Insomnia; and Other Disorders of Sleep

by Henry M. Lyman

“SirIt affords me pleasure to comply with your request, made through my brother William, relative to some experiments performed on board the United States steamer ‘Princeton,’ in the latter part of the year 1847, she being then on a cruise in the Mediterranean. Nathaniel Bishop, the subject of the experiments, was a mulatto, about twenty-six years of age, in good health, but of an excitable disposition. The first experiment was of the magnetic or mesmeric sleep, which overpowered him in thirty minutes from the commencement of the passes made in the ordinary way, accompanied with a steadfast gaze and effort of the will that he should sleep.

“In this state he was insensible to all voices but mine, unless I directed or willed him to hear others; he was also insensible to such amount of pain as one might inflict without injury, that is, what would have been pain to another. He would obey my directions to whistle, dance or sing. When aroused from this sleep he had no recollection of what occurred while in it. That such an influence could be exerted, I was already aware, having previously witnessed satisfactory experiments. Of clairvoyance I had never been convinced; indeed, considered it nothing but a sort of dreaming produced by the will of the operator. I became aware of its truth rather through accident than design.

“It happened, one day, that some of my brother officers asked a question which the others could not answer. Bishop, who had been a few moments before in a mesmeric sleep, gave the desired information, speaking with confidence and apparent accuracy. As the information related to something which it seemed almost impossible to know without seeing, we were very much surprised. It struck me that he might be clairvoyant; and I at once asked him to tell me the time by a watch kept in the binnacle, on the spar or upper deck, we being on the berth or lower deck. He answered correctly, as I found upon looking at the watch, allowing eight or nine seconds for time occupied in getting on deck. I then asked him many questions with regard to objects at a distance, which he answered, and, as far as I could ascertain, correctly.

“For example, one evening, while at anchor in the port of Genoa, the captain was on shore. I asked Bishop, in the presence of several officers, where the captain then was. He replied, ‘At the opera with Mr. Lester, the consul.’ ‘What does he say?’ I inquired. Bishop appeared to listen, and in a moment replied: ‘The captain tells Mr. Lester that he was much pleased with the port of Xavia; that the authorities treated him with much consideration.’ Upon this, one of the officers laughed, and said that when the captain returned he would ask him. He did so, saying, ‘Captain, we have been listening to your conversation while on shore.’ ‘Very well,’ remarked the captain, ‘what did I say?’ expecting some jest. Then the officer repeated what the captain had said of Xavia and its authorities. ‘Ah,’ said the captain, ‘who was at the opera? I did not see any of the officers there.’ The lieutenant then explained the matter. The captain confirmed its truth, and seemed much surprised, as there had been no other communication with the shore during the evening. I may remark that we touched at several ports between Xavia and Genoa.

“On another occasion, an officer being on shore, I directed Bishop to examine his pockets; he made several motions with his hands, as if actually drawing something from the officer’s pockets, saying, ‘Here is a handkerchief and a box; what a curious thing! full of little white sticks with blue ends. What are they, Mr. Brooke?’ I replied, ‘Perhaps they are matches.’ ‘So they are,’ he exclaimed. My companion, expecting the officer mentioned, went on deck, and meeting him at the gangway, asked, ‘What have you in your pockets?’ ‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘But have you not a box of matches?’ ‘Oh, yes!’ said he. ‘How did you know it? I bought them just before I came on board. The matches are peculiar, made of white wax with blue ends.’

“The surgeons of the ‘Princeton’ ridiculed these experiments, upon which I requested one of them (Farquharson) to test for himself, which he consented to do. With some care he placed Bishop and myself in one corner of the apartment, and then took a position some ten feet distant, concealing between his hands a watch, the long hand of which traversed the dial. He first asked for a description of the watch. To which Bishop replied, ‘’Tis a funny watch, the second hand jumps.’

“The doctor then asked him to tell the minute and second, which he did; directly afterwards exclaiming, ‘The second hand has stopped!’ which was the case, Dr. Farquharson having stopped it. ‘Well,’ said the doctor, ‘to what second does it point, and to what hour, and what minute is it now?’ Bishop answered correctly, adding, ‘’Tis going again.’ He then told twice in succession the minute and second.

“The doctor was convinced, saying that it was contrary to reason, but he must believe. I then proposed that the doctor should mark; and directed Bishop to look in his mother’s house, in Lancaster, Pa., (where he had never been) for a clock; he said there was one, and told the time by it; one of the officers calculated the difference in time for the longitudes of Lancaster and Genoa, and the clock was found to agree within five minutes of the watch time.”

Such clairvoyance is very rare; in fact, it is difficult, at first thought, to believe in its existence. Nor should its alleged possession be credited in any instance until all possibility of deception has been excluded. The example just related seems to be, in this respect, one of the best, for the reason of its occurrence in a little group of men whose isolation and thorough acquaintance with each other must have reduced the chances of simulation to the lowest degree. When carefully considered, moreover, it is apparent that the exaltation of the functions of sight and of hearing in this case was not different in kind or in degree from that that has already been recorded in connection with certain cases of natural somnambulism and of dreaming. The condition of the brain is probably identical in all such instances; it is the mode of its induction that is subject to variation. The remarkable feature of the hypnotic state consists in its production at the pleasure of either the subject or of the agent under whose control he has passed; whereas the phenomena of natural somnambulism and of the clairvoyant dream occur only during sleep, and independently of the will of the patient.

Another singular fact in this connection is the receptivity of the hypnotized brain for suggestions from the minds of other persons. Usually, the patient is insensible to all communications which do not emanate from the agent by whom he is held in control; but in certain cases it is probable that the brain is more or less open to impressions of a particular sort from any source. Numerous examples illustrate the manner in which the course of an ordinary dream may be thus directed. The hypnotic dream is far more easily modified by suggestions from without. The simplest examples of this are exhibited by the hypnotized subject who walks, jumps, lies down, executes every variety of pantomime, in obedience to the commands of his director. Somewhat more complicated are the actions that are developed through excitement of the imitative faculties. Every movement of the director that can be perceived by the subject will be at once reproduced. Dr. Fischer relates[97] the case of a patient who, although exceedingly ignorant of the art of music, was able, during the hypnotic paroxysm, to sing with Jenny Lind all kinds of songs, so accurately that it was impossible to distinguish their separate voices. Expression of the various emotions and passions may also be provoked by merely placing the subject in the several attitudes characteristic of such feelings.