SLEEP-WAKING. 64*7 



" Doctor, You see her eyes are open. 



Gentlewoman. Ay, but their sense is shut. 



But a remarkable circumstance is that, though a particular 

 sense appear torpid, it may be alive to some impressions. A 

 sleep-waking female, mentioned by Lorry, could not be made to 

 see or hear or be aware of the presence of any person but one, 

 and him she evidently saw, and to him she used to address her- 

 self upon the subject of her dream. Dr. Pritchard gives an ac- 

 count of a boy who, in these paroxysms, became insensible to all 

 external impressions, except that, when he happened to play on 

 the flute, he sometimes perceived if other boys began to accom- 

 pany him, and then evidently directed his attention to them. c The 

 insensibility to external impressions in sleep-waking, as in common 

 sleep, is not in the organs of sense or the tract of their nerves, but 

 i n the portion of thelbrain most immediately connected with them : 

 and, if these portions are not torpid, and at the same time there 

 is excitement either of a particular kind, as musical, for instance, 

 or in connection with a particular individual, those impressions 

 tell which are in relation with the excitement, while those which 

 find all torpid with which they might be in relation are unno- 

 ticed. But, for this singular partial sensibility to take place, the 

 portion of the brain in connection with the very extremities of the 

 nerve of sense' cannot be torpid : for, if it were, no excitement in 

 relation to any object of that sense, no attention or direction of 

 the thoughts, would avail. Such a portion is torpid sometimes. 

 Negretti sat down to eat a bowl of salad : yet, though his thoughts 

 must have been upon it and his attention directed to it, he ate first 

 cabbage and then pudding, which his friends substituted for it in 

 succession, without perceiving the difference. When he had asked 

 for wine, he did not detect that they gave him water ; when 

 snuff, that he received coffee. On the other hand, if the portion 

 of the brain in connection with a particular sense is not asleep, its 

 objects may be perceived though presented unexpectedly. Signer 

 Augustin heard slight sounds at a distance, and was set listening. 

 I therefore cannot agree with Dr. Pritchard, who attempts to 

 explain these differences entirely by generalising the remark made 

 on Castelli's case by the reporters, and saying that, " when atten- 

 tion is by a voluntary act directed to the particular operation of 



c On Disorders of the Nervous System, fyc. p. 409. 



