sations. Dercum, H.C.
Wood, and Rohe had not personally met with such cases; Burr believed that
there was strong evidence "that a sexual dream may be so vivid as to make
the subject believe she has had sexual congress"; Kiernan knew of such
cases; C.H. Hughes, in persons with every appearance of sanity, had known
the erotic dreams of the night to become the erotic delusions of the day,
the patient protesting violently the truth of her story; while Hersman
reports the case[242] of a young lady in an asylum who had nightly
delusions that a medical officer visited her every night, and had to do
with her, coming up the hot-air flue. I am acquainted with a similar case
in a clever, but highly neurotic, young woman, who writes: "For years I
have been trying to stamp out my passional nature, and was beginning to
succeed when a strange thing happened to me last autumn. One night, as I
lay in bed, I felt an influence so powerful that a man seemed present with
me. I crimsoned with shame and wonder. I remember that I lay upon my back,
and marveled when the spell had passed. The influence, I was assured, came
from a priest whom I believed in and admired above everyone in the world.
I had never dreamed of love in connection with him, because I always
thought him so far above me. The influence has been upon me ever
since--sometimes by day and nearly always by night; from it I generally go
into a deep sleep, which lasts until morning. I am always much refreshed
when I awake. This influence has the best effect upon my life that
anything has ever had as regards health and mind. It is the knowledge that
I am loved _fittingly_ that makes me so indifferent to my future. What
worries me is that I sometimes wonder if I suffer from a nervous disorder
merely." The subject thus seemed to regard these occurrences as
objectively caused, but was sufficiently sane to wonder whether her
experiences were not due to mental disorder.[243]

The tendency of the auto-erotic phenomena of sleep to be manifested with
such energy as to flow over into the waking life and influence conscious
emotion and action, while very well marked in normal and healthy women, is
seen to an exaggerated extent in hysterical women, in whom it has,
therefore, chiefly been studied. Sante de Sanctis, who has investigated
the dreams of many classes of people, remarks on the frequently sexual
character of the dreams of hysterical women, and the repercussion of such
dreams on the waki