Daniel Paul Schreber

Daniel Paul Schreber (German: [ˈʃʀeːbɐ]; 25 July 1842 – 14 April 1911) was a German judge who suffered from what was then diagnosed as dementia praecox (later known as paranoid schizophrenia or schizophrenia, paranoid type). He described his 2nd mental illness (1893–1902), making also a brief reference to the 1st disorder (1884–1885) in his book Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (original German title Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken). The Memoirs became an influential book in the history of psychiatry and psychoanalysis thanks to its interpretation by Sigmund Freud. There is no personal account of his 3rd disorder (1907–1911), but some details about it can be found in the Hospital Chart (in Appendix to Lothane's book). During his second illness he was treated by Prof. Paul Flechsig (Leipzig University Clinic), Dr. Pierson (Lindenhof), and Dr. Guido Weber (Royal Public Asylum, Sonnenstein).

Schreber was a successful and highly respected judge until middle age when the onset of his psychosis occurred. He woke up one morning with the thought that it would be pleasant to "succumb" to sexual intercourse as a woman. He was alarmed and felt that this thought had come from somewhere else, not from himself. He even hypothesized that the thought had come from a doctor who had experimented with hypnosis on him; he thought that the doctor had telepathically invaded his mind. He believed his primary psychiatrist, Prof. Paul Flechsig, had contact with him using a "nerve-language" of which Schreber said humans are unaware. He believed that hundreds of people's souls took special interest in him, and contacted his nerves by using "divine rays", telling him special information, or requesting things of him. During one of his stays at the Sonnenstein asylum, he concluded that there are "fleeting-improvised-men" in the world, which he believed were souls that temporarily resided in a human body, by way of a divine miracle.

As his psychosis progressed, he believed that God was turning him into a woman, sending rays down to enact 'miracles' upon him, including little men to torture him. Schreber was released from psychiatric hospitals around 1902, after the publication of his book. He reassumed his private activities, which he conducted very well up to 1907, when his mother died. He went then through a final hospitalisation. Schreber died in 1911, in an asylum.

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