somnambulism (somnambulizm)

[F. somnambulisme = Sp. somnambulismo, sonambulismo = Pg. somnambulismo = It. sonnambu lismo; as somnambule + -ism.] The act of walking about, with the performance of apparently purposive acts, while in a state intermediate between sleep and waking. The sleeping condition is shown by the absence of the usual reaction to sense impre ions, and usually by the failure to recall what has been done during the somnambulistic period. With many recent writers, however, the word is used, quite independently of any consideration of movements which the somnambulist may or does execute, as nearly synonymous with trance, mesmerization, or hypnotism, and exactly so with somnolism. It is generally considered under the two main conditions of the idiopathic, spontaneous, or self-induced and the artificial or induced. Compare somnolism. Also called, rarely, noctambulism. In somnambulism , natural or induced, there is often a great display of intellectual activity, followed by complete oblivion of all that has pa ed. W. James, Prin. of Psychology, I. 201. Somnambulism is, as a rule, a decidedly deeper state than the lighter stage of hypnotism. E. Gurney, in Proc. Soc. Psych. Research, II. 68.