A special form of lost or unconscious memories recurring in sleep
is constituted by the cases in which people when asleep, or in a
somnambulistic state, can speak languages which they have forgotten, or
never consciously known, when awake. A simple instance, known to me,
is furnished by a servant who had been taken to Paris for a few weeks
six months before, but had never learned to speak a word of French, and
whose mistress overheard her talking in her sleep, and repeating various
French phrases, like 'Je ne sais pas, Monsieur'; she had certainly heard
these phrases, though she maintained, when awake, that she was ignorant
of them. Speaking in a language not consciously known, or xenoglossia,
as it is now termed, occurs under various abnormal conditions, as well
as in sleep, and is sometimes classed with the tendency which is found,
especially under great religious excitement, to 'speak with tongues,' or
to utter gibberish.[205] But in various sleep-like states it occurs as a
true revival of forgotten memories, sometimes of memories which belong to
childhood and in normal consciousness have been long overlaid and lost.
On one occasion, by the bedside of a lady who was kept for a considerable
period in a light condition of chloroform anaesthesia, the patient began
to talk in an unfamiliar language which one of us recognised as Welsh; as
a child, she afterwards owned, she had known Welsh, but had long since
forgotten it.[206] A similar reproduction of lost memories occurs in the
hypnotic state.
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