Glass Delusion: Bizarre Medieval Affliction

[Comfortably Numb]

Glass Delusion: Bizarre Medieval Affliction Left People Shattered

Source: ancient-origins.net
Date: 7 June, 2020

There is a story dating back to the 1960s about a man who overdosed on LSD and became permanently insane. In his insanity, he believed himself to be a glass of orange juice. He was afraid to lie down, lest he be spilled, or go to sleep, lest someone drink him.

This story is likely little more than an urban legend, but it parallels a real delusion that many people suffered with throughout the early Modern period from the 14th century into the 19th century. This was the delusion that part, or all, of their body was made of glass.

Some medical documents dating to that period also describe cases where patients believed that they were specific glass objects, such as vases or pitchers. The cause of this mysterious and widespread glass delusion is still a subject of debate today among scholars, though it appears to be related to a fear of fragility and possibly a desire to transcend normal human existence.

[...]

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/glass-delusion-0013826

 

[Xanatic*]

There are modern cases too, though it is rare.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

An extreme form of fragility indeed! What a fascinating article! Thanks for posting it.

In Medieval times, as the article strongly suggests, such delusions would have been confined to those who lived, so to speak, in glass houses, since the material was out-of-the-reach of peasants, except by brick!

I remember reading that, in a psychotic episode, the composer Tchaikovsky believed that his head was in danger of dropping off.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

An extreme form of fragility indeed! What a fascinating article!

Most surprised I hadn't come across this condition before and absolutely, how bizarre.

"There are similar reports of men who believed that they had glass buttocks".

There's a joke in there somewhere, isnt there.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... I remember reading that, in a psychotic episode, the composer Tchaikovsky believed that his head was in danger of dropping off.

It wasn't an isolated episode - it went on for years ...

Tchaikovsky drank, smoked and gambled too much and was easily reduced to tears. He suffered from debilitating stage-fright and neuroses—like his fear that his head was going to fall off while conducting, which led to him awkwardly holding his chin with one hand and conducting with the other. This phobia lasted for years, however in his later career, he finally overcame it and successfully completed a tour in the US, where he conducted the inaugural concert at Carnegie Hall in 1891.

SOURCE: https://www.californiasymphony.org/2019-20-season/tchaikovsky-conflicted-neurotic-brilliant/

 

[EnolaGaia]

This 2015 BBC item provides an overview of the phenomenon and some interesting comments on rare 20th century cases as well as the way certain historical neuroses / psychoses invoked new materials.

The people who think they are made of glass
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32625632

Here are some excerpts ...

It's easy to assume society and culture are so changed that mentally ill people would no longer manifest this particular delusion.

But Andy Lameijn, a psychiatrist from Leiden in the Netherlands, has uncovered contemporary cases. One case cropped up in his own hospital, offering him the chance to probe the meaning of this enigmatic delusion with a living patient. "It was an authentic case - it was unmistakable that it was a glass delusion." ...

Lameijn wrote and lectured on the subject, and was approached by a fellow psychiatrist who had found a case in the archives of his own Dutch hospital which dated back to the 1930s. The woman had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital believing that her legs and back were made of glass. Such was her fear of personal contact, the notes showed, that the nurses couldn't get near her to change her clothes or help her. She had apparently recovered after treatment. Another doctor brought him a case from a different hospital, from 1964.

But then a young man turned up at the University Clinic in Leiden, claiming to be made of glass. "I really dropped everything," Lameijn recalls, "I didn't want to miss this." He was to have the opportunity to speak to the only contemporary person to present with glass delusion for decades. ...

Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips argues that the glass delusion has powerful contemporary resonance in a society in which anxieties about fragility, transparency and personal space are pertinent to many people's experience of, and anxieties about, living in the modern world. ...

Novelist Ali Shaw, author of The Girl with Glass Feet, suggests that glass delusion might simply be at the extreme end of a scale of social anxiety which many of us experience to a lesser extent. The fear of tripping and breaking is really an exaggerated fear of social humiliation.

Prof Edward Shorter, a historian of psychiatry from the University of Toronto, suggests that it is the relative newness of clear glass as a material in 17th Century Europe which holds the key to understanding the disorder. Throughout history, Shorter argues, the inventive unconscious mind has pegged its delusions on to new materials and the technological advances of the age.

