3 8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dition of somnambulism is not disagreeable, it is also without danger. 

 I do not know that any accidents, either grave or light, have been 

 noticed as consequences of it ; and it is even possible that in certain 

 cases it appeases the over-excited nervous system ; but on this matter 

 it is necessary to speak with much reserve, for decisive facts bearing 

 on it have not yet been collected. 



Let us now analyze the psychological phenomena of somnambulism. 

 We all know what a dream is : when, tired with the labors of the day, 

 we give up to sleep, our thoughts become confused and floating ; the 

 attention can no longer be held fixed upon any definite object ; we 

 gradually lose consciousness of the exterior world, and strange forms, 

 the reality of which is in our conception only, impose themselves upon 

 us. They pass and repass with marvelous facility, changing at every 

 instant, and bewildering us with a moving and fantastic train. There 

 are human faces with the forms of beasts, wonderful monsters, gardens, 

 palaces, persons who had disappeared long ago, and who we thought 

 had passed from memory. All this is in motion and passes before us, 

 and the mind assists as a powerless spectator at a representation of 

 which it has itself formed all the pieces. The imagination luxuriates 

 in full license, for it is freed from the liability of being interrupted as 

 in real scenes. by the intrusion of foreign objects, forcing themselves 

 upon attention at every instant to excite precise sensations and recall 

 us to reality. A fact which marks the difference between somnam- 

 bulism and ordinary sleep is that the dream, which is only spontaneous 

 in ordinary sleep, may be provoked in somnambulism. It would be 

 very hard, for example, to make a man who is sleeping quietly in his 

 bed dream of a lion. If we should say to him aloud, " Look at the 

 lion ! " one of two things would happen : he would not hear us, or he 

 would wake up ; but in either case he would not dream of a lion. On 

 the other hand, I once said to one of my friends whom I had put into 

 the condition of somnambulism, " Look at that lion ! " He started at 

 once, and his face expressed fright ; " He is coming," he said, " he is 

 coming nearer, let us run away quick, quick ! " and he almost had a 

 nervous crisis under the influence of his terror. 



It is well known that the magnetizers by profession pretend to 

 cause their subjects to travel (in mind) through space, and to make 

 them spectators at distant scenes. This is true. But it is not true, it 

 is rather absolutely false, that these dreams partake of the reality, that 

 the visions bear any relation to the truth. They are pure imaginations, 

 and are neither more nor less fanciful than all the vague conceptions 

 which are forged by every person during sleep. By way of example, 

 I will relate a story of one of the somnambulist patients in the Hos- 

 pital B . I said to her : "Come with me ; we will go away and 



travel." She then described in succession the places we had to pass ; 

 the corridors of the hospital, the streets we had to go through to get 

 to the railroad station ; she arrived at the station, and, as she was ac- 



