Insomnia; and Other Disorders of SleepLyman, Henry M. (Henry Munson)
Science
Insomnia; and Other Disorders of Sleep
Lyman, Henry M. (Henry Munson)
Dreams; Insomnia; Sleepwalking
“On a wintry morning,” writes the professor, “between five and six
o’clock, I was aroused, as I thought, by the head nurse, who reported to
me that some people had come for one of the male patients, and who at the
same time asked me whether I had any particular orders to give. I replied
that the patient might depart, and after he had left the room I turned
around to go to sleep again. All at once it struck me that I had
previously not heard anything regarding the intended departure of this
patient, but that only the prospective departure of a woman of the same
name had been reported to me. This compelled me to inquire more
particularly after the circumstances, and accordingly I lighted a candle,
rose, dressed myself, and went to the room of the head nurse. To my
surprise I found him only half dressed, and, in reply to my inquiry after
the people who had called for the patient, he said, with an expression of
astonishment, that he did not know anything of it, as he had but just left
his bed, and no one had called him. This answer did not arouse my
consciousness, but I rejoined that then the steward must have been in my
room, and that I should accordingly go to see and ask him regarding the
matter. When descending a few steps in the middle of the corridor which
led to the room of the steward, I suddenly became conscious of having
dreamed only what until that moment I had believed to be an experience
whose reality I had not doubted in the least.”
In some instances the fact of having dreamed is never recognized, and the
dreamer carries through life the delusion that his vision was an actual
occurrence. Among the Indians of Guiana, and the same thing is true of
many other savages, dreams are looked upon as actual events in which the
dreamer is visited by spirits or even by other living men. A recent
English traveler[61] says: “It becomes important, therefore, fully to
recognize the complete belief of the Indian in the reality of his
dream-life, and in the unbroken continuity of this with his working life.
It is easy to show this belief by many incidents which came under my
notice. For instance, one morning, when it was important to me to get away
from a camp on the Essequibo River, at which I had been detained for some
days by the illness of some of my Indian companions, I found that one of
the invalids, a young Macusi, though better in health, was so enraged
against me that he refused to stir, for he declared that, with great want
of consideration for his weak health, I had taken him out during the night
and had made him haul the canoe up a series of difficult cataracts.
Nothing could persuade him that this was but a dream, and it was some time
before he was so far pacified as to throw himself sulkily into the bottom
of the canoe. At that time we were all suffering from a great scarcity of
food, and hunger having its usual effect in producing vivid dreams,
similar effects frequently occurred. More than once the men declared in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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