SLEEP. 



693 



immediately connected with her brother ; and 

 her unconsciousness of the presence of her 

 sister might be due to the absence of the 

 latter at the time of his death, which caused 

 her to be less connected with him in the 

 thoughts of the somnambulist: or it may 

 have happened that she was directed to this 

 locket by the sense of smell, which is fre- 

 quently exalted in a very remarkable degree in 

 the somnambulistic state. (See SMELL) Her 

 feelings were so strongly excited by the posses- 

 sion of the locket, that, it was judged prudent 

 to check their continuance ; and as she was 

 inaccessible to all entreaties on the subject, 

 force was employed to obtain it from her. 

 She was so determined, however, not to 

 relinquish it, and was so angry at the gentle 

 violence used, that it was found necessary to 

 abandon the attempt; and she became 

 calmer after a time, and at last passed off into 

 ordinary sleep, which was in her case the 

 successor, instead of being (as it usually is) 

 the predecessor, of the somnambulistic state. 

 Before going to sleep, however, she placed 

 the locket under her pillow, remarking, 

 " Now I have hid it safely, and they shall 

 not take it from me." On awaking in the 

 morning, she had not the slightest conscious- 

 ness of what had passed ; but the impression 

 of the excited feelings remained ; for she 

 remarked to her sister, " I cannot tell 

 what it is that makes me feel so ; but every 



time that S comes near me, I have a kind 



of shuddering sensation ; " the individual 

 named being a servant, whose constant at- 

 tention to her had given rise to a feeling of 

 strong attachment on the side of the invalid, 

 but who had been the chief actor in the scene 

 of the previous evening. This feeling wore 

 off in the course of a day or two. A few 

 days afterwards, the somnambulism again 

 recurred ; and being upon her bed at the 

 time, she immediately began to search for the 

 locket under her pillow. In consequence of 

 its having been removed in the interval (in 

 order that she might not, by accidentally 

 finding it, be led to inquire into the cause of 

 its presence there, of which it was thought 

 better to keep her in ignorance), she was 

 unable to find it ; at which she expressed 

 great disappointment, and continued feeling 

 for it, with the remark, " It must be there ; 

 1 put it there myself a few minutes ago ; and 

 no one can have taken it away." In this 



state, the presence of S renewed her 



previous feelings of anger; and it was only 



by sending S out of the room that she 



could be calmed and induced to sleep. 



This patient was the subject of many sub- 

 sequent attacks, in every one of which the 



anger against S revived; until the current 



of thought changed, no longer running exclu- 

 sively upon what related to her brother, but 

 becoming capable of direction by suggestions 

 of various kinds presented to her mind, 

 either in conversation, or, more directly, 

 through the several organs of sense. On one 

 occasion, the attack having come on whilst 

 she was alone, she managed to make her way 



down stairs, along a passage, and out into the 

 garden by a back-door, although completely 

 paraplegic, a very curious instance of sleep- 

 walking. So nearly did her condition, in 

 some of these attacks, approach the waking 

 state, that the case might then be almost 

 regarded as one of double consciousness , 

 that very curious affection, of which the sub- 

 ject seems to lead two distinct lives, A and 

 B, in neither remembering what takes place 

 in the other, but each state being, as it were, 

 continuous with itself. 



The preceding case is well adapted to 

 illustrate the general characters of the som- 

 nambulistic condition : we have now to 

 notice some of those peculiar phenomena 

 which are presented in individual cases. The 

 first of these to which we shall advert, is the 

 extraordinary exaltation of the sensibility to 

 external impressions through one or more of 

 the organs of sense ; which would seem to 

 result, in some instances, from the concentra- 

 tion of the attention upon that one class of 

 impressions, but which, in other cases, is 

 independent of any such state of attention.* 

 We have ourselves been particularly struck 

 with this, in the somnambulism induced by 

 the " hypnotic " process of Mr. Braid, to 

 which we shall presently refer. We have 

 seen unequivocal proof that the sense of 

 smell has been exalted to an acuteness at 

 least equalling that of the most keen- nosed 

 ruminant or carnivorous animal ; that the 

 sense of hearing has been rendered equally 

 acute ; and that the sense of touch has been 

 exalted, especially in regard to temperature, 

 to a degree that would be scarcely credible, 

 were not the phenomena in perfect keeping 

 with the exaltation of the other senses. We 

 are not aware that the sense of sight has 

 ever been thus acted on. In most som- 

 nambulists it is altogether suspended ; and 

 those who claim to possess the power of 

 clairvoyance, reading words inclosed in 

 opaque boxes, &c., do not refer their power 

 of doing so to any unusual acuteness of their 

 visual organs, but attribute it to the develop- 

 ment of an entirely new faculty, for the 

 operation of which any such optical instru- 

 ment as the eye is altogether unnecessary. 

 Among the senses most commonly exalted in 

 somnambulism, is that " muscular sense " by 

 which all our voluntary movements are 

 guided ; and this seems to be so much in- 

 creased in acuteness, as quite to replace the 

 visual sense, in the performance of many of 

 those operations for which sight is ordinarily 

 requisite. Thus we find that sleep-walkers 

 make their way over the roofs of houses, 



* The young lady whose case we have just de- 

 tailed, exhibited, in a former attack of nervous 

 disorder, a most extraordinary acuteness of the au- 

 ditory sense, so that it was difficult to prevent her 

 from hearing everything that passed in the house. 

 Of a conversation held in an ordinary tone, in a 

 room two stories below, she could hear every word 

 as distinctly as if it had passed in her own chamber. 

 Yet she did not suffer pain, as might have been 

 expected, from the excessive loudness of ordinary 

 sounds, 



y Y 3 