In the 19th Century cement delusions appeared at a time when cement emerged as a new building material, just as common delusions of recent decades include the false belief that the CIA or other security services can download thoughts through micro-transmitters, that people could "read your mind". ...

 

[DougalLongfoot]

Possible origin of the Blondie song?

Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind

 

[EnolaGaia]

Possible origin of the Blondie song?

I doubt it ... As an idiomatic phrase "heart of glass" (like "glass chin" in boxing) dates pretty far back in popular culture to denote a body part that's fragile (if only in terms of serving as a metaphor).

For example, Herzog's film "Heart of Glass" predates the Blondie song by 2 or 3 years.

 

[James_H]

I'm sure this was a 'thing' more recently than mediaeval times, though in the same bracket as Napoleon delusion as a former cliché of mental illness that seems strange to us now.

Part of me thinks that because mental illness is scary and hard to understand, it helps the sane population cope to characterise it in terms of cartoonish clichés. What these are change with time. So there weren't necessarily a lot of people believing they were made of glass at that time, but the belief was ascribed to them. This isn't provable one way or the other.

Charles VI of France was one of the 'glass men' https://daily.jstor.org/french-king-who-believed-made-glass/

 

[Naughty_Felid]

I think the belief of being made of glass is just another persistent nihilistic delusion that's rare but not that hard to find. This nihilistic and somatic delusion used to be called Cotards syndrome.

https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.17010018

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-3..." is an,cases today, writes Victoria Shepherd. - Modern cases.

 

[Spookdaddy]

...In Medieval times, as the article strongly suggests, such delusions would have been confined to those who lived, so to speak, in glass houses, since the material was out-of-the-reach of peasants, except by brick!..

This is the first thing that struck me, and led me to wonder two things - well, three actually, if you count the possibility that this apparent exclusivity may only be a product of the fact that we know about the problem in regard to influential people in that period because those people's private lives were more likely to be documented than the rest of society, of which we know very much less.

Are such delusions universal, but referenced differently depending on the circumstances of the sufferer - that is, might a peasant have exactly the same type of delusion, but use a different point of reference (for instance, ice)?

Or.

Are some delusions exclusive to the the sufferer and their environment?

 

[EnolaGaia]

I think the belief of being made of glass is just another persistent nihilistic delusion that's rare but not that hard to find. This nihilistic and somatic delusion used to be called Cotards syndrome. ...

The glass delusion and Cotard's syndrome aren't the same thing. In Cotard's syndrome the body is considered incomplete (missing components) or dead. In the glass delusion the body is considered complete and alive but extremely fragile.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

The glass delusion and Cotard's syndrome aren't the same thing. In Cotard's syndrome the body is considered incomplete (missing components) or dead. In the glass delusion the body is considered complete and alive but extremely fragile.

That is a good example of splitting hairs.

As you know there are no exact diagnostic criteria for Cotards and it ain't used much these days anyway. However, glass syndrome, (not formally recognized as a mental disorder?) and Cotards share many similarities. Both are consistent in being very treatment-resistant. Both are nihilistic and both are somatic. Both involve the body no longer being alive or what it was but radically altered - So what is the difference?

Both involve persistent rumination of their plight. Nothing shifts this.

This leads to the most important thing which is a sense of loss of self, hope, and severe depression in Glass syndrome and Cotards.

Both beliefs are unshakable - you cannot ever convince a sufferer otherwise - ever with treatment the sense of being something else, (dead, no longer me, etc) is persistent. Nothing ever seems to get them to change that.

With the glass syndrome, the patient is denying their whole body is theirs which fits quite well into what Cotard saw and felt.

but you win in a pedantic way.

 

[escargot]

The R4 programme covered this subject nicely. In brief, it seems that a person vulnerable to delusions might believe they have taken on characteristics of the latest technology.

Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips explores the extraordinary psychiatric phenomenon where people believe they have turned into glass.

Cases of the delusion spiked across early modern Europe. Even King Charles VI of France was a sufferer and was reported to have wrapped himself in blankets to prevent himself from shattering.

Andy Lamejin, a psychiatrist from Leiden in the Netherlands, recalls his search for contemporary cases, and remembers the astonishing moment that a case cropped up in his own hospital and he was offered the chance to probe the meaning of this enigmatic delusion with a living patient.

