MESMERISM AND SONNAMBULISM.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 276, 12 March 1877, Page 3

MESMERISM AND SONNAMBULISM.

Jlr. Sergeant Cox. at a recent meeting of the London Pcycliological Society, made the fulioiving remarks in reference to m- r.;ii*.riMii : Uu bad tried mesmeric experiments very often at one period of his life, and lie was quite satisfied of their genuineness. The mesmeric sleep, he was convinced, was a self-induced condition ; all that the operator did being to fix the mind of the pitient on some one idea. In mesmerism there were several stages. The first was a stage of mere sleep, and if left in that stage patients would I'cmain sometimes for a very long time indeed. He had known tin iu to remain asleep for 14 or 15 hours. They remained in a passive cataleptic condition, that generally merged into a condition of ordinary sleep, from which they aweke, in more or less time, much refreshed. Me had once put a young man into a mesmeric sleep from which he was unable to wake him, and he became much alarmed in consequence. It was, however, late at night, and the sleeper was carried up to bud, .and when he went the next morning—of course, in a state of great anxiety—he found the young man, wiihad woke up during the night, considerably benefitted by the sleep. The diill-renej between the normal and the UKsmeri j sleeper was that one dreamt and realised in his own mind that he was going through a certain course of action which he really was not, while the other positively did act his dreams. Ordinary dreams came we knew not how —they v.t re suggested by the .spontaneous .action of our own minds, while mesmeric slcepei's mver acted anything unless it was suggested to them by another mind. It was not necessary, however, to suggest tlie whole action : it was enough to give the patient a perception that set the mind in action, and that being done, tlie mind acted upon that perception pi-ecisely as it did whe«: we were dreaming ourselves, and constructed upon that perception a perfect dream, which was really acted, liy f,»r example, it were suggested to the uieMneric sleeper that he was a preacher. I e would, perhaps, although but an illiterate- boy. stand up and preach an eloquent sermon", provided he had ever heard one. If it were suggested he was a singer, he would >tng. The curious part of it was, that it he were told to sing a comic song, he would sing one, and if stopped in the middle of it. and a hymn were suggested to htm, lie would leave off the song in an instant, and sing an hymn ; and if some time were a'iowed to elapse before he was operated upon again, and a comic song wax snggtstc i to him a second time, he would commence tfie song at tie; very note at which he piwion-dy broke oft, .and so afrit the hymn. During all that action of the mind the patient had no memory whatever <f what occurred during his sleep—ltor, the faintest. Another xxniarkable hut was t:iat if a long interval—he had known if as nine i as t weivo months—were allowed {•» elapse ai':«.:r a m.smeric operation htf-sv a patient was mesmerised a .•vc n I tint.', lie would remember everything that <irred ii; ids sonuauibulous