Observations placeholder
Custance, John - Wisdom, Madness and Folly - The atavistic tendencies of mania
Identifier
005138
Type of Spiritual Experience
Number of hallucinations: 1
Background
A description of the experience
Wisdom, Madness and Folly - John Custance
The lunatic may really feel something of what his remote ancestors felt as they surveyed their world. This would include the consciousness appropriate to animals, and may indeed have something to do with the type of delusion in which the patient imagines himself to be an animal. I have noticed a marked atavistic tendency of this kind in myself, particularly during periods of extreme manic excitement. The sensation is difficult to analyse, but its chief characteristic is a vastly increased suppleness which to me seems reminiscent of the cat tribe.