ssive phenomenon. It is interesting that the most frequent
euphemism or metaphor for death is sleep. Sleep is a normal regression.
It does not always give the unstable individual sufficient relaxation
from the demands of adaptation and so pathological regressions take
place, one of which we believe stupor to be. It is important to note
that objectively the resemblance between sleep and stupor is striking.
So far as mental activity in either state can be discovered by the
observer, either the sleeper or the patient in stupor might be dead.
Briefly stated, then, our hypothesis of the psychological determination
of stupor is that the abnormal individual turns to it as a release from
mental anguish, just as the normal human being seeks relief in his bed
from physical and mental fatigue. When this desire for refuge takes the
shape of a formulated idea, there are delusions of death.

The problem of sleep is, of course, bound up with the physiology of
rest, and as recuperation, in a physical sense, necessitates temporary
cessation of function, so in the mental sphere we see that relaxation is
necessary if our mental operations are to be carried on with continued
success. This is probably the teleological meaning of sleep in its
psychological aspects, for in it we abandon diurnal adaptive thinking
and retire to a world of fancy, very often solving our problems by
"sleeping over them." The innate desire for rest and a fresh start is
almost as fundamental a human craving as is the tendency to seek release
in death. In fact the two are closely associated both in literature and
in daily speech, for in many phases we correlate death with new life. If
one is to visualize or incorporate the conception of new life in one
term, rebirth is the only one which will do it, just as death is the
only word which epitomizes the idea of complete cessation of effort.
Not unnaturally, therefore, we find in the mythology of our race, in our
dreams and in the speech of our insane patients, a frequent correlation
of these two ideas, whether it comes in the crude imagery of physical
rebirth or projected in fantasies of destruction and rebuilding of the
world. Many of our psychotic patients achieve in fancy that for which
the Persian poet yearned:

"Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this Sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits--and then
Re-mold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!"

A vision of