Click here to enlarge

Click to order the image

Image

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Rene Crevel's first sleeping fit

First hypnotic sleeping fits

Manuscript

Author

Author René Crevel
People cited Épaminondas, André Breton, Robert Desnos

Description

René Crevel’s first ‘sleeping fit’, transcribed by Robert Desnos, dated 28^th September 1922, three days after the very first of them on the 25^th.

Written on the headed notepaper for the Paris Congress (which Breton tried unsuccessfully to launch in spring 1922), this ‘sleeping fit’ is dated 28^th September 1922 –  three days after the very first of them on the 25^th. It brings into closer focus the obsessive and repetitive nature of the experience of waking dreams. Robert Desnos, who according to Breton was the most gifted dreamer of the surrealist group (see his essay ‘Entrée des médiums’ in Les Pas perdus), acts here as René Crevel’s scribe, with his jerky handwriting, alternating shorthand and gaps, giving a glimpse of the emotions of a shared trance. 
The future author of La Mort difficile would fairly quickly withdraw from surrealist experiences such as automatic writing. One of Breton’s notebooks dated 1920-1921 evokes a sceptical Crevel who doesn’t believe that the unconscious can so easily reveal itself; nevertheless in this ‘sleeping fit’, we can read phrases associating his name with the words ‘crever’ (to die) and ‘cervelle’ (brain) which vivdly reveal the obsessions of a very young man who would eventually commit suicide.

28^th September 1922.
9 in-4° numbered pages, handwritten in black pencil by Desnos on the back of headed notepaper for the ‘Paris Congress’, inserted in an identical page folded in two and annotated by Breton in black pencil: ‘Thursday 28^thSeptember - Crevel – 1^st sleeping fit written by Desnos.’

Bibliography

- « Sommeil », Littérature nouvelle série n° 6 du 1^er novembre 1922.

See also