The somnambulist awakens
Rereading Jung and it's fascinating how a hundred years ago, sleepwalking seems to have been a big Thing. From what Freud and he are writing, the amount of cases seems to be staggering, and it's pretty obvious it seems to have been a common way for repressed urges to come out, considering how repressed people were back then. I'd imagine that nowadays people do the same sort of stuff with just... alcohol and drugs. But it's shocking and fascinating to read about the stuff and the murderous impulses people have expressed--particularily towards murdering tyrannical fathers or abusive husbands. It's so very eerie and so very alien, already, because you rarely hear about violent sleepwalkers today.
Today it's... well, I don't know if it's a dead horse trope or something, but when you hear about it, it sounds like something that'd happen in an old Gothic horror movie or something; something that would've been more frightening to pre-WW2 audiences or something. I think that today, people would be less ready to accept that the person was truly asleep or in some sort of trance state where they lost sense of reason--I think we are so cynical in the modern era and aren't inclined to believe the person, and would just assume s/he was lying. Unless Derren Brown had been manipulating them for cheap creepy lols on the telly or something.
Mostly, I'm just surprised at how prevalent it seems to have been. Christ, I'm never going to watch Caligari the same way again because that makes Cesare even more fascinating, considering these theories and cases seem to have been a big deal in the public consciousness back then. It's interesting how it is a bit of a contrast and almost an entire reversal of the phenomenon, though: the people studied by Freud and Jung are acting out their own darkest and repressed impulses, whereas Cesare is a victim, symbolising the people and the young men who died in WWI as puppets of the Kaiser--Caligari himself representing tyrannical authority and dictators hypnotising innocent people into committing deeds they would never, ever normally do. But then again, even with the non-fictional somnambulists, they usually seem to have been kicked in the face by The Man anyway and they are acting out in revenge--Caligari just gives the repressive society a face. And Cesare, like so many other characters of that era, is the broken man who does not know who he is and whose body, sexuality and mind have been broken by the authorities that wanted to turn him into a killing machine (no wonder he suffers complete BSOD when he is told to kill a beautiful girl who he would normally have romantic feelings for--love symbolising all that is good and human--but he doesn't know how to do those--love or goodness--any more and just breaks down completely).
And Jung was writing this shit *before* WWI. Damn. I'm really glad the Western world isn't that repressed any more (even though we still have horrible amounts of mental illness, especially with women and black and poor and disabled people because society is still not perfect). It's so odd to think that this was not so long ago, and yet it seems like a surreal Gothic dreamworld, along with some forms of what was then called hysteria. I almost feel guilty for being so morbidly fascinated by this stuff, but it *is* fascinating and the whole repression/liberation/occult aspect is something that never ceases to be deeply fascinating.
...and apparently I did not have a Cesare icon until now and I feel my old goth cred is in tatters. *fixes this immediately*
Today it's... well, I don't know if it's a dead horse trope or something, but when you hear about it, it sounds like something that'd happen in an old Gothic horror movie or something; something that would've been more frightening to pre-WW2 audiences or something. I think that today, people would be less ready to accept that the person was truly asleep or in some sort of trance state where they lost sense of reason--I think we are so cynical in the modern era and aren't inclined to believe the person, and would just assume s/he was lying. Unless Derren Brown had been manipulating them for cheap creepy lols on the telly or something.
Mostly, I'm just surprised at how prevalent it seems to have been. Christ, I'm never going to watch Caligari the same way again because that makes Cesare even more fascinating, considering these theories and cases seem to have been a big deal in the public consciousness back then. It's interesting how it is a bit of a contrast and almost an entire reversal of the phenomenon, though: the people studied by Freud and Jung are acting out their own darkest and repressed impulses, whereas Cesare is a victim, symbolising the people and the young men who died in WWI as puppets of the Kaiser--Caligari himself representing tyrannical authority and dictators hypnotising innocent people into committing deeds they would never, ever normally do. But then again, even with the non-fictional somnambulists, they usually seem to have been kicked in the face by The Man anyway and they are acting out in revenge--Caligari just gives the repressive society a face. And Cesare, like so many other characters of that era, is the broken man who does not know who he is and whose body, sexuality and mind have been broken by the authorities that wanted to turn him into a killing machine (no wonder he suffers complete BSOD when he is told to kill a beautiful girl who he would normally have romantic feelings for--love symbolising all that is good and human--but he doesn't know how to do those--love or goodness--any more and just breaks down completely).
And Jung was writing this shit *before* WWI. Damn. I'm really glad the Western world isn't that repressed any more (even though we still have horrible amounts of mental illness, especially with women and black and poor and disabled people because society is still not perfect). It's so odd to think that this was not so long ago, and yet it seems like a surreal Gothic dreamworld, along with some forms of what was then called hysteria. I almost feel guilty for being so morbidly fascinated by this stuff, but it *is* fascinating and the whole repression/liberation/occult aspect is something that never ceases to be deeply fascinating.
...and apparently I did not have a Cesare icon until now and I feel my old goth cred is in tatters. *fixes this immediately*