Adam Phillips believes the 'glass delusion' has powerful contemporary resonance in a society where anxieties about fragility, transparency and personal space are pertinent to many people's experience of living in the modern world. The feeling of being made of glass could be a useful way of understanding how we negotiate society - a society that is increasingly crowded, but also one in which modern technological advances isolate us and offer apparently boundary-less communication.

Professor Edward Shorter, a historian of psychiatry from the University of Toronto suggests that it is the material of glass itself, and its newness in 17th Century Europe which holds the key to understanding the disorder. Throughout history the inventive unconscious mind has pegged it's delusions onto new materials. In the 19th century cement delusions appeared when cement emerged as a new building material, just as common delusions of recent decades include the fixed, false belief that the CIA or other security services can download thoughts through micro-transmitters.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

The R4 programme covered this subject nicely. In brief, it seems that a person vulnerable to delusions might believe they have taken on characteristics of the latest technology.

That's a very good point as delusions shift with what is going on at the time.

A debate was had about shielding people from watching the COVID-19 as it might, (and did for some), exacerbate their delusions. The Pandemic has caused major problems for mental health services. However, I think people have a right to watch what was and is going on particularly in such a world-changing event, rather than hide it from them.

 

[escargot]

That's a very good point as delusions shift with what is going on at the time.

A debate was had about shielding people from watching the COVID-19 as it might, (and did for some), exacerbate their delusions. The Pandemic has caused major problems for mental health services. However, I think people have a right to watch what was and is going on particularly in such a world-changing event, rather than hide it from them.

Yup, you can't stop grown men and women finding out about what's going on in the world, even if that could be done.

 

[AgProv]

Wasn't there a famous General who had this? Memory says he was German and it was Napoleonic era. I'll look it up. I read about this guy and apparently he lost a battle because of this (was laid up in his command tent, reluctant to move because if he did he'd shatter), but can I remember the details..

 

[IbisNibs]

Yup, you can't stop grown men and women finding out about what's going on in the world, even if that could be done.

And when they stop themselves from finding out about what's going on in the world, you can't stop them from ignoring stuff, even when you shove it in their faces! (That is, I have some neighbors who I believe are being indescribably dense . . . and now, back to the thread . . . )

 

[escargot]

And when they stop themselves from finding out about what's going on in the world, you can't stop them from ignoring stuff, even when you shove it in their faces! (That is, I have some neighbors who I believe are being indescribably dense . . . and now, back to the thread . . . )

To derail even further, when I was having babies I'd read it all up so I knew what to look out for and generally be clued up about what was going on inside my own body.

OTOH some women I knew absolutely refused to read 'baby books' and wouldn't even prepare themselves for labour. Not surprisingly they were all smokers. One assumes they didn't want to be reminded of the dangers of their bad habit.

This taught me all about the concept of the inconvenient truth; some people will ignore distressing facts rather than deal with them. As with sex education, race relations, fire safety, you name it.

 

[Mythopoeika]

This taught me all about the concept of the inconvenient truth; some people will ignore distressing facts rather than deal with them. As with sex education, race relations, fire safety, you name it.

I've noticed this with a LOT of people - they prefer not to know the truth about certain things.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

I've noticed this with a LOT of people - they prefer not to know the truth about certain things.

Just to derail the thread more. What about people who choose to believe stuff that isn't true and instead cultivate a completely different belief system instead?

The G-5 thing for example? Isn't that what Scarg is also going on about?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Just to derail the thread more. What about people who choose to believe stuff that isn't true and instead cultivate a completely different belief system instead?

The G-5 thing for example? Isn't that what Scarg is also going on about?

5G? Yeah, it's an odd belief. It's not ALL David Icke's fault, though.

 

[Tunn11]

Wasn't there a famous General who had this? Memory says he was German and it was Napoleonic era. I'll look it up. I read about this guy and apparently he lost a battle because of this (was laid up in his command tent, reluctant to move because if he did he'd shatter), but can I remember the details..

Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Fürst von Wahlstatt Graf (count), later elevated to Fürst (sovereign prince) von Wahlstatt. Victor, with Wellington at Waterloo, I think. Also fond of his gin and thought he was pregnant with an elephant or some such if memory serves.

