Part 52

In a Gazette of Augsburg, I have read this sad story: “Dresden was the theatre of a melancholy spectacle on the 20th ult. As early as seven in the morning a female was seen walking on the roof of one of the loftiest houses in the city, apparently occupied in preparing some ornaments as a Christmas present. The house stood as it were alone, being much higher than those adjoining it, and to draw her from her perilous situation was impossible. Thousands of spectators had assembled in the streets. It was discovered to be a handsome girl, nineteen years of age, the daughter of a master baker, possessing a small independence bequeathed to her by her mother. She continued her terrific promenade for hours, at times sitting on the parapet and dressing her hair. The police came to the spot, and various means of preservation were resorted to. In a few minutes the street was thickly strewn with straw, and beds were called for from the house, but the heartless father, influenced by the girl’s stepmother, refused them. Nets were suspended from the balcony of the first floor, and the neighbours fastened sheets to their windows. All this time the poor girl was walking in perfect unconsciousness, sometimes gazing toward the moon, and at others singing or talking to herself. Some persons succeeded in getting on the roof, but dared not approach her for fear of the consequences if they awoke her. Towards eleven o’clock she approached the very verge of the parapet, leaned forwards, and gazed upon the multitude beneath. Every one felt that the moment of the catastrophe had arrived. She rose up, however, and returned calmly to the window by which she had got out. When she saw there were lights in the room she uttered a piercing shriek, which was reechoed by thousands below, and fell dead into the street.”

Such would have been the result, according to poetical justice, in the beautiful romance of “La Sonnambula.” Had Amina been awakened while she was descending, she would probably have toppled down headlong!

EV. Custom would render these wakings less formidable perhaps. There was a family alluded to by Dr. Willis, in which the father and many sons jostled each other nightly in their sleep-walk. This was probably but a cheerful recognition and to sleep again.

In Fraser’s Magazine is recorded a very curious story of this sort. If I remember right, an individual had the mortification of discovering every morning when he awoke, that the shirt in which he had slept was gone. Some trick was supposed to have been played upon him by an inmate of the house; and, thinking that the practical joke would soon be abandoned, he went on day after day, till his stock of linen was completely exhausted. The individuals of the family were now anxiously examined, but no tidings of the stray linen could be obtained. It was at last suspected that some depredator had entered the house and unswathed his sleeping victim, and a strict watch was made on the following night. At a suitable hour the somnambulist was seen to quit his bed, to pass through a skylight window to the roof of the house, to enter by another window a garret that was always locked, and to return shirtless to his lair. The garret was examined, and the thousand and one shirts were found carefully wrapped up and deposited in a pyramid.

Something like this is the story of the spectre of Tappington, in the Ingoldsby legends.

The actions, therefore, unlike the ideas of a dream, are often neither heterogeneous nor inconsistent, and it is astonishing to observe the exactness with which the work is executed.

Dr. Pritchard tells the case of a farmer who arose, saddled his horse, and rode to market in his sleep: the Archbishop of Bordeaux the case of a student, who composed both theological essays and music thus unconsciously.

Now if the dreamer be awakened, he will relate the circumstances of his dream clearly; but the somnambulist, if roused, will generally express himself unconscious of what he intended, or of what he had done. It is, by the bye, often dangerous, on another account, to wake the sleep-walker; indeed, we have recorded the case of a young lady who was walking in a garden in her sleep; she was awoke, and almost instantly died.

But in some future somnambulism the same actions will be again performed unheeded. And if there be memory of the sleep-walk, the somnambulist, I believe, always relates his actions as the mere ideas of a dream, and is long a sceptic of the fact, even if there are visible signs of his exertions.

CAST. I can illustrate this question from the recollection and knowledge of an ancestor of my own. Early on a morning, an immense number of foot-prints were observed by the men about a gate (on a farm in Sussex), which were not there overnight. On their return the servant girl was relating her dream; that she was told the cows had got into a wrong field, and that she had gone out, opened the gate, and driven them back. And I remember reading that a young gentleman of Brenstein was seen to rise, get out of his window on the roof, and take a brood of young magpies from their nest, and wrap them in his cloak. He then returned quietly to his bed, and in the morning related his dream, to his two brothers. They had slept with him, and had witnessed this feat, of which he would not be persuaded until they showed him the birds in his cloak.

I interrupt you, Evelyn.

