Schreber was a successful and highly respected judge until middle age when the onset of his psychosis occurred. He woke up one morning with the thought that it would be pleasant to “succumb” to sexual intercourse as a woman. He was alarmed and felt that this thought had come from somewhere else, not from himself. He even hypothesized that the thought had come from a doctor who had experimented with hypnosis on him; he thought that the doctor had telepathically invaded his mind.

As his psychosis progressed, he believed that God was turning him into a woman, sending rays down to enact ‘miracles’ upon him, including little men to torture him.

Schreber died in 1911, in an asylum.