During highly elaborated somnambulistis



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Alterations of Consciousness 301

states hysteric patients occasionally run away
from home. Such flights — designated fugues,
or ambulatory automatism— are the realization
of former vague desires. Long continued vol-
untary suppression of unfulfilled desire leads
to dissociation of a complex of which it is the
nucleus. If a massive dissociation should occur
at any time this complex would tend to as-
sume activity that had for its end accomplish-
ment of the old longing; whether this be crav-
ing for travel for its own sake, or simply desire
to run away as a pusillanimous means of es-
cape from relatively great responsibilities and
difficulties.
When the ordinary annoyances of home life
become too overwhelming for the sensitive and
incompetent hysteric to sustain, the thought of
escape from these tribulations naturally must
As the hysteric is impulsive — as he tends
ithout critical, conscious reflection to act upon
they arise — the thought of evasion acts
"Vrith all the force that autosuggestion is ca-
pable of exerting in this disease. Finally, as
the consequence of a relatively severe stress,
«3r, in fact, even of a minor one that serves as
the last straw, a superior kind of somnambulis-
tic condition develops, and in response to an
irresistible and unquestioned impulse the flight
is accomplished. As judged by ordinary stan-
dards the fugue of hysteria is irrational in
that the manifestation is out of all proportion
to the provocation.
