Memoirs of my nervous illness / by Daniel Paul Schreber ; introduction by Rosemary Dinnage ; translated and edited by Ida Macalpine, Richard A. Hunter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schreber, Daniel Paul, 1842-1911.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Standardized Title:

Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Schreber, Daniel Paul, 1842-1911--Mental health.

Schreber, Daniel Paul.

Schreber, Daniel Paul, 1842-1911.

Paranoia--Patients--Germany--Biography.

Paranoia.

Paranoia--Case studies.

Paranoia--Patients.

Mental health.

Germany.

Genre:

Case studies.

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xxiv, 455 pages ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New York Review Books, 2000.

Summary:

In 1884, the distinguished German jurist Daniel Paul Schreber suffered the first of a series of mental collapses that would afflict him for the rest of his life. In his madness, the world was revealed to him as an enormous architecture of nerves, dominated by a predatory God. It became clear to Schreber that his personal crisis was implicated in what he called a "crisis in God's realm," one that had transformed the rest of humanity into a race of fantasms. There was only one remedy; as his doctor noted: Schreber "considered himself chosen to redeem the world, and to restore to it the lost state of Blessedness. This, however, he could only do by first being transformed from a man into a woman...."

Contents:

Memoirs of My Nervous Illness

Open letter to Professor Flechsig 7

Memoirs

1 God and Immortality 19

2 Crisis in God's realms? Soul murder 33

4 Personal experiences during the first and the beginning of the second nervous illness 44

5 Continuation. Nerve-language (inner voices). Compulsive thinking. Unmanning under certain circumstances a postulate of the Order of the World 54

6 Personal experiences continued. Visions. "Seer of spirits" 69

7 Personal experiences continued; peculiar manifestations of illness. Visions 85

8 Personal experiences while in Dr. Pierson's Asylum. "Tested souls" 99

9 Transfer to Sonnenstein. Changes in the contact with rays. "The writing-down-system"; "Tying-to-celestial-bodies" 115

10 Personal experiences at Sonnenstein. "Interferences" accompanying contact with the rays. "Creation of a false feeling" 130

11 Bodily integrity damaged by miracles 141

12 Content of the voices' talk. "Soul-conception." Soul-language. Continuation of personal experiences 152

13 The soul's state of Blessedness as a factor in attraction. Consequences thereof 163

14 "Tested souls"; their fate. Personal experiences continued 176

15 "Play-with-human-beings" and "Miracles." Cries of help. Talking birds 185

16 Compulsive thinking. Its effects and manifestation 197

17 Continuation of the above; "Picturing" in the sense of the soul-language 207

18 God and the processes of creation; spontaneous generation; insects created by miracles. "Direction of gaze." System-of-examination 215

19 Continuation of the above. God's omnipotence and man's freedom of will 225

20 Egocentricity of the rays regarding my person. Further developments of personal affairs 233

21 Blessedness and voluptuousness in their mutual relation. Consequences of this relation for personal behavior 242

22 Final considerations. Future prospects 253

First Series

I Miracles 263

II Relation of divine and human intelligence 265

III Play-with-human-beings 266

IV Hallucinations 268

V The nature of God manifested through nerve-contact 277

VI Final considerations; Miscellaneous 290

VII Cremation 296

Second Series 300

Essay: "In what circumstances can a person considered insane be detained in an Asylum against his declared will?" 313

Addenda: Documents from the Court Proceedings Placing Me Under Tutelage

A Medical expert's report to the Court of 9th December 1899 by Dr. Weber 327

B Dr. Weber's report as County and Asylum Medical Officer of 28th November 1900 337

C Grounds of appeal 349

D Dr. Weber's expert report of 5th April 1902 388

E Judgment of the Royal Superior Country Court of Dresden of 14th July 1902 405.

Notes:

Reprint. Originally published: London : W. Dawson, 1955.

ISBN:

094032220X

OCLC:

41497184