Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-01-05

No Affinity Between This Addiction
and HypnOtism.

| From the Chicago Times Herald.
| Efforts of a rather well-known scientist
| to show an affinity between somnambulism
and hypnotism are not meeting with much
encouragement. He holds that somnambu-
| lism is a modified hypnosis, and argues
! that sleepwalkers, so called. have no more
memory Of their somnambulistic deeds
| than subjects under the influence of hypno-
| tism.
have been adduced where the sleepwalkers
were able to give after waking fairly accu-
rate accounts OF their experiences and SEN
| sations So this. 1t is commended, shows con-
| clusvcly that Somna mbulism and hypno-
| tism are two entirely distinct conditions.
The discussion reminds the writer of an
| experience which an Edinburgh lawyer, a
confirmed somnambulfSt, went through
some little time ago One evening, after
dinner. he told his wife that he had a most
difficult law case which would occupy him
half the night to study out For hours
thereafter he grappled with its intricacies
but finally desisted. saying it would be
impossible to make his brief until morning,
since the case presented some difficulties
that he had been unable to master
He fell asleep from exhaustion almost as
soon as he went to bed but in few min
utes rose and, seating himself at his desk
wrote furiously for an hour or more. Then
carefully folding and indorsing the sheets
he had written upon. he put them away in
a pigeonhole of his desk, after which, with
out speaking, he returned to his bed and
slept soundly till late in the morning.
At breakfast he expressed some uncer-
tatnty as to his finding a solution" His
wife told him to look through his desk.
! which he did, discovering the paper he had
written in the pigeonhole where he had
hidden 1t. As he read it joy. mingled with
amazement, showed plainly in his face, for
the paper was a clearly reasoned. correct
~ phrased brief on the intricate case. with
all the obscure points smoothed out! He
10 SIiphfnSt nFh Howl
written the document.
Another extraordinary case Is that of a
young man who, an hour or so before
starting on q railway Journey paid visit
to steamer in which his parents were
financially interested. In the course of the
| inspection he entered the little chamber
in the bow of the vessel where the anchor
chain Is coiled, and was impressed by the
chambers smaliness and the cramped
quarters 1t would afford a man sent down
there to superintend the paying out of the
chain. In due course the traveller went to
the railway station and engaged a snug
seat in the corner of a frst-class corridor
and sleeping carriage. He had the COM
partment to himself The train had not
been long on its journey before the young
man was sound asleep. But he imag ned
that he was awake, and. moreover that
he was imprisoned in the little anchor chain
compartment OF the steamer. The vessel
was under way, he thought and moving
more rapidly than ne had ever known a
steamer to move before.
His first idea was to go on deck at once
but he could not get out of the cell-like
chamber. He could not stand erect even.
the compartment was so little, as he found
out at the cost of an imaginary bumped
head when he attempted to rise. Then, to
his surprise, he found that the room had
window. evidently a headlight. but square
and unusually large. This he tried to raise,
but. failing. determined to break 1t, think
ing that he could seize the anchor chain
and by its aid reach the deck.
There WAS only one way4 to Rmaah thN