SOMNAMBULISM.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5318, 27 August 1928, Page 1

SOMNAMBULISM.

D’ONT WAKE THE SLEEP-WALKER

‘Don’t wake the sleep-walker,” said Dr. P. Fennelly, in’’his lecture <m “Sleep and Dreams” at Wellington last week, inferring that the shock of a rude, awakening in unusual surroundings might be harmful. “The best thing to do,” said the lecturer, “is to address the somnabulist by name, and quite normally tell him to. go to bed, and invariably .they will obey the injunction.” Illustrating the wakefulness of the, mind when the’ body sleeps, Dr. Fennelly said tha,t one night qn. returning home late from a meeting in Ltondoß he was passing, along a quiet street in,’ which only one, house was lighted up. The door of that house was open, and fr.qm the opposite side he nqted how the light fromthc hall wa,s flooding the front steps. As he passed a man tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned sharply. “Sh— I” said the man. “Look up there —a man walking in his sleep 1”

Dr. Fennelly glqnced upward, and saw a man in night attire walking the parapet of a four-stoney building. He walked steadily to the end, and then uutstretchedi his arms as though he was going to jump o ( n to the: next buiildt’ng nine feet away, and both of them held their breath as he seemed to all but lose his balance. Then he turned, walked calmly back along the dizzy ledge, entered the garret window, and went back to bed. -‘■‘This was a man named Wils,on, whom we got to know,” said Dr. Fennelly. “Indeed', his case wa,s so, interesting that he. gave us the right to enter his ho,use at any time., being a friend of a prominent psychologist. One- night three of us were returning home late, when I Suggested that we should ca,H on Wilson. We were in the hall, when we saw him coming downstairs fast asleep with his eyes closed!--most sleep-walkers have their eyes open—walked passed u& as though we weTe not there at. all, through the, frOjiit room, and into his study. There he sat down, opened a knife, sharpened the pencil, and then wrote aJ* over a sheet. Then one of .the party took the sheet, .and began to- read! it, and as he did so the somnambulist repeated every word he had written, though ‘he could no,t see the wnithfe. “Then we advised him quietly to gQ to bed. He stood up. walked from the rbom, through the front room and hall, and up the stairway to beldam! all the. time with his eysi fai&t shut. Who under such cincipnatances as these could say that the mind does not see ?”