SOMNAMBULISM AND SLEEP-WALKING. 509 



as to excite feelings of astonishment almost amounting to awe. That somnambulism 

 is not merely a partial awakening, is shown by the difficulty always experienced in 

 arousing the individual, and by the bewilderment and slow return of consciousness 

 by which it is followed. Moreover, decided somnambulists are entirely ignorant of 

 all that has occurred during their strange sleep, whereas dreams during a partial 

 waking are always remembered, more or less. 



Somnambulism is to some extent hereditary, though not markedly so, and it is 

 most likely to occur in families in which there is a proclivity to affections of the 

 nervous system. Young people are more subject to it than those of mature age ; in 

 fact, there are few children who do not exhibit at some time or other manifestations 

 of the condition in question, such as muttering and talking in their sleep, laughing, 

 crying, or getting out of bed. The sexes are equally subject to it, although in adult 

 life it more rarely attacks men than women. The immediate cause of an access is 

 commonly some indiscretion in diet, as, for example, a late or unusually heavy supp<T. 

 Mental emotion, excessive intellectual exertion, violent grief, and other similar 

 disturbing causes, are not unfrequently assigned as excitors of an outbreak in those 

 in whom they are of occasional occurrence. Somnambulism is a serious complaint, 

 not only from the awkward and even dangerous positions in which it places the 

 patient when deprived of his senses, but also for the constant and wearying 

 anxiety which it occasions his friends. How frequently we see in the papers 

 the heading " Death of a Somnambulist." At the same time, it is by no means 

 inconsistent with a fair condition of general health, and it is not uncommon 

 amongst boys and girls at school, who, bodily and mentally, are quite equal to their 

 companions. 



It is really marvellous what strange acts are occasionally performed during a con- 

 dition of somnambulism. We are told, for instance, of a young ecclesiastic who 

 during sleep frequently wrote sermons, and even composed music. The music was 

 written with great exactitude. A cane served him for a ruler the clef, the flats, 

 and! the sharps were all in their right places. All the notes were first made as 

 circles, and then those requiring it were blackened with ink. The words were 

 written below. One night, in the middle of winter, this young man during the 

 somnambulistic condition imagined that when walking on the bank of a river he 

 saw a child fall in. The severity of the weather did not prevent him from deter- 

 mining to save it. He threw himself on the bed in the posture of a man swimming, 

 went through all the motions, and after becoming well fatigued with the severity of 

 the exercise, felt a bundle of the bed-clothes, which he took to be the drowning child. 

 He seized it with one hand, while he continued to swim with the other, in order to 

 gain the bank of the imaginary river. Finally, he placed the bundle in a place 

 which he evidently considered to be dry land, and rose, shivering, with his teeth 

 chattering as though he had emerged from icy water. He remarked to those present 

 that he was frozen, that he would <tie of cold, and that his blood was like ice. He 

 then asked for a glass of brandy, in order to restore his vitality, but there being 

 none at hand, a glass of water was given him instead. He, however, detected the 

 difference, and asked peremptorily for brandy, calling attention to the great danger 

 he incurred from the cold. Some brandy was finally obtained. He drank it with 



