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Somnambulism   Listen
Somnambulism

noun
1.
Walking by a person who is asleep.  Synonyms: noctambulation, noctambulism, sleepwalking, somnambulation.






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"Somnambulism" Quotes from Famous Books



... convinced of her innocence, when they see her in this state of somnambulism, in which she crosses a very narrow ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... attacked, however, by some internal disease; and after many months of suffering, she was reduced into that abnormal and singular condition, in which she exhibited the phenomena known to modern wonder-seekers as those of somnambulism or clairvoyance. The scientific value of such phenomena is still undetermined, but that they are not purely imaginary is generally agreed. In the histories of all countries and of all times, we are familiar with accounts of young women of bad health and irritable ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... She looked steadily into my face with eyes shining and her whole being transformed. In some intuitive way, surviving probably from the somnambulism, she knew or guessed as ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... nation; And therefore I humbly beg to propose, That those savans who mean, as the rumor goes, To sit on Miss Okey's wonderful case, Should also Lord Parry's case embrace; And inform us, in both these patients' states, Which ism it is that predominates, Whether magnetism and somnambulism, Or, simply and ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... certain occult powers of the mind, with which the newly discovered action of magnetism seemed to him to be connected. At first, his ideas on the subject were a good deal mixed. When, in 1832, a terrible epidemic of cholera was spreading its ravages, he wrote to Doctor Chapelain, suggesting that somnambulism—he would have called it hypnotism to-day—should be employed to seek out the causes of the malady, and a test applied to prove whether its virtues were real or chimerical. In 1834, he had come to pin his faith to the healing powers of magnetism. "When you ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... still the virtual has to become actual. Without language, intelligence would probably have remained riveted to the material objects which it was interested in considering. It would have lived in a state of somnambulism, outside itself, hypnotized on its own work. Language has greatly contributed to its liberation. The word, made to pass from one thing to another, is, in fact, by nature transferable and free. It can therefore be extended, not ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... also kills ambition and creates hopeless, indifferent persons. Therefore, made wiser by psychology we realize the importance of stirring the mind out of a fixed rut, or rather a stupidity that verges on somnambulism, and keeping it alert and active. Sheep growers, for example, try in every way to divert the minds of their shepherds lest the continual watching of a slowly moving flock paralyze their minds and ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... a reality of the magnetic phenomena, as he has witnessed them himself, in a case of what is called somnambulism. He dares not pronounce on the question of magnetism, as a therapeutical agent; but is disposed to think it ought, if ever, to be used with great reserve. Whether it consist of nervous phenomena of a particular order, or whether it be a product ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... were lying unburied in the next room, how Mrs Perch had first come to surmise that things was going wrong by hearing him (Perch) moaning in his sleep, 'twelve and ninepence in the pound, twelve and ninepence in the pound!' Which act of somnambulism he supposed to have originated in the impression made upon him by the change in Mr Dombey's face. Then would he inform them how he had once said, 'Might I make so bold as ask, Sir, are you unhappy in your mind?' and how Mr Dombey had replied, 'My faithful Perch—but ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... a reading ticket at once, and read the books in the order I put down. Never forget to leave paper and pencil by your bedside. Leah will soon get accustomed to your quiet somnambulism; I will never trouble your rest for more than an hour or so each night, but you can make up for it by staying in bed an hour or two longer. You will have to work during the day from the pencil notes in Blaze you will have written during the night, and in ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... epidemic at Morzines in upper Savoy. It began with two little girls, pious and precocious, who had convulsive attacks. It spread to other children and then to adults. Amongst the younger of those affected, ecstasy, catalepsy, and somnambulism were seen, and later, convulsions only; convulsive attacks returned several times a day. An attack usually began with yawning, restless movements, the aspects of fear passing into fury with violent and impulsive movements, with vociferations ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... thoughtfully, "certain persons have had visions of the spiritual world through the complete detachment which somnambulism produces between their external form and their inner being. 'In this state,' says Swedenborg in his treatise on Angelic Wisdom (No. 257) 'Man may rise into the region of celestial light because, his corporeal senses being ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... came close and anchored. 'I wish,' said the old man, 'you would find out whether she is English. Perhaps they could give us a passage somewhere.' He seemed nervously anxious. So by dint of punching and kicking I started one of my men into a state of somnambulism, and giving him an oar, took another and pulled towards the lights of ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad

... without the other. The mind sometimes is all life when the body is dead, and oftener still is the body all life when the mind seems gone. Mind, too, may frequently act independently, not only of the body, as in dreams, but, also, of consciousness and of the heart; while the body, as in somnambulism, may ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... responsible in one phase of his being for a crime committed in another—for a crime, or any other act involving the welfare or condition of other people. The analogy with sleep does not here seem altogether satisfactory; for in ordinary sleep, or even somnambulism, we are not in active relations with our fellow-beings, and consequently our lawgivers have not devised a code to control our doings while in that state. A jury, in delivering its verdict, would be embarrassed by the reflection that although ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne

... was a real disease, or I know not if it may be called a kind of somnambulism. Without doubt it was the effect of extreme lassitude, occasioned by ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico



Words linked to "Somnambulism" :   somnambulist, sleepwalking, noctambulism, sleeping, noctambulation, walk, somnambulation, walking



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