"I could picture it, the waking up with Mary in the bed right beside me, and touching her, and finding she would not speak to me, and the horror and distress I would feel; and at that moment I fell to the floor in a dead faint. They said I lay like that for ten hours, and no one could wake me, although they tried pinching and slapping, and cold water, and burning feathers under my nose; and that when I did wake up I did not seem to know where I was, or what had happened."
"What McDermott told me later was that after he'd fired the gun at me, and I'd fallen down in a dead faint, he pumped a bucket of cold water and threw it over me […], and I revived immediately, and was as good as new and quite cheerful[…]. But I can't remember any of that at all. I must have lain unconscious for a long time, for when I woke up the light was already fading. I was lying on my back, on the bed in my own bedchamber; and […] my hair […] was damp, and the upper part of my dress as well, and that must have been from the water that James had thrown over me; so that part at least of what he said was true. I lay there on the bed, trying to remember what had happened, as I couldn't recollect how I'd got into the room. James must have carried me in, for the door was standing open, and if I'd walked in by myself I would have locked it."
—Grace Marks, Alias Grace
Doc: Coming face-to-face with herself thirty years older could put [Jennifer] into shock and she'd simply pass out.
1985 Jennifer: I'M OLD!!
2015 Jennifer: I'M YOUNG!!
[both faint simultaneously]
Doc: Let's put her in the swing! Then I'll take you home and you can come back in your truck and wake her. When she awakens here in her own house and it's dark, you should be able to convince her it was All a Dream.
Marty: Wait a minute, we're just going to leave her here on the porch?
Doc: The disorientation will help convince her that it was all a dream.
Marty: How long do you think she's gonna be out?
Doc: I'm not sure, she received quite a shock. Could be for a few minutes, most probably a couple of hours. You'd better bring some smelling salts with you.
"A thousand phantoms of darkness and menace danced before her eyes, and she flung herself upon the bed without hope of sleep. One thought above the rest stood out with fiendish prominence, and she almost screamed aloud as it beat itself into her brain with renewed force. Then Nature, kinder than she expected, intervened at last. Closing her eyes in a dead faint, she did not awake till morning, nor did any fresh nightmare come to join the lasting one which the overheard words had brought. With the morning sunshine came a lessening of the tension. What happens in the night when one is tired often reaches the consciousness in distorted forms, and Georgina could see that her brain must have given strange colour to scraps of common medical conversation.
…
"Georgina heard him chuckling and taunting the man in his own tongue, and saw the yellow face of the victim twist and quiver with fright. Suddenly realising against her own will what was taking place, a great horror mastered her and she fainted for the second time within twenty-four hours. When consciousness returned, the golden light of late afternoon was flooding the room.
"Her heart almost stopped beating as the gas-jets of the chandelier flared up one by one, but then she saw that the arrival was her brother. Relieved to the bottom of her heart that he was still alive, she gave vent to an involuntary sigh, profound, long-drawn, and tremulous, and lapsed at last into kindly oblivion. […] Her face had a death-like quality[…]"
—"The Last Test" by H. P. Lovecraft
"Emily, struck by his last words, as if for the first time, with a conviction of his immediate danger, raised her head; her tears stopped, and, gazing at him for a moment with an expression of unutterable anguish, a slight convulsion seized her, and she sunk senseless in her chair. St. Aubert's cries brought La Voisin and his daughter to the room, and they administered every means in their power to restore her, but, for a considerable time, without effect."
"When the dreadful hour arrived, in which the remains of St. Aubert were to be taken from her for ever, she went alone to the chamber to look upon his countenance yet once again, and La Voisin, who had waited patiently below stairs, till her despair should subside, with the respect due to grief, forbore to interrupt the indulgence of it, till surprise, at the length of her stay, and then apprehension overcame his delicacy, and he went to lead her from the chamber. Having tapped gently at the door, without receiving an answer, he listened attentively, but all was still; no sigh, no sob of anguish was heard. Yet more alarmed by this silence, he opened the door, and found Emily lying senseless across the foot of the bed, near which stood the coffin. His calls procured assistance, and she was carried to her room, where proper applications, at length, restored her."
"She paused again, and then, with a timid hand, lifted the veil; but instantly let it fall—perceiving that what it had concealed was no picture, and, before she could leave the chamber, she dropped senseless on the floor. When she recovered her recollection, the remembrance of what she had seen had nearly deprived her of it a second time."
"He then put his hand in my bosom, and indignation gave me double strength, and I got loose from him by a sudden spring, and ran out of the room! and the next chamber being open, I made shift to get into it, and threw to the door, and it locked after me[…]. I just remember I got into the room; for I knew nothing further of the matter till afterwards; for I fell into a fit with my terror, and there I lay, till he, as I suppose, looking through the key-hole, spyed me upon the floor, stretched out at length, on my face […] I was two hours before I came to myself; and just as I got a little up on my feet, he coming in, I fainted away again with the terror."
"I found his hand in my bosom; and when my fright let me know it, I was ready to die; and I sighed and screamed, and fainted away. Pamela! Pamela! said Mrs. Jervis, as she tells me since, O—h, and gave another shriek, my poor Pamela is dead for certain! And so, to be sure, I was for a time; for I knew nothing more of the matter, one fit following another, till about three hours after, as it proved to be, I found myself in bed […] and I said, which were my first words, Mrs. Jervis, Mrs. Rachel, can I be sure it is you? Tell me! can I?—Where have I been? Hush, my dear, said Mrs. Jervis; you have been in fit after fit."
"With struggling, fright, terror, I fainted away quite, and did not come to myself soon, so that they both, from the cold sweats that I was in, thought me dying.—And I remember no more, than that, […] with great difficulty they brought me to myself[.] Your poor Pamela cannot answer for the liberties taken with her in her deplorable state of death[…] I fainted away once more […] at his clasping his arms about me again."
—Pamela Andrews, Pamela, or: Virtue Rewarded
A soft thump alerted her, and she went to investigate. She discovered the door about halfway open, and when she opened it the rest of the way...
Misato was there, passed out in the hall. She must have witnessed the reenactment. Apparently, she was not impressed by it.
Misato was there, passed out in the hall. She must have witnessed the reenactment. Apparently, she was not impressed by it.
