brought the truth to light. His phobia, it appeared, had its real starting
point in early childhood, and, not least, in certain sensational fairy
stories read to him by a nurse when he was quite young--stories which he
himself continued to read at a later age.
"These bloody and horrible stories," to quote Doctor Brill, "made a strong
impression upon him. He would form fancies about them on going to sleep at
night, substituting himself for the hero."
"Bluebeard" was one story that especially impressed him. Another was a
charming tale about a false princess who was rolled in a barrel, into
which long pointed spikes had been driven.
As he grew older, there had been the usual fading from memory of
these stories and the imaginings to which they had given rise. But,
subconsciously, they had never been forgotten, and out of them there had
gradually developed the obsessive and seemingly inexplicable dread of
blood.
In another case, the "Bluebeard" story responsible for the night
terrors of a sensitive little girl, remained so indelibly fixed in her
subconsciousness that in adult life she often had nightmares, in which, to
her great distress, she was attacked by men who were "frightful looking
on account of their blue beards." Even more impressively illustrative of
the permanence and possible ill effects of tales of the horrible heard
in early life is the case of a man fifty years old, who had to receive
medical treatment because he "could not fall asleep without living
through--for at least an hour, sometimes even longer--some distorted story
from fairy books or mythology."
That common phobia of childhood, fear of the dark, is often traceable
to fairy tales, and, in many cases, persists in some degree through
later life. Let me quote, on this important point, the testimony of a
Washington physician, Doctor T. A. Williams, who has made a special study
of nervousness in childhood:
"Morbid fears are a great distress to many people. They have nearly always
arisen in early childhood, and have been inculcated by injudicious nurses,
tales of goblins and fairies being most prolific in this respect.
"The ineradicability of fears, when inculcated in early childhood, is
clearly illustrated by a Southern lady who, even in advanced age, dared
not go alone into the dark, although she had long ceased to believe in the
stories which had made her afraid to do so. She realised this so forcibly
that she would not permit her three daughters to be told any of the
alarming stories which most Southern children learn. This resulted in the
girls never having known what it meant to be afraid of the dark. Indeed,
it was the habit of their school fellows to send them off into dark and
eery places to show off their powers."
And, from one of the most experienced psychiatrists of the United States,
Doctor W. A. White, superintendent of the great Government Hospital for
the Insane, at Washington, we have this emphatic statement as to the
general relationship between fairy tales and mental diseases:
"You will find, not infrequently, that the precipitating factors in
psychoses come from the books of fairy tales which your children are
allowed to feed upon."
Of course, as already intimated, a mental overthrow from the hearing or
reading of fairy tales presupposes an undue impressionability on the
victim's part. But how are parents to determine whether or no their
children's psychic make-up is such as to render them immune from the
possible mind-enfeebling effects of "horror tales"? And, in any event, let
me repeat with all the emphasis at my command, there is reason to believe
that no child can escape some stunting or distorting of character if
brought up on a diet of ultra-sanguinary fairy tales.
As I write these lines, a stupendous war is raging in Europe with a
ferocity that appals the outside world. Especially atrocious is the
policy of one of the embattled nations, formerly regarded as a leader
in modern civilisation. To attain its ends, this nation has violated
treaty obligations as though they were of no consequence whatever; it has
ruthlessly slain innocent noncombatants, even the citizens of neutral
countries; wherever it has been victorious, it stands accused of vile
brutalities. In its attitude towards its own soldiers it has displayed an
almost incredible callousness, hurling them to certain destruction with
cold-blooded nonchalance.
Beholding all this, the people of other lands marvel and question. That,
in the twentieth century, even under the stress of war, a civilised nation
should thus revert to barbarism seems to baffle explanation. For myself,
however, I am convinced that at least a partial explanation is to be
found in the fact that the offending nation is one among whom the myth,
the legend, and the fairy tale have pre-eminently flourished.
In the stories which distinguished scholars have eagerly assisted to make
available to the youth of this nation, indifference to human suffering and
human life are too often conspicuous elements. Too often they are tinged
by more than a suggestion of bloodthirstiness, cruelty, and the principle
of revenge. When the childish mind has been fed upon these, stimulated by
them to unhealthy fancies, and re-enforced in those instincts inherited
from the primitive, which it should be the business of education to weaken
and repress, is it to be wondered at that, in the crisis of war, there has
been a veritable relapse to primitive savagery?
In some degree, moreover, all the warring nations have been bred on fairy
tales, and, in some degree, all have exhibited the same tendency to the
cruel ways of primitive man. Throughout the world a fairy tale reform is
needed for the development and maintenance of a true civilisation.