 

[AgProv]

Could be it! I read it in one of those compendium books of military-history-lite, with titles like The World's Worst Generals or The Most Bizarre Battles. As this would be dateable to the late 1700's - early 1800's, it's an interesting anecdote, as it gives the lie to the Glass Delusion having been a mediaeval abberation - in this case it survived for far, far, longer. I've also picked up on a vague story that a Russian Imperial Army General, a minor relative of the Romanoff dynasty, which might explain why he was over-promoted, also had this as part of a rafter of delusions, about the time of the Battle of Tannenburg in 1914. As feudalism and a mediaval mentality persisted for longest in Russia, this has an odd sort of logic to it.

 

[AgProv]

Actually - here's a case from 1921. (text not mine, copied over with illustrationfrom War History Online)

To fight their war with Turkey in 1921, the Greeks appointed General Hajianestis. More a politician than a professional soldier, Hajianestis liked his comforts and commanded the campaign from a yacht docked in Smyrna, where he could enjoy the nearby restaurants. Sadly for the Greeks, decadence was only part of the problem with Hajianestis.

The general’s madness manifested itself in different ways. Sometimes he would just lie still, believing that he was dead. At other times, he became convinced that his legs were made of sugar or glass, and that he could not get out of bed because if he did they would shatter. Even when he was in command of his mind, his orders were a contradictory mess.

The Greek government at last replaced Hajianestis, but by that time irreparable damage had been done. The man meant to replace him, General Tricoupis, was already a prisoner of the Turkish forces and learned of his new position when his captors showed him a newspaper article.

 

[IbisNibs]

These insane generals remind me of the Living Museum of the Horse, in Chantilly, France. The mangnificent stables "were built in 1719, on the orders of Louis Henri, duke of Bourbon, Prince of Condé, who believed that he would be reincarnated as a horse." He wanted to be sure he would have a home worthy of himself in his equine incarnation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Museum_of_the_Horse
What is it with illustrious people? Are they all nuts?

 

[AgProv]

~The obvious link among virtually all these sufferers of the "glass delusion" is that they're nobility, even royalty. What might explain the survival of the delusion from mediaeval times into recent modernity is that European royal families and noble lines are - well, incestuous, almost, certainly prone to inbreeding to the extent that they could be defined as one great big happy family. Note that DNA evidence for the bodies found in Russia being the Romanoffs was provided by the British Royal Family - who also provided the haemophilia that did for the Romanoff succession. What if things like this were in the common blood too?

 

[Naughty_Felid]

~The obvious link among virtually all these sufferers of the "glass delusion" is that they're nobility, even royalty. What might explain the survival of the delusion from mediaeval times into recent modernity is that European royal families and noble lines are - well, incestuous, almost, certainly prone to inbreeding to the extent that they could be defined as one great big happy family. Note that DNA evidence for the bodies found in Russia being the Romanoffs was provided by the British Royal Family - who also provided the haemophilia that did for the Romanoff succession. What if things like this were in the common blood too?

But is the delusion cultural or physiological? People apart from rare cases, (Foliex a deux), don't share or inherit the same delusion as their parents or relatives. As said before suggests psychosis is effected strongly by what's going on at the time. The 60's the Russians out to get me, 80's/90's - aliens. Modern times - the cops and or the virus? If you are a Black American Male obviously you are going be justifiably pretty paranoid that the police are "out to get me"

Here's someone the recent stuff:

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/vi...-triggered-fear-coronavirus-small-case-series

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/worl...-of-demons-while-listening-to-pink-floyd.html


Here's something that's a little bonkers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7236749/

Or maybe not? Another study, (much earlier), of a comorbid link. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7236749/

There's been a link with T. Gondii and psychosis before - damned cats.

 

[Xanatic*]

I could imagine that it would be easier to find documentation for delusions suffered by royalty and nobility than for your average peasant.

 

[AgProv]

I could imagine that it would be easier to find documentation for delusions suffered by royalty and nobility than for your average peasant.

Royalty and nobilty in Europe were by the turn of the 20th Century so intermarried and so tangled together that this provided a vector for transmission of physical diseases like haemophilia from Germany to England to Russia via the family line of Queen Victoria. I take the point concerning mental illnesses and psychological delusions being less likely to be spread in so direct a fashion - but could transmission take a more indirect way? The shared culture of European royalty, meaning Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria would maintain the same sort of court and the same sort of cultural values as Victoria of England or Tsar Alexander II of Russia; the way all European courts appeared to view French as the "de rigeur" language and any two monarchs could converse in French. And given a shared culture any member would find recognisable, would shared genes offer a predisposition to mental illnesses - nature plus nurture?