The acute phase announced itself by nightmares of a grotesque and terrifying and premonitory nature. Miss R. had a series of dreams about one central theme: she dreamed she was imprisoned in an inaccessible castle, but the castle had the form and shape of herself; she dreamed of enchantments, bewitchments, entrancements; she dreamed that she had become a living, sentient statue of stone; she dreamed that the world had come to a stop; she dreamed that she had fallen into a sleep so deep that nothing could wake her; she dreamed of a death which was different from death.

Oliver Sacks, in a description of the symptoms experienced by Rose R., a patient who had fallen ill with a particularly virulent form of encephalitis lethargica, from Awakenings. Later in the text, Rose R. is described as “…she was simply — elsewhere (or nowhere).”

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