Reverie, Somnambulism, Hypnotism, Sleep. 803 



frequently walks over dangerous places in safety, sometimes escapes by 

 a window, and gets to the roof of a house; after a considerable inter- 

 val, returns and goes to bed; and all that has passed conveys to his 

 mind merely the impression of a dream. A young nobleman men- 

 tioned by Horstius, living in the citadel of Breslau, was observed by 

 his brother, who occupied the same room, to rise in his sleep, wrap him- 

 self in a cloak, and escape by a window to the roof of the building. 

 He there tore in pieces a magpie's nest, wrapped the young birds in his 

 cloak, returned to his apartment and went to bed. In the morning he 

 mentioned the circumstances as having occurred in a dream and could 

 not be persuaded that there had been anything more than a dream, till 

 he was s'hown the magpies in his cloak. Dr. Pritchard mentions a man 

 who rose in his sleep, dressed himself, saddled his horse, and rode to 

 the place of a market which he was in $ie habit of attending once a 

 week; and Martinet mentions a man who was accustomed to rise in his 

 sleep and pursue his business as a saddler. There are many instances 

 on record of persons composing during a state of somnambulism, as of 

 boys rising in their sleep and finishing their tasks which they had left 

 incomplete. A gentleman at one of the English Universities had been 

 very intent during the day in the composition of some verses, which he 

 had not been able to complete; during the following night he rose in his 

 sleep and finished his composition, then expressed great exultation and 

 returned to bed. " * 



The Electro-Biological State or Hypnotism, is a state of induced or 

 artificial somnambulism in which the trend of the ideas of the ' < subject '' 

 is directed by the suggestions of external stimuli. A person may enter 

 this state for a pre-conceived purpose, and this purpose will remain as 

 the governing stimulus or dominant idea of the thoughts during the con- 

 tinuance of the condition. 



Hypnotism and mesmerism are nothing more than intensified varieties 

 of induced or artificial abstraction. In the less intense form the subject 

 remembers what has taken place, after he returns to his usual condition, 

 and his actions, while in the ' artificial condition, are connected to a cer- 

 tain extent with his ordinary ideas. But these have not their usual 

 weight and influence because almost the whole attention of the subject is 

 concentrated upon the dominant idea so that it has more power in form- 

 ing the will and in controlling the direction of the thoughts while atten- 

 tion is withheld from those antagonizing ideas which would tend to re- 

 duce its influence. The state may be defined, in short, as abstraction 

 in favor of a definite idea or of a very circumscribed class of ideas, as 

 reverie and absence of mind may be regarded as abstractions in favor 

 of a definite general class of ideas, and each of them is only a condition 

 1 Abercrombie, Intellectual Powers 238. 



