Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 210, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1920 — WORK WHILE SOUND ASLEEP [ARTICLE]

WORK WHILE SOUND ASLEEP

Remarkable Instances of the Brain’s Peculiarity That Have Been Well Authenticated. Some surprising stories have been related in the newspapers recently concerning the strange doings of some of the sufferers of sleeping sickness. A fourteen-year-old bey, of Yorkshire, England,, is said to have slept while eating, the first signs of drowsiness commencing as far back as the middle of January. A girl violinist troubled her parents very often, for during her sleep she would rouse the household and neighbors by imitating a violin, even giving the preparatory scrapings and tuningup. The explanation of her doctor was that whilst she slept one of her senses—that of hearing—never knew any rest; and as the girl had Slept, when very young, while her father flddled, the habit of hearing It during the evenings had become so familiar that it was possible for her to imitate the sounds while she slept! A young student once, in a Continental College, was noted as a somnambulist “sport." While fast asleep he was fond of playing hide-and-seek and pillow-fighting. The other students knew of his unconscious midnight “monkey tricks." and whenever he commenced walking threw bolsters at him. which he always dodged. He would jump over bedsteads and obstacles put in his way, and It would be some time before he became roused. Increased power of mind during sleep is confirmed by the following Instance, one of the many authenticated examples. The great naturalist, Agasr sis successfully reconstructed the skeleton of a fossil fish during his sleep. He was pleasantly surprised on waking, for he had for several weeks been working on the subject with no success. The writer when at college awoke one morning to find that he had arisen in bis sleep and worked out correctly • puzzling and intricate problem in advanced mathematics, which he had been, unable to master the day before.