Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
3. The memory and circle of ideas are curiously circumscribed.
4. To make up for this, some of the powers of the mind acquire
concentration and temporary increase of force, and occasionally new
powers of apprehension appear to be developed.
5. Spasms of the muscles, generally tonic or maintained spasms, but
sometimes, having the character of convulsive struggles, are
occasionally manifested in trance. And they may bear either of two
relations to it. They may occur simultaneously with trance-waking or
alternately with it, and occupying the patient's frame in the intervals
of trance.
In the ordinary course of things, trance-sleep precedes trance-waking,
and follows it. So that some have described trance-waking as waking in
trance. Trance-sleep may come on during ordinary sleep, or during
ordinary waking. By use the introductory and terminal states of
trance-sleep become abridged; and sometimes, if either exist, it is so
brief, that the transition to and from trance-waking out of and into
ordinary waking, _appears_ immediate.
Now to illustrate the phenomena of trance half-waking, by describing
somnambulism.
A curious fate somnambulism has had. When other forms of trance have
been exalted into mystical phenomena and figure in history, somnambulism
has had no superstitious altars raised to her--has had no
fear-worship--has at the highest been promoted to figure in an opera. Of
a quiet and homely nature, she has moved about the house, not like a
visiting demon, but as a maid of all work. To the public, the phenomenon
has presented no more interest than a soap-bubble or the fall of an
apple.
Somnambulism is a form of half-waking trance which usually comes on
during the night, and in ordinary sleep. When it occurs in the daytime,
the attack of trance is still ordinarily preceded by a short period of
common sleep.
The somnambulist then, half waking in trance, is disposed to rise and
move about. Sometimes his object seems a mere excursion, and then it is
remarked that he shows a disposition to ascend heights. So he climbs,
perhaps, to the roof of the house, and makes his way along it with
agility and certainty: sometimes he is observed, where the tiles are
loose, to try if they are secure before he advances. Generally these
feats are performed in safety. But occasionally, a somnambulist has
missed his footing, fallen, and perished. His greatest danger is from
ill-judged attempts to wake and warn him of his perilous situation.
Luckily, it is not easy to wake him. He then returns, goes to bed,
sleeps, and the next morning has no recollection of what he has done. In
other cases, the somnambulist, on rising from his bed, betakes himself
to his customary occupations, either to some handiwork, or to
composition, or what not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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