SLEEP. 



691 



shall pass rapidly into rage, dislike to hatred, 

 and the desire of vengeance and the calmest 

 affection to the most transporting passion. 

 Fear becomes terror, courage is developed 

 into rashness which nothing checks, and which 

 seems not to be conscious of danger, and the 

 most unfounded doubt or suspicion becomes a 

 certainty. The mind has a tendency to exag- 

 gerate everything, and the slightest impulse 

 carries it along. Those who make use of the 

 hachisch in the East, when they wish to give 

 themselves up to the intoxication of thefan- 

 ta.tia, take great care to withdraw themselves 

 from everything which could give to their de- 

 lirium a tendency to melancholy, or excite in 

 them anything else than feelings of pleasurable 

 enjoyment. They profit by all the means 

 which the dissolute manners of the East 

 place at their disposal. It is in the midst of 

 the harem, surrounded by their women, under 

 the charm of music and of lascivious dances 

 executed by the Almees, that they enjoy the 

 intoxicating dawamesc ; and with the aid of 

 superstition, they find themselves almost 

 transported to the scene of the numberless 

 marvels which the Prophet has collected in 

 his Paradise."* 



SOMNAMBULISM. 



Our history of sleep would be incomplete 

 without some account of a state which is 

 closely allied to it, though differing from it in 

 several important particulars. The pheno- 

 mena of somnambulism are so varied, that it 

 is very difficult to frame any definition capable 

 of including them all ; and we prefer charac- 

 terising the state by saying that it may be con- 

 sidered as an acted dream, differing from or- 

 dinary dreaming in the two following points. 

 In the first place, the train of thought is more 

 under the direction of sensations derived from 

 without; and, secondly, the muscular system 

 is so completely under the control of the 

 mind, as not merely to give expression to its 

 emotional states, but also to act in respon- 

 dence to its volitions. As in dreaming, there 

 would seem to be, in true somnambulism, a 

 complete want of voluntary control over the 

 current of thought, but there is not the same 

 degree of mental activity; and in particular 

 the operation of the associative principle is so 

 much more restricted, that there is little or 



* The celebrated oriental scholar, M. Sylvestre de 

 Sacy, appears to have made it pretty plain that our 

 word assassin is derived from ffachischin, in the 

 following manner. It is well knoAvn that the term 

 was originally employed in Syria, to designate the 

 followers of the " Old Man of the Mountain," who 

 were accustomed to devote themselves with blind 

 obedience to the execution of the orders of their 

 chief, sacrificing themselves or others with equal 

 readiness. Their education tended in every way to 

 impress upon them this duty ; and as a reward for 

 its performance, they were promised after death all 

 the sensual pleasures they could imagine, a foretaste 

 of these being every now and then given to them 

 by intoxicating them with hachisch, in the midst of 

 scenes in which everything was provided to gratify 

 their senses. In this manner, a sort of fanaticism 

 was gradually induced, which rendered them fit 

 agents of the murderous designs of their master. 



none of that incoherence or incongruity in the 

 ideas brought up, which is so peculiar 'in ordi- 

 nary dreaming. On the contrary, reasoning 

 processes are often carried out with extraor- 

 dinary clearness and correctness; the mind 

 being intently fixed upon them to the exclu- 

 sion of all other considerations. This exclu- 

 siveness, indeed, is one of the most remarkable 

 characteristics of the condition. Whilst the 

 attention of the mind remains fixed upon any 

 object, either perceived by the senses or 

 brought up by the act of conception, nothing 

 else is felt. Thus there may be complete in- 

 sensibility to bodily pain, the somnambulist's 

 whole attention being given to that which is 

 passing within the mind. Yet, in an instant, 

 by directing the attention to the organs of 

 sense, the anaesthesia may be succeeded by the 

 most acute sensibility. So, again, when the 

 attention is fixed upon a certain train of 

 thought, whatever is spoken in harmony with 

 it is heard and appreciated by the somnam- 

 bulist ; but whatever is in discordance with it 

 is entirely disregarded. The character of the 

 intellectual operations partakes of this pecu- 

 liarity. As just now stated, the reasoning 

 processes are usually accurately and definitely 

 carried on, so that the conclusion will be 

 sound, provided that the data have been cor- 

 rect. Thus, a mathematician will work out a 

 difficult problem, or an orator will make a 

 speech appropriate to a given subject. But 

 the usual defect of the intellectual operations 

 carried on in this condition is, that, owing to 

 their very intensity, the attention is drawn off 

 from the considerations which ought to modify 

 them ; and thus it happens that the result is 

 often palpably inconsistent with the teachings 

 of ordinary experience, and will be admitted 

 to be so by the somnambulist when the former 

 are brought to his mind. 



The state of somnambulism may pass, on 

 the one hand, into that of ordinary dreaming, 

 so that it is difficult to draw the line between 

 the two. Thus, the ordinary " talking in the 

 sleep" may be referred to one or the other 

 condition, according to the definition of each 

 that we may adopt. In our own arrangement, 

 they fall under the second head : because the 

 vocal movements are expressions of the intel- 

 lectual processes that are taking place in the 

 mind ; and because, in most cases of this kind, 

 the sleep-talker hears and comprehends what 

 is said to him, provided that this harmonises 

 with what is going on within, and will answer 

 rationally, so as to sustain a conversation. 

 Thus, we knew a young lady at school, who 

 frequently began to talk after having been 

 asleep an hour or two ; her ideas almost always 

 ran upon the events of the previous day ; and 

 if encouraged by leading questions addressed to 

 her, she would give a very distinct and co- 

 herent account of them ; frequently disclosing 

 her own peccadilloes and those of her school- 

 fellows, and expressing great penitence for the 

 former, whilst she seemed to hesitate about 

 making known the latter. To all ordinary 

 sounds, however, she seemed perfectly insen- 

 sible. A loud noise would awake her, but 



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