“In another year from this time she began to talk a great deal in her sleep, in which she fancied herself instructing a young companion. She often descanted with the utmost fluency and correctness on a variety of subjects, both political and religious, the men of the day, the historical parts of Scripture, public characters, and particularly the character of the members of the family and their visiters. In these discussions she showed the most wonderful discrimination, often combined with sarcasm, and astonishing powers of mimickry. Her language through the whole was fluent and correct, and her illustrations often forcible and even eloquent. She was fond of illustrating her subjects by what she called a fable, and in these, her imagery was both appropriate and correct. The justice and truth of her remarks on all subjects, excited the utmost astonishment in those who were acquainted with her limited means of acquiring information.
“She had been known to conjugate correctly Latin verbs, which she had probably heard in the school room of the family, and she was once heard to speak several sentences very correctly in French, at the same time stating that she had heard them from a foreign gentleman whom she had met accidentally in a shop. Being questioned on this subject when awake, she remembered having seen the gentleman, but could not repeat a word of what he had said.
“During her paroxysms it was almost impossible to awake her, and when her eyelids were raised and a candle brought near the eye, the pupil seemed insensible to the light. For several years she was, during the paroxysm, entirely unconscious of the presence of other persons, but about the age of sixteen, she began to observe those who were in the apartment, and she could tell correctly their number though the utmost care was taken to have the room darkened. She now also became capable of answering questions that were put to her, and of noticing remarks made in her presence, and, with regard to both, she showed astonishing acuteness. Her observations indeed were often of such a nature, and corresponded so accurately with character and events, that, by the country people, she was believed to be endowed with supernatural power.
“During the whole period of this remarkable affection, which seems to have gone on for at least ten or eleven years, she was, when awake, a dull awkward girl, very slow in receiving any kind of instruction, though much care was bestowed upon her; and in point of intellect, she was much inferior to the other servants of the family. In particular, she showed no kind of turn for music. She did not appear to have any recollection of what passed in her sleep; but during her nocturnal ramblings, she was more than once heard to lament her infirmity of speaking in her sleep, adding how fortunate it was she did not sleep among the other servants, as they teased her enough about it as it was.
“About the age of twenty-one she became immoral in her conduct, and was dismissed the family. Her propensity to talk in her sleep continued to the time of her dismissal, but a great change had taken place in her nocturnal conversation. It had gradually lost its acuteness and brilliancy, and latterly became the mere babbling of a vulgar mind, often mingled with insolent remarks against her superiors, and the most profane scoffing at morality and religion. It is believed that she afterwards became insane.”
To what serious reflections does not this curious history give rise. Here there did unquestionably exist a double existence. The one a relative being surrounded with the realities of life; the other a natural condition, unshackled by constraint, and left entirely to the wild enjoyment of a luxuriant fancy and an apprehension quick and brilliant. In the former, the young creature found herself derided and degraded by her vulgar companions; her generous infirmities, if such they may be called, made the subject of low ribaldy. In her second existence, she became the free child of nature.
Might not proper care have saved this interesting creature from misery! It is admitted that “much care had been bestowed upon her instruction,” but was she withdrawn from the low circle that surrounded her and placed in a society where, in her waking hours, she could have derived those advantages of a superior intercourse, which might have worked upon her vivid imagination as powerfully as the melodious sounds she had heard at other times? “She became immoral—scoffed at religion”—in her sleep. She was then in a state of nature; unconscious, to a certain extent, of immorality and religion, although conscious, no doubt, of relative good and evil. Is it not more than probable that when awake, not only were her ears assailed by profane and improper language, but is it not most likely that her ruin was perpetrated during her visionary slumbers, and ever after visited her mind during her paroxysms? Nor is it improbable that her affections had been bestowed upon her despoiler. Instead of being dismissed and cast upon the wide world, helpless, stigmatized, perhaps, with the odious epithet of witch—for we have seen that the lower order considered her such—might not a friendly hand have secured her in an abode where she might have been invited to COME and sin no more! Alas! no wonder that the poor creature should have become insane! It is said that she was obtuse in intellect when awake. May not this be accounted for in some measure, by the exhaustion of her mental faculties during her paroxysms? It is to be lamented that the learned and philosophic Dr. Abercrombie, who has given this history, did not comment upon it. True Christianity and its benevolence breath in every line of the eloquent writer, and the poor Scotch lassie might have afforded him a valuable theme. How proud would any humane person have felt in making this interesting object of pity what she might have been!
Dr. Dewar also relates the case of an ignorant servant-girl, who, during the paroxysm of somnambulism, showed an astonishing knowledge of geography and astronomy, and expressed herself, in her own language, in a manner which, though often ludicrous, showed an understanding of the subject. The alteration of the seasons, for example, she explained by saying the world was set a gee.
In many cases of somnambulism the sleeper is able to continue the occupation that he had previously carried on. Martinet mentions a watchmaker’s apprentice, whose paroxysm came on once in the fortnight, and commenced in a sensation of heat ascending to the heart. This was followed by a confusion of thought and insensibility. His eyes were open, but fixed and vacant, and he was totally insensible to every thing around him. Yet he continued his usual employment, and was always much surprised when he awoke to find the progress that had taken place in his work. This case ended in epilepsy.
Horstius, whom we have already quoted, tells us of a noble youth of Breslau, living in the citadel, who used to steal out of a window during his sleep, muffled up in his cloak, and ascend the roof of the building, where one night he tore in pieces a magpie’s nest, wrapped up the little ones in his cloak, and returned to bed. The following morning he mentioned the circumstance as having occurred in a dream, but could not be persuaded of the reality of the circumstance till the magpies in the cloak were shown to him.