[The Sandman is] a wicked man who comes when children
won't go to bed, and throws handfuls of sand in their eyes so
that they jump out of their heads all bleeding.'
E.T.A. Hoffman 1816 The Sandman
We know from psycho-analytic experience, however, that the
fear of damaging or losing one's eyes is a terrible one in
children. Many adults retain their apprehensiveness in this
respect, and no physical injury is so much dreaded by them as
an injury to the eye. […] A study of dreams, phantasies and
myths has taught as that anxiety about one's eyes, the fear of
going blind, is often enough a substitute for the dread of being castrated.
Sigmund Freud 1919 The Uncanny
