Fugue in a Four-Year Old

A father reported that while he was driving with his wife and children on a road surrounded by woods, his son, aged four, the oldest of his three children, started pummeling him from the rear. The child was being playful in a manner to which he had become accustomed and to which his father habitually responded in kind. This time, however, it reached an intensity which endangered the father's driving. He stopped the car, turned to the son and shouted, 'Don't ever do that when I'm driving!'. The child flinched and stared vacantly for a matter of seconds as if completely dazed. He quickly recovered, looked about as if to reorient himself, and said very calmly to his mother, 'I was just lost in a forest. A lion was coming after me to eat me.' He appeared relieved to find himself with his family.

Prior to the incident, both parents that day had been very irritable. The house was being freshly painted; there was little room to move about; they had shouted at the children many times to stay away from the wet paint; the family had not had dinner and were all hungry. The father was especially cranky.

On previous occasions the child had shown some slight fear of the forest through which they were driving. He had seen rabbits and wanted to know if there were other animals there. The sun streaking through the trees gave to the surroundings an unusual atmosphere which on one occasion had presumably prompted the son to say, 'This is a real forest, isn't it?'. He had during his four years shown very little tendency toward being fearful. He had discussed ghosts and dwarfs with his parents, granting that ghosts are just make-believe, but that dwarfs could be real. In no sense had he ever appeared to have neurotic traits. He was, in fact, an unusually self-reliant child. He was reared by a loving mother who did not overindulge him, but who consistently provided for him according to his needs. The circumstances of his weaning and his training as to eating, toilet, and s