KILLED IN A DREAM

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20464, 2 April 1938, Page 16 (Supplement)

KILLED IN A DREAM

Mental Specialists’ Theories of Somnambulists’ Suicide

his boots, and I had the greatest difficulty In waking him. He had no recollection after of what he had been doing.” Dr. H. G. Ludolf had told the coro- ' ner: “Eke might conceivably have • walked in his sleep and done it while i in a subconscious mood.” Extraordinary Theory "An extaordlnary theory,” commented the coroner, Mr W. E. J. Major, returning a verdict that Eke died by taking his own life, and that "probably jat the time he was walking in his ' Bleep the balance of his mind was dis- | turbed.” • London mental specialists told the ! ! Daily Mirror that the case was “unique ; in the history of sleep-walking.” ! J But they thought it "quite probable” I that Eke, not realising what he was 1 • doing, could have got up in the middle 1 j of the night, put his head in the oven and turned on the gas. "Cases of people walking through I windows and falling to their death in 1 their sleep are common," a pschologist attached to the National Council of • Mental Hygiene said. "After all, the man was probably 5 used to turning on gas taps in his f J waking life.”

(Times Air Mail Service) LONDON, March 5 Mark Wellington Eke, 49-year-old Devonport ship’s fitter, killed himself I In a dream. i Mark was a sleep-walker of an j amazing kind. He would dress himself and act just as if he were at work, his widow says, while the family at to-day’s inquest expressed the opinion that he killed himself unconsciously while sleep-walking. Even Tied His Laces “But there was no reason for suicide,’’ her son, Mr Frederick Eke. told me to-night. “When he came home that night, after playing in the band at the Salvation Army at a concert, he was very happy.” "His work was very intricate, and at night he used to worry a lot because he had not finished a Job,” the widow j told me. “Then when he was asleep he would j get np, dress, and start going through all the motions of being at work—trying to finish the job he had left undone. “When he did that he would dress completely, even to tying the laces cf