VL-IV (15) Wachet Auf, pages 323/325

[Mark Kohut]

Question:  does anyone know the origin of the psychiatric term "fugue state"?  It's a form of amnesia, but what (if any) relationship does it have to the musical form?  When the Thanatoids awake are they waking from a some sort of fugue state (in the sense that they're walking around but not engaging with reality)?

Laura

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I don't but here is the wonderful Merck Manual definition---very Vineland/Pynchon resonant----from the wikipedia entry for fugue state....

"One or more episodes of amnesia in which the inability to recall some or all of one's past and either the loss of one's identity or the formation of a new identity occur with sudden, unexpected, purposeful travel away from home."