CHAPTER VI.
NATURAL SOMNAMBULISM—HYPNOTIC SOMNAMBULISM—DREAMS.
The first of these more accessible conditions to claim attention is natural somnambulism, or sleep-walking. The phenomena of this peculiar state have been observed from time immemorial, and have always been looked upon as one of the most wonderful and interesting subjects in the domain of the old psychology.
In this state the subject, while apparently in ordinary sleep, arises from his bed and proceeds, sometimes to perform the most ordinary, everyday actions—cooking a dinner, washing clothes, sawing wood, or going out to a neighboring market town to transact business; sometimes, on the other hand, he does the most unusual things; he performs perilous journeys in dangerous and unfamiliar places in perfect safety and with unusual ease; sometimes intellectual work of a difficult nature, such as had baffled the student in his waking hours, is easily accomplished, and he finds the solution of his mathematical problem or the needed point in his argument all plainly wrought out and prepared for him when he goes to his desk the following morning; moreover, if the work from any cause should be interrupted, and the same conditions recur upon the following or some subsequent night, it may be resumed at the point where it was interrupted; or if the somnambulist talks, as well as acts, in his sleep the conversation shows that each succeeding occasion is connected with previous ones, all together constituting a chain of memories similar to that of the different personalities which have been presented in the four cases already described.
Sometimes all these different actions are accomplished without light or with the eyes fast closed, or else open and staring, but without vision. Sometimes, however, the new personality developed in the sleep of the somnambulist fails to come into proper relations with his surroundings, when he may also fail to accomplish the dangerous journey, and may walk from an open window or an unguarded balcony with disastrous results.
The second condition which presents analogies to the duplex or multiplex personalities, which are under consideration, is that of the somnambulism which occurs in the hypnotic sleep. While usually the hypnotic subject is passive and unconsciously receives the suggestions which are impressed upon him, not unfrequently a personality comes to the front which acts independently, and presents all the characteristics which we have found pertaining to a distinct personality.
A rare example of this alternating personality brought about by hypnotism is afforded by the French subject, Mme. B., whose acquaintance we have already made as a subject upon whom hypnotism at a distance was successfully carried out by Prof. Janet and Dr. Gibert of Havre. As we have already seen, in her ordinary condition Mme. B. is a stolid, substantial, honest French peasant, about forty years of age, of very moderate intelligence, and without any education or any ambition for notoriety. In this state Prof. Janet calls her Léonie.
Hypnotized, she is at once changed into a bright, vivacious, mischief-loving, rather noisy personality, who considers herself on excellent terms with the doctor, and whom the professor names Léontine. Later, by further hypnotization and a deeper trance, there appears a sedate, sensible personality, intellectually much superior to Léonie, the primary self, and much more dignified than the vivacious Léontine, and this third personality Prof. Janet calls Léonore.