EV. It is evident, as in dreams, and in rare cases of disease, that the mind of the somnambulist is often a contrast to its waking faculty. The memory will leap over intervals. Dr. Dyce records an illustration of this. A girl, in a state of somnambulism, was taken to church, and wept at the subject of the sermon. She never adverted to this impression when she awoke; nor could she be brought to recollect it until, in her next sleeping paroxysm, she spoke of it distinctly.

In delirium, also, we see these intervals of thought. The patient will commence a subject in the delirious state; when this has subsided, the subject is dropped. In the next attack of delirium it will again be started, ay, and at the very point, even the word itself, at which it was broken off.

We read, in an American journal, that a man, previous to an attack of mania which lasted several years, had placed his work tools in the hollow of a tree. To them no allusion was made during the period of his disorder. When, however, this passed off, he directed his son to fetch them, believing that he left them only yesterday.

In the same book, too, we learn of that lady who became maniacal as she was engaged in needle-work. For seven years she thought not of this; but directly she recovered, she asked for her needle-work and canvass. The same may occur in intoxication also, which is but another form of delirium. In Mr. Combe’s work we are told of a drunken man who left a parcel at a wrong house. When sober, he recollected nothing of the circumstance; but when again intoxicated, he soon remembered his error, and reclaimed the parcel.

ASTR. These cases form high contrasts with Hamlet’s proof of insanity:

——“Bring me to the test, And I the matter will reword, which madness Wou’d gambol from.”

EV. Yet if you analyze their nature you will find them even proofs of derangement; for you thus see that the faculty of memory is changed according to the state of mind. In the following case, by Dr. Abercrombie, we shall find the same variation in impression and taste. A girl, in her early youth, expressed her abhorrence of tunes played on the violin, which she termed a discordant fiddle. She was after this introduced into more refined society, and became a somnambulist. During her paroxysm she imitated the beautiful airs which she said she had formerly heard on this same violin.

Lieutenant C—— was once my patient, and died a maniac. The insanity arose from thwarted ambition, and was confirmed by his notion that he had seen his death-fetch. For some time he walked and talked in his sleep; subsequently he would walk for an hour round the table unconsciously. In him, too, was this change of feeling. He once talked little, and cared less for his child; but now he would caress it fondly, and expressed the deepest anxiety for it. It was difficult to decide, at times, whether this gentleman was awake or not; indeed, these states of mania, which have been termed “melancholia errabunda” by Bellini and Montalti, are closely allied to somnambulism, for the walker is absorbed in deep thought, and totally unconscious of his actions. And the analogy appears to have been recognised by the law. It is well known that the brother of Lord Colepeper, who was a great dreamer and somnambulist, shot a guardsman and his horse. He was found guilty; but he was pardoned on the ground of his complete unconsciousness in his somnambulism.

We do not wonder more to see the perfection with which these unconscious labours of the somnambulist are performed, than at the ease and power which is evinced, and the very slight fatigue which ensues; although the occupation might have been most laborious.

As in chorea the most delicate girls will dance incessantly for twenty-four hours, resting merely for one sole hour; and yet they will sit down perfectly cool and free from fatigue.

IDA. Is it not wonderful that the somnambulist will incur great dangers with complete sang-froid? They will walk over

——“Torrents roaring loud, On the unsteadfast footing of a spear;”

or scale the gigantic precipice, the mere contemplation of which would fright their mind from its propriety, when awake. I remember to have read of a French Jew, who walked by chance across a dangerous pass over a brook, in the dark, without the slightest fear or harm. The next day, perceiving what danger he had incurred, he fell down dead.

EV. It is equally curious that a concentration of nervous energy, which is here the result of unconsciousness, should also be produced by fear in some cases, which, in others, paralyses; but this is indeed a slight degree of heroism, or energy of despair. Thus we leap far higher, and run much faster, when danger threatens, than we could believe.

These are all very apt illustrations of somnambulism. I will check myself in quotations of more, as the phenomena may closely resemble each other.

But what is its philosophy, and how can I venture on its explanation, which involves the most intricate pathology of the nervous system? unless, with the self-complacency of quaint old Burton, I cut the Gordian knot by this affirmation,—“There is nothing offends but a concourse of bad humours, which trouble the phantasy. These vapours move the phantasy, the phantasy the appetite, which, moving the animal spirits, causeth the body to walk up and down, as if it were awake.”

Thus much I may expound to you, if I am again allowed to run up our scientific scale. The philosophy of the dream and of incubus refers to the activity of the brain with a passive body; for somnambulism, we require an active body, with an unconscious brain.