Whatever may be true of this matter of fore-sight, it is certain that under similar conditions the memory of past events may be so quickened as to yield results quite comparable with actual clairvoyance. A good illustration of this has been recorded by Abercrombie.[71] A gentleman named Rowland had been prosecuted for certain arrears of tithe which he believed had been long previously paid by his deceased father. “But, after an industrious search among his father’s papers, an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be discovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand when he conceived the loss of his lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He went to bed with this resolution, and, with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose: His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, as he thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind. In dreams men are not surprised at such apparitions. Mr. R. thought that he informed his father of the cause of his distress, adding that the payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to him because he had a strong consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to recover any evidence in support of his belief. ‘You are right, my son,’ replied the paternal shade; ‘I did acquire right to these teinds, for payment of which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are in the hands of Mr. ——, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired from professional business, and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who never, on any other occasion, transacted business on my account. It is very possible,’ pursued the vision, ‘that Mr. —— may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection by this token—that when I came to pay his account there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold, and that we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.’
“Mr. R. awoke in the morning with all the events of the vision impressed on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the country to Inveresk, instead of going to Edinburgh. When he came there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man; without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but, on mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his memory; he made an immediate search for the papers and recovered them, so that Mr. R. carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing.”
Here it would be a valuable addition to knowledge if the parties in the history just related could be subjected to intelligent interrogation. Enough, however, may be discovered in the narrative to render it certain that the dream was merely a revival in consciousness of knowledge that had been long previously forgotten. There was a vague recollection of some such information evidently struggling for recognition; otherwise Mr. R. could not have held the belief in spite of the lack of evidence, that his father had paid the tithes in dispute. He had probably heard from his father some account of a transaction which had taken place so long before that the only surviving actor, the aged lawyer, had forgotten everything about it, and could only recall the event through the associations connected with the Portugal piece of gold. In the lawyer’s case the cerebral register only needed the stimulus afforded by the association of ideas, in order to make it again place before the mind impressions which had long subsided below the level of consciousness. For Mr. R., sleep afforded the limitation of cerebral function needful for a concentration of attention sufficient to penetrate to the level of the residual vibrations which persisted as the sole representatives of the original impressions through which his knowledge of the event had been primitively obtained. Parallel examples are furnished by the cases of individuals who, upon their death-beds, during the dissolution of the brain, have resumed a long disused vocabulary, speaking the language and thinking the thoughts of their childhood. “He ‘babbled of green fields,’” said Mistress Quickly, narrating the closing scenes in the life of the famous Sir John Falstaff. Dr. Rush[72] relates the case of a learned Italian gentleman who, “in the beginning of the yellow fever which terminated his life, ... spoke English only; in the middle of the disease, he spoke French only; but on the day of his death, he spoke only in the language of his native country.” In like manner the old Swedish settlers in Philadelphia who had forgotten their native language, or, at least, had not spoken it for half a century, would pray in Swedish on their death-beds.[73] Sleep and dissolution operate alike to release the lower levels of the mnemonic apparatus from the overshadowing influence of later impressions, so that, like an ancient palimpsest, it presents once more its long-forgotten characters for inspection by the mind.
CHAPTER VI.
SOMNAMBULISM.
A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching.
—Macbeth.
We have seen that in certain cases dreams manifest a tendency to pass into action. Thus, the dream with which I was on one occasion occupied became so amusing that I was awakened by a paroxysm of laughter that continued for some time after the termination of the dream. Sometimes the actions which are thus determined become more complicated, but do not suffice to arouse the sleeper. He continues to dream, and to act out his dream. This constitutes the ordinary form of somnambulism. It is a special affection of the nervous system encountered chiefly among persons of a decidedly neurotic constitution—especially among the victims of hysteria, epilepsy, and insanity. Sometimes occurring in cases apparently characterized by perfect health, it will usually be discovered by careful inquiry that the subject is nevertheless connected by near relationship with a neurotic stock. In a third class of patients the neuropathic diathesis is not congenital, but is the acquired result of particular injuries or diseases of the head. It is also observed sometimes as a consequence of transitory functional disturbances of the brain connected with the period of convalescence from diseases that profoundly affect the nutrition of the nervous system. In all cases, however, it is probable that a special nervous temperament exists as a predisposing cause of the phenomena, for the majority of people can sustain injuries of the head, or of the peripheral nervous system, and can pass through all kinds of illness without exhibiting any tendency to somnambulism. As the nervous temperament is the peculiar property of children and of the female sex, it is among them that the affection is usually observed. Before the age of puberty, however, the differential peculiarities of sex are not sufficient to produce any great preponderance in either direction; and small boys are, therefore, perhaps as frequently somnambulistic as their little sisters. Like other neuropathic disorders, this predisposition is frequently met with as an hereditary attribute which may be handed down from generation to generation. Occurring in the experience of young children, it frequently ceases when they arrive at years of maturity. Not always, however, thus ceasing as a consequence of improvement in the general health, but because of the substitution of some more serious disorder.