The French Romantic poet Gérard de Nerval suffered his first major psychological breakdown, leading to his confinement in the clinic of Dr. Esprit Blanche. Nerval famously walked a pet lobster on a blue silk ribbon through the gardens of the Palais-Royal, openly declaring that he could no longer distinguish between his waking life and his highly active, mythic dream world. He spent his final years writing 'Aurélia ou le Rêve et la Vie', an intense, unvarnished exploration of his own descent into madness and subconscious dreamscapes.

Nerval's radical premise that 'our dreams are a second life' directly bridged early Romanticism with modern Surrealism. His ability to weave lucid, classical poetic prose out of intense hallucinatory states deeply influenced André Breton, who cited Nerval as the absolute precursor to the surrealist revolution.