Somnambulism and Cramps

When I was in my early teens, I used to sleepwalk. Sleepwalking is a strange condition. I would get out of bed, walk around the bed of my brother, go into the hallway, or into the bathroom, and just stand there. My brother usually woke up my parents to tell them what was going on, because I didn’t respond to him. It took a while for my parents to wake me up, and ask me what I was doing. When I woke up, I had not idea why I was there.

One evening, my brother was reading one of my comic books. As he was older, he was allowed to go to bed at a later time than me. Before I went upstairs to go to sleep, I told him, that when it was his time to go to bed, to wake me up and give me my comic book back. In the morning, I woke up and asked him why he didn’t give me my book back. He got angry and told me that he had given it back. When he entered the bedroom, he called my name, and I sat up in bed, and with open eyes took the book and threw it under my bed. I thought he was lying, but checked and yes, the book was indeed under my bed.

The sleepwalking episodes did not last that long, maybe a number of months.

I recently wrote the article of The Odic Energy of Life, a summary of Karl von Reichenbach’s work with sensitive people who could feel and see an otherwise invisible energy he termed ‘Od’. He wrote a separate book, called Somnambulism and Cramps, about the many other abilities these people had, as many of them were also somnambulists or sleepwalkers. Although he attributed their condition to a nervous system disorder, he found that somnambulists were in a very different state of mind which displayed strange characteristics. Their physical senses were shut of, but they could see with their eyes shut. Their memory in that state was much greater than in the waking state. They could read thoughts and had what we now would call psychic abilities. Moreover, they could be brought in the somnambulistic state by magnetic passes.

Reichenbach’s works gave me not only insight in the phenomenon of Odic energy and somnambulism, but I found some interesting parallels in my life. My sleepwalking episodes began after a heavy fall on my head, with resulting concussion, and a change in my consciousness, making me very sensitive to other people’s energies. In Reichenbach’s book, Somnambulism and Cramps, he mentions one case in which the person got a head injury and immediately became a somnambulist afterwards. In his book Physico-physiological researches on the dynamics of magnetism, electricity, heat, light, crystallization, and chemism, in their relation to Vital Force (of which The Odic Energy of Life is a summary), he explains that most of the sensitives he worked with were very sensitive to how they faced the cardinal points. They could not sit with their back to the west, and could not sleep or had disturbed sleep when their head pointed to the west. I remember that before my teens, I would wake up in bed in a reverse position, with my head all the way at the foot end. I was confused and then panicked because I couldn’t throw the blankets off, until I figured out I was in a reverse position. I didn’t know at that time that I was sleeping with my head to the west, what causes unrest in a sensitive person, and, although asleep, I was trying to correct this my turning changing my position so my head was pointing east, which is the next best position than north. I must already have been a sensitive person, before my head injury. My grandmother on my mother’s side was a faith healer, and my grandfather on my father’s side had some clairvoyant abilities. Sensitivity, and also somnambulism, often runs in families.

Somnambulism and Cramps is a very interesting book, and although written in the 19^th century, can be a great help to present day sensitive people and sleepwalkers. Reichenbach was a scientist who was meticulous and methodical. Modern day science sees somnambulism as a brain disorder, for which they have no cure. So they have nothing to offer you. If you want to know more about all the characteristics that Reichenbach found with somnambulists, or sleepwalkers, go to my article of Somnambulism and Cramps, which is a summary of his book.