282 STUDIES IX LIFE AND SENSE. 



creased flow of nerve-power towards the particular sense or senses 

 concerned in the direction of the sleep-walker. Everything that 

 concerns other senses or matters foreign to the exact business in 

 hand, so to speak, is excluded from the mental view. There is but 

 one idea animating the mind, and the whole brain-force may be 

 regarded as concentrating itself for the performance of the task in 

 hand. The somnambulist, in short, has become a temporary specialist 

 in the matter of his dream, and his whole frame becomes subservient 

 to the performance of the aim unconsciously set before him. On 

 some such principle may we account satisfactorily for the walk during 

 a sleep-vigil along the ledges of a house-roof, and the easy access to 

 situations of peril. Under this unwonted stimulation of a special 

 sense or senses, the difficult problems or unsolved tasks of the day 

 may be successfully and unconsciously achieved during the night. 

 The history related by Abercrombie in his " Intellectual Powers " of 

 the sleep- vigil of an eminent lawyer illustrates the latter observation. 

 A case involving the formation of an elaborate opinion had occupied 

 this gentleman's attention for a considerable period. Rising from 

 his bed in a sleep-vigil he was observed by his wife to pen a long 

 communication at a desk which stood in his bedroom, the paper 

 being carefully deposited in the desk, and the writer returning to bed. 

 In the morning he related to his wife the particulars of a remarkable 

 dream he had experienced, in which a clear train of thought re- 

 specting the case in question had occurred to him. To his regret, 

 he added, he could not recollect the details of his dream, but on 

 being referred to his desk the opinion in question was found clearly 

 and lucidly written out. Numerous instances of like successful solu- 

 tions of intricate problems in mathematics have been placed on 

 record, but the details teach the same lesson respecting the exalta- 

 tion of mental power, stimulated probably by the efforts of the day, 

 which may take place in the brain which retains its activity in the 

 watches of the night. 



Persons have been known actually to swim for a considerable 

 time in the somnambulistic state without waking at the termination 

 of their journey ; others have safely descended the shaft of a mine, 

 whilst some have ascended steep cliffs, and have returned home in 

 safety, during a prolonged sleep-vigil. More extraordinary, perhaps, 

 as showing the close likeness between the abnormal and automatic 

 acts of the French sergeant with an injured brain, and the actions of 

 the somnambulist suffering merely from functional disturbance of the 

 organ of mind, is the case of a young French priest, related by the 

 Archbishop of Bordeaux in the " Encyclope'die Methodique." This 

 subject was accustomed to pen his sermons during his sleep-vigils, 

 and, having written a page, would read it aloud and duly correct it, 

 even extending his alterations to include important grammatical and 



