have been so involved in voluntary study as not to have heard the discharge of artillery; and there is a story of an Italian politician, who could think so intensely on other subjects, as to be insensible to the torture of the rack.

From hence it appears, that these catenations of ideas and muscular motions, which form the trains of reverie, are composed both of voluntary and sensitive associations of them; and that these ideas differ from those of delirium or of sleep, as they are kept consistent by the power of volition; and they differ also from the trains of ideas belonging to insanity, as they are as frequently excited by sensation as by volition. But lastly, that the whole sensorial power is so employed on these trains of complete reverie, that like the violent efforts of volition, as in convulsions or insanity; or like the great activity of the irritative motions in drunkenness; or of the sensitive motions in delirium; they preclude all sensation consequent to external stimulus.

2. Those persons, who are said to walk in their sleep, are affected with reverie to so great a degree, that it becomes a formidable disease; the essence of which consists in the inaptitude of the mind to attend to external stimuli. Many histories of this disease have been published by medical writers; of which there is a very curious one in the Lausanne Transactions. I shall here subjoin an account of such a case, with its cure, for the better illustration of this subject.

A very ingenious and elegant young lady, with light eyes and hair, about the age of seventeen, in other respects well, was suddenly seized soon after her usual menstruation with this very wonderful malady. The disease began with vehement convulsions of almost every muscle of her body, with great but vain efforts to vomit, and the most violent hiccoughs, that can be conceived: these were succeeded in about an hour with a fixed spasm; in which one hand was applied to her head, and the other to support it: in about half an hour these ceased, and the reverie began suddenly, and was at first manifest by the look of her eyes and countenance, which seemed to express attention. Then she conversed aloud with imaginary persons with her eyes open, and could not for about an hour be brought to attend to the stimulus of external objects by any kind of violence, which it was proper to use; these symptoms returned in this order every day for five or six weeks.

These conversations were quite consistent, and we could understand, what she supposed her imaginary companions to answer, by the continuation of her part of the discourse. Sometimes she was angry, at other times shewed much wit and vivacity, but was most frequently inclined to melancholy. In these reveries she sometimes sung over some music with accuracy, and repeated whole pages from the English poets. In repeating some lines from Mr. Pope's works she had forgot one word, and began again, endeavouring to recollect it; when she came to the forgotten word, it was shouted aloud in her ear, and this repeatedly, to no purpose; but by many trials she at length regained it herself.

These paroxysms were terminated with the appearance of inexpressible surprise, and great fear, from which she was some minutes in recovering herself, calling on her sister with great agitation, and very frequently underwent a repetition of convulsions, apparently from the pain of fear. See Sect. XVII. 3. 7.

After having thus returned for about an hour every day for two or three weeks, the reveries seemed to become less complete, and some of their circumstances varied; so that she could walk about the room in them without running against any of the furniture; though these motions were at first very unsteady and tottering. And afterwards she once drank a dish of tea, when the whole apparatus of the tea-table was set before her; and expressed some suspicion, that a medicine was put into it, and once seemed to smell of a tuberose, which was in flower in her chamber, and deliberated aloud about breaking it from the stem, saying, "it would make her sister so charmingly angry." At another time in her melancholy moments she heard the sound of a passing bell, "I wish I was dead," she cried, listening to the bell, and then taking off one of her shoes, as she sat upon the bed, "I love the colour black," says she, "a little wider, and a little longer, even this might make me a coffin!"—Yet it is evident, she was not sensible at this time, any more than formerly, of seeing or hearing any person about her; indeed when great light was thrown upon her by opening the shutters of the window, her trains of ideas seemed less melancholy; and when I have forcibly held her hands, or covered her eyes, she appeared to grow impatient, and would say, she could not tell what to do, for she could neither see nor move. In all these circumstances her pulse continued unaffected as in health. And when the paroxysm was over, she could never recollect a single idea of what had passed in it.

This astonishing disease, after the use of many other medicines and applications in vain, was cured by very large doses of opium given about an hour before the expected returns of the paroxysms; and after a few relapses, at the intervals of three or four months, entirely disappeared. But she continued at times to have other symptoms of epilepsy.

3. We shall only here consider, what happened during the time of her reveries, as that is our present subject; the fits of convulsion belong to another part of this treatise. Sect. XXXIV. 1. 4.

There seems to have been no suspension of volition during the fits of reverie, because she endeavoured to regain the lost idea in repeating the lines of poetry, and deliberated about breaking the tuberose, and suspected the tea to have been medicated.