But, mark you, it is a reform that is needed, not a banishment of the
fairy tale. As some one has well said, a child who never hears a fairy
tale is developing a tract in his soul that, in later life, will grow
barren. More than this, cases are on record indicating that unless the
child's instinctive craving for the romantic and the ideal is satisfied by
well-chosen fairy tales, he may gratify this craving in ways that shock
his elders.
I will give one instance, by way of concrete illustration. For knowledge
of this I am indebted to President Hall, of Clark University, and I give
it in President Hall's own words:
"Two immigrants in New York brought up their daughter, born here, on a
diet of literal truth, and tabooed fiction, poetry, and imagination as
lies. She was bright, at twelve had never read a fairy tale or a story
book, but was continually dreamy and ardent-souled, with a great passion
and talent for music. Her mother once told her that she might, perhaps,
play some time to the President. Soon after, at the dedication of Grant's
Tomb, she saw Mr. and Mrs. McKinley. One day, soon afterwards, she rushed
in, breathless, saying that they had visited her school, heard her play,
might adopt her, would give papa a place in Washington, and so on; but
Mrs. McKinley was out of funds, and her husband was in Washington.
"Accordingly, Gertrude's father drew a hundred from his fortune of
fourteen hundred dollars in the bank and sent it by his daughter, who
brought back costly flowers. Upon more excuses, more money was loaned,
and more presents were sent to Gertrude's parents--a canary, a puppy,
a diamond ring. Gertrude conversed intelligently on political topics,
and her father gave up his position, as he was about to accept a
five-thousand-dollar job in Washington.
"Then came the crash. Gertrude had never met the President or his wife,
but had made lavish presents and had bought many articles, which she had
stored with a neighbour; and, to her parents' especial horror, had laid in
a large stock of fairy tales and other fiction."
With justification, President Hall adds: "This points a moral against the
pedagogic theory that would starve the imagination."[16]
In truth, the cultivation of the imaginative faculty by means of the fairy
tale is one of the great opportunities of parenthood. Only see to it that
the fairy tales employed for this purpose do not reek of brutality and
gore, of treachery and cunning.
And see to it that elements like these are not unduly conspicuous in any
other kind of tales you put into the hands of your children. Give them
no books to read, tell them no stories that may react on a sensitive
mind to the development either of callousness or fear. Be careful even
with regard to the tales you tell your children in the course of their
religious education. Dwell on the rewards of goodness rather than on the
punishments of sin. In the religious instruction of the young, as in all
other instruction, over-emphasis on the grim and the terrifying may have
unfavourable consequences, persisting to the end of life.
Recall, if you please, the case of the overworked Boston young man,
mentioned in "Psychology and Parenthood" (p. 273). Obsessed with an idea
that he had committed "the unpardonable sin," he was surely drifting
to some institution for the insane, when he was fortunate enough to
come under the care of a physician familiar with the new psychological
discoveries and methods. Recall this young man's autobiographical
statement, given to his physician, after the latter had helped him back to
health:
"My abnormal fear certainly originated from doctrines of hell which I
heard in early childhood, particularly from a rather ignorant elderly
woman who taught Sunday-school. My early religious thought was chiefly
concerned with the direful eternity of torture that might be awaiting me
if I was not good enough to be saved."
You are careful as to the food you give your child's body. Be no less
careful as to the food you give his mind.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 14: _The New York Medical Journal_, March 21, 1914.]
[Footnote 15: Proceedings of the National Education Association, 1905, p.
871 _et seq._]
[Footnote 16: "Educational Problems," vol. i, pp. 359-360.]
"NIGHT TERRORS"
IX
"NIGHT TERRORS"
Reference has already been made more than once, though only in an
incidental way, to the childhood malady of _pavor nocturnus_, or "night
terrors." In any book like the present one the subject of night terrors
is deserving of detailed discussion. Not only do night terrors constitute
a real handicap of childhood, but also they constitute a handicap, the
seriousness of which is not yet appreciated by many people, and the true
nature of which is as yet known to exceedingly few. In some quarters,
indeed, there has been a disposition to minimise this malady, because
it usually is "outgrown" by the eighth or ninth year. But, in reality,
its effects--or, rather, the effects of the condition of which it is
a sign--may, and often do, continue through life. Fortunately, the new
knowledge that psychology has gained concerning it enables parents to
frustrate its evil consequences and, in most cases, to prevent its
occurrence.
At bottom, night terrors are almost identical with the nightmares of adult
years. They are, to put it precisely, juvenile nightmares, with the added
feature of profound disturbance in the waking state. The one real point
of difference between night terrors and nightmares is that the former
indicate a greater degree of nervous strain. The child who is a victim of
night terrors generally has an hour or so of quiet sleep after going to
bed. Then he wakes, shrieking for his mother. When the parents, alarmed,
rush to his room, they are likely to find him out of bed, crouching behind
a chair, or in the corner. His eyes are staring and full of horror. He
seems not to recognise his parents, though he will eagerly clutch at them
for protection. After a few minutes the attack passes off, he quiets down,
returns to bed, and sleeps soundly until morning, when, as a rule, he has
no conscious remembrance of his fears of the night before.
