The first complex relates to the murder of Duncan as demonstrated in the continual washing of the hands, an act not seen earlier and here clearly brought out in the sleep-walking scene. The acting out of these complexes themselves is based upon reminiscences of her past repressed experiences. Several complexes or groups of suppressed ideas of an emotional nature enter into this scene and are responsible for it. The devastation of her mind is so complete that there are no logical connections between her memories or her sentences. Her speech has become fragmented and broken by an enormous emotional pressure: the suave hostess and cool, domineering wife has been reduced to a gibbering creature whose speech is incoherent. It is evident from the first words uttered by the Doctor and the lady attendant in the sleep-walking scene, that Lady Macbeth has had several previous somnambulistic attacks. But this does not simply focus on the guilty conscience of one character rather it lays bare the entire tragic process in its extremity: how evil repays. She is not the victim of a blind fate or destiny or punished by a moral law, but affected by a mental disease.

The sleep-walking scene, where Lady Macbeth shows with a startling degree of accuracy all the symptoms of hysterical somnambulism, is a perfectly logical outcome of her previous mental state. In Lady Macbeth the sense is so strong and deeply rooted in the unconscious that it ultimately brings about psychological disorder in her personality.

Shakespeare presents on the stage the terrible theme of how the entire personality of a human being is eaten up by the sense of guilt. The sleep-walking scene is not mentioned in Holinshed and it must therefore be looked upon as an original effort of Shakespeare's creative imagination.

Lady macbeth sleepwalking