Yellow and Blue

In the history of the case I described in my paper on Unity of the Body, Sadism and Dizziness, there is one detail which I failed to discuss: the patient sees the faces of those girls who are doomed to die, as changed in some way. These faces have a yellow and blue hue. Of course, her prophecy concerning the death of these persons means that she has sadistic death wishes against them. But the patient also has optic visions of faces colored blue. The multiplicity of these hallucinations is a hint for us that the vestibular apparatus is participating. In the course of a relatively short time I have observed two other cases in which the colors blue and yellow played a special part. The one case was the typical picture of a mild depression in a male of about fifty. He had been in a state hospital several times before and came to treatment at the onset of another such depression.

At that time he had the following dream:

He is in the asylum. Attendants catch him. He feels inferior. He recites a poem about Neptune. He suddenly sees a corner of the pillow colored bright yellow. This is a sign for him that immediate dissolution and death are imminent. He will suffer terrible torments.

The yellow color here also has seemingly a symbolic value. Of greater importance is the next observation. It is a woman of fifty-three, whom I observed in Bloomingdale Hospital. The disease started several months before admission. The world was unreal, as if all things would be upside down. It was completely different. It was the same way with objects. Faces of men looked like murderers. Faces were distorted, even those of her children. She felt sucked down into a pit. Feeling of drowning in a terrible whirl. Terrible things whirling around. She was alone in a corner. All things looked uncanny. Yellow and in a cold blue. She feared to sleep. She did not sleep at all because she feared she would lose her personality during sleep or die. A frightful burning came all over her body.