Sometimes, in the case of a person liable to somnambulism, it is possible to direct the thoughts of the dreamer to any given subject, by acting on the external senses. Smellie, the writer already quoted, gives the subjoined instance:- Mr Thomas Parkinson, then a student of medicine in the university of Edinburgh, was accustomed to talk and answer questions in his sleep. This fact was known to his companions. To amuse ourselves, two of us went gently into his chamber while he was asleep. We knew that he was in love with a young lady in Yorkshire, the place of his nativity. We whispered her name repeatedly in his ear. He soon began to toss about his hands, and to speak incoherently. He gradually became more calm and collected. His imagination took the direction we intended. He thought he was stationed under the lady's window, and repeatedly upbraided her for not appearing and speaking to him, as she had so often done on former occasions. At last, he became impatient, started up, laid hold of books, shoes, and everything he could easily grasp. Thinking his mistress was asleep, he threw these articles against the opposite wall of his chamber. By what he said, we learned that his imaginary scene lay in a street, and that he was darting the books and shoes at the lady's window, in order to awake her. She, however, did not appear; and after tiring himself with frequent exertions, he went quietly into bed without wakening. His eyes were nearly shut; and although he freely conversed with us, he did not seem to perceive that any person was present with him. Next day, we told him what had happened; but he said that he had only a faint recollection of dreaming about his mistress? It is consistent with our own knowledge, that many country surgeons, who ride much by night, and pursue a most laborious life generally, sleep perfectly well on horseback. This, however, although a position in which the bodily motion is not entirely passive, is not properly somnambulism. Perhaps the most perfect sleep-walkers were Sir John Moore's soldiers, many of whom, in the disastrous and fatiguing retreat to Corunna, were observed to fall asleep on the march, and yet to go on, step by step, with their waking companions. Many tradesmen have been known to get up by night and work for a time at their usual employments, without being at all aware in the morning of what they had done. Gall mentions a miller who did this. One of the most extraordinary cases of this order, however, is that of a student of divinity at Bordeaux, who was accustomed to rise in the nighttime, and to read and write without the use of his eyes. This case is stated in the French Encyclopédie, under the word Noctambule, and is attested by the Archbishop of Bordeaux. This prelate, in order to test the young man, interposed an obstacle between his eyes and the paper on which he was reading or writing, but he read and wrote with equal facility and equal accuracy as before. Macnish, who repeats this story, does not mention the fact of the eyes not being used, though this is the most marvellous feature in the case. The reading may not have been aloud, and may only have been apparent. But as for the writing accurately without the use of the eyes, this was certainly a feat which few waking persons could have accomplished. In addition to these cases, many others might be gathered, and particularly from Mr Macnish's Anatomy of Sleep; but that book is so accessible, that it is enough to refer to it for further information. We shall only mention one other case which is there given. It is that of Dr Blacklock, who, on one occasion rose from bed, to which he had retired at an early hour, came into the room where his family were assembled, conversed with them, and afterwards entertained them with a pleasant song, without any of them suspecting he was asleep, and without his retaining, after he awoke, the least recollection of what he had done.' Being blind, his family would have the more difficulty in discovering his unusual condition. Somnambulism, it was stated at the close of the farm - servant's case, had of late years assumed a new and more interesting aspect. This has arisen from the discovery—if it be allowable to call it a discoverythat animal magnetism is capable of inducing a peculiar state of somnambulism, and that, during the continuance of that state, sensation or sensibility is destroyed. It has been seen that Smellie found the farm maid-servant to have lost sensibility in her arms. This is a statement corroborative of the account given of magnetic somnambulism. Taking advantage of this absence of sensibility, surgeons, it is said, have performed upon magnetic somnambulists the most severe and painful curative operations, without inflicting on the parties a moment's suffering of the slightest kind. The patient's mind, meanwhile, seems in a perfectly sound and active state, but without the power of remembering anything that passed in the unmagnetised state. A Parisian lady, aged sixty-four, who had a cancerous breast, was magnetised, and it was found that somnambulism could be induced. In her waking state she was deeply averse to an operation; but in her magnetised state it was proposed to her, and she consented at once. The breast was operated upon, and cut off without the slightest seeming pain to her. On waking, she was, it may be believed, much surprised. This case, it has been alleged, is but one of several, where the like has been done; and some of the most respectable medical men of Paris have borne witness to the truth, or at least apparent truth of these allegations. On this score alone, animal magnetism seems worthy of a full and fair inquiry. It would be a wonderful thing, indeed, if we could arrive at means by which all the painful operations to which the human body is rendered liable by disease or accident, could be performed without suffering to those who undergo them. Where Somnambulism, or the tendency to it, most commonly arises from causes not apparent or discoverable. it occurs in persons not accustomed to exhibit any such propensity, some disorder of the digestive functions may be suspected, and the restoration of these functions to a healthy state may put a stop to the practice. But in confirmed cases, nothing can be done but to lock the doors, bar the windows, and keep dangerous objects or instruments out of the way; or a cord may be affixed to the bedpost and the arm of the sleep-walker. As a general rule, the somnambulist should be taken to bed before being waked. THE COURSE OF LIFE. [Translated from a beautiful Spanish poem by Jorge Manrique, on the death of his father, quoted in the thirty-ninth volume of the Edinburgh Review.] OH! let the soul its slumber break, Life, with its glories, glides away, How pleasure, like the passing wind, How still our present happiness And while we eye the rolling tide, Let us the present hour employ, Let no vain hope deceive the mind- To-morrow than to-day. Our golden dreams of yore were bright, Our lives like hasting streams must be, Are doomed to fall; The Sea of Death, whose waves roll on, Alike the river's lordly tide, Death levels poverty and pride, Our birth is but a starting-place, There all our steps at last are brought, Long ere the damps of death can blight, Youth smiled, and all was heavenly fair; Where are the strength that mocked decay, The heart's blithe tone?— The strength is gone, the step is slow, Say, then, how poor and little worth Dreams of a sleep that death must break. Ye disappear. |