Lady Macbeth's Children

Sleepwalking, one of the standbys of slapstick humorists, is actually no laughing matter. It is often a symptom of a serious neurosis. And, contrary to popular belief, sleepwalkers are not immune to harm: they are a danger to themselves and others. Instances:

P: An English somnambulist once killed and carved up his wife while asleep.

P: An eight-year-old Texas boy with a smoking shotgun in his hand was found fast asleep on the foot of the bed where his mother lay dead of a shotgun wound.

P: One Matthew Lukaszewski, while asleep, jumped from his second-story window, rolled off an awning, broke his wrist and walked five blocks before pursuing relatives awoke him.

About 2% of adults are somnambulists (the affliction is more common in childhood and adolescence, but many get over it). As somnambulism is not a cause for Army rejection, many a snoring barracks-ful of G.I.s has been waked by the crash of a sleeper stumbling over a foot locker. At Camp Lee, Va., Lieut. Colonel Samuel A. Sandier has discovered and interviewed 22 somnambulists ("which ... we believe to be the largest number of cases so far studied"). His report in Mental Hygiene last week clearly demonstrates the connection between somnambulism and neurosis.

Papa's Boys by Day. Says Colonel Sandier: "The personality structure of the somnambulist is that of the overprotected, babied adult. . . . Somnambulism, in its essence, represents to the sleepwalker an attempt to escape from threatening dangers."

Colonel Sandler's somnambulists all told him almost the same story. His findings: 1) "unlike the ordinary, run-of-the-mill neurotic, these somnambulists did not come from broken homes"; 2) most of the soldiers' fathers had some disease, yet "the fathers in the entire group were feared, respected and idolized"; 3) most of the mothers were not so popular; 4) half of the somnambulists had been the youngest child in a very large family (the average sleepwalker had five and a half brothers & sisters); 5) many of the families had his tories of mental illness, including suicide; 6) nine sleepwalkers were single and of the 13 married ones, five had been divorced and quickly remarried; 7) even those who had stayed married were not much interested in women; some were openly hostile.

Demons by Night. "The night personalities of these men were in marked contrast to their gentle dispositions during the day. . . . They were argumentative and hostile, which was probably indicative of their basic character. . . . One man started a fight with a guard, knocked him down and thereby risked being shot." The somnambulant men fell down stairs, got burns, cuts, bruises. One walked many miles cross-country looking for his uncle (his father was dead). One stole his best friend's wallet. They dreamed of snakes, of being chased by men with knives or by rabid dogs. Some dreamed that their fathers saved them.

All the Camp Lee somnambulists got psychiatric treatment. "We make no claim to have cured these men," reports Colonel Sandier, "but we did succeed in helping a number ... to adjust to the army situation, which is the objective of military psychiatry."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.