While the night terror is at its height the child may have ghastly
hallucinations, representing a continuance in the waking state of the
dream-images that have distressed him. Also, instead of leaping out of
bed, he may merely sit up, or may find it impossible to move at all, as
is the case with many adults when coming out of a nightmare. A Chicago
physician, describing his experiences as a child, relates:
"When I was five years of age, and during the sixth year, I suffered
from nightmare. I sat up in bed and fancied I saw a monkey come down the
chimney and fasten itself to my shoulder and bite me, and terrify me so
that I would scream out. My older sister would then come, wake me up
thoroughly, and satisfy me that it was but a vision.
"Other nights I would feel a sense of oppression, ringing in ears, a
sensation of perceiving something very small, which, gradually at first,
and then rapidly, assumed enormous proportions and vast whirling speed,
and which, I imagined, whirled me off with it--a buzzing in my ears,
probably. Then would I feel that animals--rats--would creep over me and
press heavily upon me, and I could neither move hand nor foot, nor speak."
The reference to the buzzing in the ears is typical of the attitude
that until lately has been taken by almost all physicians in respect
both to adult and to juvenile nightmares. For that matter, it still is
the attitude of those physicians who are not familiar with the findings
of medical psychology. Nightmare to them, whether in the old or in the
young, is altogether a question of physical causation. As they see it,
one need not look beyond bodily conditions of some sort to understand
the nightmares of adults and the night terrors of children. Accordingly,
treatment by sedatives, dieting, and hygienic measures has been the rule.
Unfortunately, this by no means always succeeds in bringing about the
desired result, although such measures undoubtedly do benefit the general
health.
Seemingly, to be sure, they are especially successful in the case of night
terrors. But it is significant that, even if left untreated, night terrors
seldom persist beyond the period of childhood. Then, however, those who
have had them show a tendency, in many cases, to be troubled by unpleasant
dreams, often taking on the character of most distressing nightmares. The
frequency of these may, or may not, be diminished by the usual treatment
of a dietetic sort. On the other hand, observation has shown that many
persons afflicted with the indigestion and other physical conditions
commonly held responsible for nightmares are not troubled by nightmare
at all. As one observer puts it, even a person whose stomach is half
destroyed by cancer may commit all sorts of dietary indiscretions and not
suffer from nightmare in the slightest.
Evidently, then, physical conditions do not of themselves account for
nightmares and night terrors. One must look elsewhere for their ultimate
cause. This is what the medical psychologists have done, and, doing
this, they have discovered that the children who are troubled by night
terrors are always children of a sensitive nervous organisation who have
been subjected to emotional stress. A child may be nervously highstrung,
yet entirely escape night terrors, provided his mind be kept free from
emotional upheavals. But let anything occur to disturb him emotionally
in an excessive degree and he at once becomes likely to suffer, not only
from night terrors, but also--as it has been a prime purpose of this
book to impress convincingly on every reader--from nervous affections of
a more serious kind. He may even have "day terrors," seeing imaginary
and terrifying objects as vividly as the child who wakes in panic from a
distressing dream.
For example, a boy of eight was sent to the Washington neurologist, Doctor
T. A. Williams, to be treated for general nervousness, and, in particular,
for a tendency "to see things where there is really nothing to be seen."
Doctor Williams found the boy to be so nervous that it was hard for him
to sit still and to keep from wriggling excitedly about in his chair.
Questioned as to his hallucinations, he said that these were mostly of a
snake. He could not describe the imaginary snake, except to say that its
head was like an eel's. It seemed to come from nowhere, and presented
itself to his astonished gaze with a suddenness that caused him to scream
and run. His father gave Doctor Williams the additional information that
these hallucinations were experienced only when the boy was alone, and
that, though his day terrors were not followed by night terrors, he would
not go to bed unless some one were in the room with him.
Questioning his little patient more closely, Doctor Williams next learned
that he had a veritable horror of being alone at any time. As long as
somebody was in sight, he could enjoy his games, and would readily run
errands. Left alone, the imaginary snake, or some hallucinatory wild
beast, was almost at once seen by him. Further inquiry brought out the
significant fact that this fear of solitude had actually been implanted in
the boy by over-anxiety on his mother's part.
His horror of being alone was paralleled by her dread of having him out
of her sight. She was continually thinking, and talking, of risks he
would incur if he were allowed to be by himself. In this way she had
unconsciously infected him with a "fixed idea" that something dreadful was
sure to happen to him unless older persons were at hand to protect him.
