ABNORMAL SLEEP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 151, 27 June 1936, Page 10 (Supplement)

ABNORMAL SLEEP.

STRANGE PHENOMENA. UNCANNY DEMONSTRATIONS. Familiar a/3 is normal sleep, no one can fully explain it. It is, nevertheless, a blessed fact. Though it seems to take one-third from our life, it really prolongs it by the daily renewing of vigour. Some of the abnormal forms of sleep exhibit strange phenomena. We need not dwell on sleep induced by opiates; the lethargy of apoplexy and, what is doubtless akin to it, the sleep of the drunkard; the coma of Bright's disease and diabetes, and the almost irresistible sleep caused by freezing cold. The sleep of somnambulism is a very interesting form. The person will rise and walk abroad in the darkness and into the most dangerous situations wholly without fear. The power of 6ight is often greatly exalted; it seems sometimes wholly independent of ordinary vision. Another form ic that of catalepsy. In this there is an entire loss of sensibility and ordinary consciousness. The limbs may be placed in any position, the most grotesque and uncomfortable, and they remain so, as if they were made of wax. Still another form is that of hypnotism or mesmerism, induced on susceptible subjects by skilled manipulators. The person becomes insensible to pain, and his or her will is entirely subjected to that of the experimenter. The barest suggestion through any sense is sufficient to put the person under the dominance of the idea suggested.

Akin to artificial hypnotism is a morbid condition into which persons of a nervous organisation sometimes fall. The celebrated "Soho Sleeper" would, for many years, fall asleep for a fortnight or more at a time, meanwhile exhibiting more or less the peculiar characteristics of hypnotism. Many similaf cases might be cited, for hardly a month passes when the newspapers do not tell the wonderful story of some "sleeping girl" who has been living unconscious for weeks. Some of the cases are not only interesting scientifically, but pathetic. In 1745 the wife of an English colonel apparently died. The husband persistently refused to have her buried, and watched over her cold and motionless body for eight days. Suddenly, on the bells of a church ringing, she started up, saying: "It is the last prayer-bell; it is time to go." A lady patient was requesting to have a hotwater bottle put to her feet, saying: "I feel —" when she passed into a cataleptic state, and remained in it three hours. On opening her eyes, she ended her sentence—"a great cold over my whole body."