SLEEPWALKING FAMILY

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 31, 6 February 1936, Page 13

SLEEPWALKING FAMILY

DOCTORS PUZZLED

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, January 30. A family that walks in its sleep is the subject of attention and discussion by prominent Sydney doctors. Sleepwalking, they say, is not hereditary. The "Nightwalk" family, puzzles them. The oldest member of the family has taken a number of sleeping strolls in the streets near his home, clad only in pyjamas. Several times he has been discovered somnambulating around the neighbourhood, and has been taken home. At other times he has returned undisturbed from walks of up to two miles, and got into bed again. In the morning he remembers nothing of these walks. On the advice of a doctor, this man has been placed in a private hospital for observation and treatment. The doctor's inquiries revealed the sleepwalking of other members of the family. It was not uncommon for others of the family to rise 'in the middle of the night and go about their ordinary domestic duties. CAN BE CURED. The sleepwalking habit, doctors say, can be cured if victims can find and remove the conscious motive which directs the unconscious mind to action. In some cases of sleepwalking reported in New South Wales the somnambulists have walked over the edges of balconies. Others have walked, fast asleep, along narrow railings, balancing with a strange, unerring skill. Others have walked nude in the streets. One country case concerned a boy who got out of bed at 2 a.m., dressed himself, and went to school. Sydney's most spectacular sleepwalker was a woman. Clad only in her nightdress, she walked down a city street, boarded a tram, rode for nearly half a mile, and alighted. Then no one waking her, she walked back to her home in the city. Questioned next day, she could not remember her nocturnal and rather embarrassing adventure.