4. The ideas and muscular movements depending on sensation were exerted with their usual vivacity, and were kept from being inconsistent by the power of volition, as appeared from her whole conversation, and was explained in Sect. XVII. 3. 7. and XVIII. 16.

5. The ideas and motions dependant on irritation during the first weeks of her disease, whilst the reverie was complete, were never succeeded by the sensation of pleasure or pain; as she neither saw, heard, nor felt any of the surrounding objects. Nor was it certain that any irritative motions succeeded the stimulus of external objects, till the reverie became less complete, and then she could walk about the room without running against the furniture of it. Afterwards, when the reverie became still less complete from the use of opium, some few irritations were at times succeeded by her attention to them. As when she smelt at a tuberose, and drank a dish of tea, but this only when she seemed voluntarily to attend to them.

6. In common life when we listen to distant sounds, or wish to distinguish objects in the night, we are obliged strongly to exert our volition to dispose the organs of sense to perceive them, and to suppress the other trains of ideas, which might interrupt these feeble sensations. Hence in the present history the strongest stimuli were not perceived, except when the faculty of volition was exerted on the organ of sense; and then even common stimuli were sometimes perceived: for her mind was so strenuously employed in pursuing its own trains of voluntary or sensitive ideas, that no common stimuli could so far excite her attention as to disunite them; that is, the quantity of volition or of sensation already existing was greater than any, which could be produced in consequence of common degrees of stimulation. But the few stimuli of the tuberose, and of the tea, which she did perceive, were such, as accidentally coincided with the trains of thought, which were passing in her mind; and hence did not disunite those trains, and create surprise. And their being perceived at all was owing to the power of volition preceding or coinciding with that of irritation.

This explication is countenanced by a fact mentioned concerning a somnambulist in the Lausanne Transactions, who sometimes opened his eyes for a short time to examine, where he was, or where his ink-pot stood, and then shut them again, dipping his pen into the pot every now and then, and writing on, but never opening his eyes afterwards, although he wrote on from line to line regularly, and corrected some errors of the pen, or in spelling: so much easier was it to him to refer to his ideas of the positions of things, than to his perceptions of them.

7. The associated motions persisted in their usual channel, as appeared by the combinations of her ideas, and the use of her muscles, and the equality of her pulse; for the natural motions of the arterial system, though originally excited like other motions by stimulus, seem in part to continue by their association with each other. As the heart of a viper pulsates long after it is cut out of the body, and removed from the stimulus of the blood.

8. In the section on sleep, it was observed that the nerves of sense are equally alive and susceptible to irritation in that state, as when we are awake; but that they are secluded from stimulating objects, or rendered unfit to receive them: but in complete reverie the reverse happens, the immediate organs of sense are exposed to their usual stimuli; but are either not excited into action at all, or not into so great action, as to produce attention or sensation.

The total forgetfulness of what passes in reveries; and the surprise on recovering from them, are explained in Section XVIII. 19. and in Section XVII. 3. 7.

9. It appears from hence, that reverie is a disease of the epileptic or cataleptic kind, since the paroxysms of this young lady always began and frequently terminated with convulsions; and though in its greatest degree it has been called somnambulation, or sleep-walking, it is totally different from sleep; because the essential character of sleep consists in the total suspension of volition, which in reverie is not affected; and the essential character of reverie consists not in the absence of those irritative motions of our senses, which are occasioned by the stimulus of external objects, but in their never being productive of sensation. So that during a fit of reverie that strange event happens to the whole system of nerves, which occurs only to some particular branches of them in those, who are a second time exposed to the action of contagious matter. If the matter of the small-pox be inserted into the arm of one, who has previously had that disease, it will stimulate the wound, but the general sensation or inflammation of the system does not follow, which constitutes the disease. See Sect. XII. 3. 6. XXXIII. 2. 8.

10. The following is the definition or character of complete reverie. 1. The irritative motions occasioned by internal stimuli continue, those from the stimuli of external objects are either not produced at all, or are never succeeded by sensation or attention, unless they are at the same time excited by volition. 2. The sensitive motions continue, and are kept consistent by the power of volition. 3. The voluntary motions continue undisturbed. 4. The associate motions continue undisturbed.

Two other cases of reverie are related in Section XXXIV. 3. which further evince, that reverie is an effort of the mind to relieve some painful sensation, and is hence allied to convulsion, and to insanity. Another case is related in Class III. 1. 2. 2.

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Darwin, Erasmus, 2005. Zoonomia, Vol. Or, the Laws of Organic Life. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15707/15707-h/15707-h.htm#sect_XIX

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