650 SLEEP-WAKING. 



pened to be in his way. Habit will also be far more successful 

 in the partial excitement of sleep-waking. The man who often 

 went in his sleep to draw wine in the cellar had no difficulty, 

 but if he accidentally awoke he had to grope his way back. 

 He knew the way well, but when awake had the emotion of fear 

 to check him ; and, in addition to this, probably had not the 

 intensity of partial excitement which prevailed in his sleep, so 

 that his habit was less effective. 



But, though partial torpidity and partial excitement, of various 

 degrees and in various points of the brain, and excitement in rela- 

 tion to various individual external objects, and some derangement 

 of the natural sensibility, may explain all the cases which I Jiave 

 described, some persons explain many of the phenomena by the 

 operation of a new sense diffused throughout the surface, but most 

 intense at the epigastrium and fingers, and adduce extraordinary 

 cases in proof of their belief. 



" There are, therefore, somnambulists who see," says Gall, 

 after relating the cases quoted in p. 630. sq., " and the opinion 

 of certain visionaries, who think that the perception of external 

 objects takes place in somnambulists only by the internal senses, 

 is refuted. 



" Experience proves that somnambulists who have their eyes 

 shut hit themselves when obstacles unknown to them are placed 

 in their way, that they fall into holes, &c. When, with their 

 eyes shut, they find themselves in a place familiar to them, they 

 find their way, like blind people, by the aid of local memory. 



" Just as the eye and ear may be awake in dreaming, so may 

 other external senses. We perceive exhalations that surround 

 us ; we recognise a bitter or sweet taste of the saliva after a bad 

 digestion ; we feel heat, cold, &c. Some persons think that 

 somnambulism is a completely extraordinary state, because som- 

 nambulists execute, during their sleep, things which they could 

 not accomplish awake : they clamber on trees, roofs, &c. 



" All astonishment ceases as soon as we reflect upon the cir- 

 cumstances in which we do the boldest things, and upon others 

 in which we cannot. Any one in a balcony, furnished with a 

 balustrade, could look down from a very high tower, and without 

 resting against this balustrade. We walk without tottering upon 

 a plank placed upon the parquet. To what will not boys ac- 

 custom themselves in their rash sports? What do not moun- 



