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Marie Reid

British Literature

31 January 2019

Macbeth: Sleep Deprived or Psychic Tyrant?

William Shakespeare’s ​Macbeth, o​ r ​The Unmentionable ​as some call it, is a tale about a

respected, honorable man who allows his moral compass to be controlled by several outside

sources, the most powerful one being his wife. Due to their influence, this once enviable war

hero is reduced to man that may wear the crown of Scotland but has little to no conscience or self

worth. As the three wicked sisters plant the seed of temptation into Macbeth’s mind, he begins

to lose all honor. His diseased and clouded mind begins to play tricks on him, which leads him

down a path of least resistance. As his actions become more and more heinous, life’s ointment

for the mind and body, sleep, becomes a distant memory. It is because of this lack of sleep and

his constant paranoia that his actions become impulsive and his thoughts become littered with

visions and hallucination. Macbeth’s downward spiral is observed by the presence of each of

these visions: the floating dagger, Banquo’s blood-matted ghost, and the uplifting appearance of

the three apparitions.

Macbeth’s first hallucination occurs before he is about to murder his loving cousin and

King, Duncan. “What’s this, sir! Aren’t you asleep yet?” (2.1.14) Banquo asks him, indicating

that it is surprisingly late for him to be awake. According to Brandon Peters, M.D., “​Beginning

to hallucinate is among the more common symptoms of sleep deprivation.”​ ​ Macbeth is antsy, he

is tired, and he is second guessing himself and his decision to murder Duncan because of his

guilty conscience. The hallucination shows itself when Macbeth says to the vision “Fearful
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vision, can’t you be felt by my touch as well as seen? Or are you nothing but a dagger out of my

imagination, a false creation that comes from my feverish brain?” (2.1.45-47) He admits to

himself that he is “feverish”, and after the deed is done Macbeth admits to Lady Macbeth that he

has heard things that were not actually said, for instance he heard “Sleep no more!” (2.2.44)

Macbeth’s mind is clouded with guilt before and after this hallucination occurred. The Cognitive

Route theory designed by medical doctors states “​Hallucinations may arise from a cognitive

route, in which emotion, top-down perceptual mechanisms and metacognitive functions play a

decisive role.” ​Could guilty emotions be what causes his next few hallucinations?

The second hallucination in the play is Banquo’s bloody ghost, who makes an appearance

at a Lord’s banquet after Macbeth hires men to kill him and his son Fleance. Banquo was once

Macbeth’s best friend. Macbeth summons murderers to kill Banquo, “I must appear to mourn

the death of the man who I myself killed. And this is why I woo you to come to my aid.”

(3.2.133-134) By this point, Macbeth no longer consciously feels guilty about the oncoming

murder, he is just anxious to get the job done. At the Lord’s dinner Macbeth sees the ghost of

Banquo enter and begins to panic, he says to Lady Macbeth “The dead rise again, with twenty

deadly wounds on their heads, and push us off our stools." (3.4.93-95) He is obviously

influenced by seeing the ghost, for multiple outbursts follow the first that cause Lady Macbeth to

send the Lords home. This is when we see a change in Macbeth, more towards the fearful,

insecure side of him, where as before this he was excited about his idea to kill Banquo. The

consequences are catching up to him in a different way than he expected. He hardly expected any

consequences at all. He expresses his fear to Lady Macbeth almost by scolding her: “I see how

you can look on such sights and keep the natural rosiness on your cheeks, when mine are pale
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with fear.” (3.4.133-135) Now that Fleance has escaped the attempted murder, Macbeth has

more of Banquo’s offspring to worry about since they are the ones who will, according to the

wicked sisters, rule on forever. All Macbeth has to look forward to now is more paranoia

sleepless nights, and hallucinations.

The third incident was more a fit of hallucinations; for there were three. The first that

appears is an armored head, warning Macbeth to fear Macduff. This apparition is something that

Macbeth is already worried about, for Macduff had fled to England to find Duncan’s son.

Macbeth knows that he has formed enemies. The second apparition is a bloody child, giving

Macbeth pleasant news “Laugh scornfully at the power of men-for no man born to a woman can

harm Macbeth.” (4.1.85-88) This news makes him question Macduff. The third apparition, a

crowned child with a tree in his hand, is pleasant for Macbeth to hear as well: “Macbeth will

never be defeated until great Birnam Wood marches to fight against him.” (4.1.101-103) This

gives him more false hope, it was impossible for a forest to physically march to his castle, right?

These visions make Macbeth arrogant and completely sure that he would live out the rest of his

life ruling over Scotland and be remembered as a good king. These apparitions are the only ones

that Macbeth had that didn’t make him lose sleep or become paranoid. If anything this set of

hallucinations wiped away all of the paranoia until the last two showed themselves as literate

meanings; a C-Section and men marching with branches of Birnam Wood in front of them. Even

though his prophecies were a mere play on words by the wicked sisters and their goddess Hecate,

it gave him a sense of security.

In some instances, Macbeth was driven insane because of the hallucinations, lack of

sleep, and stress about actions he had taken. In others, he was given a sense of hope that things
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might get better. The uplifting hallucinations were the ones that lead to his eventual death. Was

Macbeth an evil tyrant who needed the right circumstances to bring out the controlling side of

him, or was he the loyal man he was known as before he came in contact with the wicked sisters?

The visions planted in his mind by the wicked sisters-the bloody dagger, Banquo’s bloody ghost,

and the last three apparitions- lead to his disastrous downfall. The question still remains…

Would he have become king the right way if he had not met the witches?
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Works Cited

Kumar, Santosh, Subhash Soren, and Suprakash Chaudhury. "Hallucinations: Etiology and

Clinical Implications." ​National Center for Biotechnology Information​. U.S. National

Library of Medicine, 28 Dec. 0005. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.

Peters, Brandon, M.D. "An Interesting Side Effect of Sleep Deprivation." ​About.​ About Health,

17 June 2014. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.

Shakespeare, William, and Wim Coleman. ​Macbeth.​ Logan, IA: Perfection Learning, 2004.

Print.