This fixed idea preying on his unusually impressionable mind, and keeping
him in a constant state of emotional strain, was the decisive factor in
the production of his day terrors. In proof whereof it need only be added
that his hallucinations and general nervousness ceased to trouble him
soon after corrective training was begun, supplemented by treatment by
"suggestion" to rid him of the abnormal fear of being alone.
Fortunately, though I might detail a number of other cases of day
terrors, this affliction is of rare occurrence, compared with night
terrors. And, from the point of view of the medical psychologist, it is
only to be expected that such should be the case. As explained by Doctor
Williams, in a passage which gives a clear idea of the mechanism of night
terrors:
"If I say to a small boy that a bear will eat him up, the effect upon
his emotions entirely differs, whether I make the remark with portentous
gravity and horror, or whether I say it with bubbling joviality as,
evidently, a huge joke. In the first eventuality, the boy will rush to
my side in terror and try to be saved from the bear, and a phobia is in
course of construction; with the latter proceeding, the boy will laugh
consumedly, and it would not take much to make him enter the cage and
strike the bear. But, even when terrified, a child feels a refuge in the
protection of his elders during the day, when they are rarely absent....
"At night, however, the child is alone, and his little consciousness
cannot find the support of others. Before the kaleidoscope of his dreams
pass the various images and accompanying emotions of his waking life, so
that if any of these images has become linked with fear it is certain to
bring with it terror, as it surges into dream in the night, and the child
jumps up, awakened, in panic, finding no one near, upon whom to lean."[17]
In many a case of night terrors, no great psychological skill is required
to detect the influence of emotional stress as the prime factor in causing
the alarming attacks. In one instance that has come to my knowledge, a
seven-year-old girl was brought to a physician, with a history of both
night and day terrors. She was subject, her mother said, to attacks of
loud screaming, during which she seemed dazed and in an agony of fear.
The attacks sometimes lasted ten minutes, and immediately afterwards the
girl generally fell into a heavy sleep. Her night terrors were of the
usual sort, except that on the occasion of the first attack she was in
such a panic that she opened her bedroom window and threw herself out of
it. Luckily, it was early evening, and her mother, walking in the garden
beneath her window, was able to catch her and save her from harm.
"She had gone to bed as usual," the mother said, in detailing this
episode, "and seemed to be quite well, though I remember I thought she
looked a little wild about the eyes. For an hour she slept quietly. Then,
as I later learned, she woke up moaning, jumped out of bed, and made for
the window."
"And," asked the physician to whom the child had been taken, "had anything
out of the way occurred to her that day?"
"Nothing."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Well, nothing of real account, at all events. I have been told that
somebody jokingly said to her that if she were not a good girl a black man
would come to her room and carry her off. But this did not seem to disturb
her much at the time."
Hereupon, the situation became clear to the physician. It was evident
that, subconsciously if not consciously, the thought of the supposed
danger, acting on a mind none too well organised by inheritance--there
was epilepsy in the family--had acquired sufficient force to bring on the
attack of nocturnal panic and the subsequent attacks of day and night
terrors. Probably, moreover, this was not the first time that statements
of a fear-inspiring character had been made to the child, so that this
last "joke" might well serve to agitate her excessively.
Compare with this the case of a four-year-old boy, whose night terrors
were accompanied by a strange hallucination that he saw the devil, and
that the devil was trying to catch him. Every night for several weeks he
would wake after one or two hours of sleep, would leap from bed with a
shriek, and run wildly around the room, calling on his mother to save him
and to drive the devil out of the house.
Impressed by the recurrence of this hallucination, the physician in charge
of the case questioned the boy's mother as to a possible explanation
for his believing the devil was chasing him. Reluctantly, the mother
confessed that one day when her little son had been unruly she had warned
him that if he did not behave the devil would come for him. It was the
night after she had thus foolishly threatened him that he had his first
attack of _pavor nocturnus_. Armed with this knowledge, the physician
began a course of treatment which effected a cure in a week. It properly
included tonics and dieting to overcome the indigestion and other physical
ailments caused by the strain of nervous excitement. But its principal
feature was treatment by suggestion, to dislodge from the boy's mind his
morbid fear of the devil.
Anything which causes the instinct of fear to function abnormally may
act with decisive force in bringing on night terrors. The telling of
ghost stories and other gruesome tales of the supernatural has been
productive of much harm in this respect. And, as brought out in the
preceding chapter, cases of night terrors have similarly been traced to
the hearing or reading by children of fairy tales containing elements
of the horrible. The child that is supersensitive may be so impressed by
these elements as to brood over them and, in waking reverie, apply them to
himself. Thus they get fixed in the mind, to disturb and alarm it, and,
eventually, to find expression in dreams of so unpleasant a character that
night terrors may be a result.