Twilight consciousness

Unremembered behaviour, or short, absent periods of time may be due to epileptic seizure, to pathological alcoholism, or to schizophrenia. Acts and inner experiences occurring during absence of the conscious ego are a twilight zone between the "day" of full awareness and the "night" of permanent derangement or disability. this twilight consciousness may be characterized by the appearance of waking dreams in the case of schizophrenics, hallucinations in the case of alcoholics, and illusion or confusion in the case of epileptic seizures. Observation of mental patients shows periods of apparently (to others) normal behaviour, in which however, the patient was absent and was later unable to recall. The number of people who fulfil the requirements of everyday life (including working, marital relationships and leisure activities) and who are partly amnesic or in a state of twilight consciousness, is not known.

In the affective twilight state there is an extreme emotional reaction to a psychological trauma. Comprehension of the situation is restricted so that assessment is distorted. The individual may show irrational behaviour with lack of social restraint, and may be violent. The state may develop into an amnesic fugue. Twilight states with organic origin arise in temporal lobe epilepsy and punch drunkenness. Here activity may continue normally so the observer sees nothing wrong, while the sufferer feels confused and disoriented. After the attack there is total amnesia. There may also be clouding of consciousness.