Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1873-05-05
upyA GAZETTE & VIRGINIA ADVERTISER.
The Dangers OF Dream-Land.

The casc of the New Hampshire boy, Viii
fred Fits, who has dangerous habit of rising
from bis bed 10 somnambulistic condition aud
attempting to murder other seepers,.is an in
tcrestiDg one for the study of psychologists In
his waking hours he is an Ordinary lad, with
the virtues and faults Of average juvenlity, but
not exhibiting in the slightest degree the blood
thirsty tendencies which come over him with
the mystery Of sleep Even before his recent
exploits, which have confined him to the jail at
Exeter, be has been known to arise in his
sIumbers and obtain Ratchet or other weapon
and attempt the murder Of other boys. Once
be was fonnd fast asleep with a Ratchet in his
hands, in an attic OF some neighbor's house on
hunt for some one who had usually made his
lodging there, but was absent on that occasion.
to Jail. came very near being fatal, as the vic
tiu, while sleeping was SO terribly cut and
gashed that he only saved himself from death
by such resistance as he could make when
awakened by his wounds. But even in the
prison Fits is an ugly customer, for being placed
in cell with two men, he endeavored In the
middle OF the night to cut their throats with
razor which he found upon the window sill.
They seized the boy and shook him until he
came to bis senses. When asked what be was
trying to do, he did not know, and when they
told him he began to cry, but afterwards
dreamily said that it was lucky that he had not
killed them both.
Theexercises of such abnormal faculties seem
like echoes from footballs on the boundaries of
another world. Investigators into the secrets OF
the brain and sonl have dived deep into the
occult science Of physics, but they have halted
short of satisfactory explanation of the strange
course of dreams. That twin brother of death
Ill saI II
sometimes controls the physical powers to mar
when person sleeps those parts of his brain
which have been most exercised during the
day are sound asleep, like the tired limbs and
muscles, and that other mental faculties or
parts that have been dormant or unused during
thesuult hours arise then to ungoverned action;
hence they run riot In the wierd fantasy of
dreams, and sometimes govern the natural
functions 30 completely as to compel them to
the comprising of actions strange to the lndl-
ridual who has full control in the day of all his
powers ltthis theory is to be accepted, this
boy must be endowed with great disposition
towards the shedding of blood, which slumbers
while be is awake and arouses when he slum-
bers. But this is actually no more than sup
position, and it does not release US from the
enigma OF what this mysterious power OF SOM
nambusm is. Condorcet in his sleep thought
out a problem which had defed him
when awake; Coleridge produced the Kubla
Khan while wrapped in slumbcr, and there arc
numerous other instances of supernatural
activity and efficiency of the brain whilst the
body reposes. This soul power of vision ena.
bes those whom it scizes to walk safely and
surely In the dark, to tread safely on pcrilous
ground, and to act under seeming and COVER
ing intelligence which ordinarily attaches only
90 the full exercise of all the mental and ply
sical faculties. Such occurrences are common,
and they take upon them marvellous forms
which defy tracing to their sources-Buh Am.