The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-08-05
sLEEP-WALKINa STORIES.
Memory as a Factor in Somnambu
lsn
From Al the Year Round.

From Al the Year Round.
The connection between natural sleep aud
magnetic, or mesmeric, sleep is so close that
the former has been called "lncipient
somnabulism.n 1t has been proven by re-
peated experiments that natural sleep is the
most favorable moment for magnetizing
any one. As rule, sleeping persons can
be magnetized with more ease and success
than if they were awake; but it is not nee
essary to believe all the extravaganza mira
cles which are claimed as the result of the
exercise of animal magnetism.
A good many of the phenomena of SOM
nambulism are expainable by memory.
There is an authenticated case of distin-
guished musician who once dreamed that
ne was listening to remarkable piece of
music performed by some singers. He re-
membered the melody on awakening and
was so delighted with it that he wrote it
down. Several years afterward as he was
turning over some Old sheets of music that
he had never seen before-as he thought
he came upon the very melody h5 had
dreamed. He could no5 remember that he
had ever seen or heard this melody except
in his dream, and yet it is beyond doubt
that he had heard it, that he had forgotten
it, and that it had been reproduced in his
! dream in the manner recorded.
COleridge tells of a maid servant who, in
the delirium of fever, repeated long pas
sageS in Latin, Greek and Hebrew@lan-
guages which she neither understood nor
could pronounce when in health but which
| she had heard former master often read
| ing aloud. An even more remarkable case
is mentioned by DR.. Mayo. This was of a
girl who, knowing absolutely nothing of
astronomy and mathematics, once in a
sOmnambulc state wrote down the pages
of an astronomical treatise, with calcula-
tious and delineations. 1t was found that
| this was taken from the Encyclopae liza
Britannica, which she said she had read in
the library. But when awake she could not
recall q word of it.
These are but some of many illustrations
which might be given of cases where what
appeared at first to be remarkable original
productions were only reproductions of
memory long dormant. They show that
sleep and delirium often reverse the for
mer process Of forgetting, and that, as Du
Prel says, we possess a latent memory, the
content of which partially returns in
dreams; sometimes with, but often without,
recollection. The exaltation of memory
which takes place in Sleep explains many
remarkable dreams and somnambulistic
mott MS, to which superStitious or mystic
significance is supposed to attach.
Du Prel mentions the case of a girl en-
ployed as a neatnerd, who occupied a room
divided only by a thin partition from that
OF violin player, who used to play often
during half the night This girl, after some
months, got another place, and after she
had been there for some two years sounds
began TO De heard coming from her room
exactly ike those OF violin. This went on
for hours, aud, with irregular intervals,
laSled Iof Two years. ben the girl began
to reproduce the tones of piano which
was played in The family, and afterwards
began to discourse IN her sleep, in learned
and sarcastic manner, on religious subjects
In every case sac was reproducing in sleep
what she had heard said or played by mem
beTS OF the family or visitors