Epilepsy in the process of artistic creation of Dostoevsky

What do Flaubert, Dostoevsky and Machado de Assis have in common with neurology?

“…He often described sudden and unanticipated psychological states characterized by vivid memories and a pleasant sensation near ecstasy. These epileptic auras somehow justify his seminal idea that a moment of happiness is worth a lifetime 4,5 . Unlike Flaubert, epilepsy was present in at least six of Dostoevsky' s characters.…”

“…Dostoevsky was sentenced to four years of forced labor in a Siberian prison after being accused of distributing printed works directed against the government. However, one could say that epilepsy "saved" him -the author of The Idiot managed to convince the military, in which he was forced to serve indefinitely, that retaining an army officer with epilepsy (a mysterious disease) was extremely dangerous, and he was discharged of the army 4 . Another interesting and notable point of Dostoevsky' s epilepsy was that he probably suffered from ecstatic aura, the existence of which was previously unknown.…”

“…Unlike Flaubert, epilepsy was present in at least six of Dostoevsky' s characters. In fact, epilepsy occupied a prominent position in his novels, in that the seizures were richly depicted and even helped in the construction of the personality of the characters 4,5,6 . In The Brothers Karamazov, for instance, a character with epilepsy simulates one of his crises in order to not be accused of a murder that he committed 6 .…”

“…Dostoevsky incorporated his own suffering into his art and acknowledged the therapeutic effects that literature had on his health, although writing was repeatedly contraindicated by his doctors. Several times, Dostoevsky was skeptical about the prescribed treatment (bromides), although he had repeatedly sought the opinions of great neurologists, such as Moritz Romberg 4,5,6 . Machado de Assis (1839-1908) is considered the most famous Brazilian writer (Figure 3).…”

The Devil Is in the Details: Neurological Diseases Presenting as Religious Hallucinations in Two Literary Works

“…The first written reports of him having a seizure date from 1844, while the first medical documents attesting to his illness date from 1850, the same year as his imprisonment [9]. While his seizures were generally described as generalized, often preceded by a loud cry (as his wife Anna Grigorievna wrote: “suddenly came a fearful cry, a cry that had nothing human about it”; “…his face contorted by convulsions, his body shaking all over”) [10], some features, such as his “ecstatic” aura (“God exists, He exists!”; “I felt the Heaven was going down upon the earth and that it had engulfed me”), pallor immediately before generalization, and postictal dysphasia (“It was a long time before I could speak”), may point toward a dominant temporal lobe origin [10, 11].…”