172. Somnambulism may be considered as a variety of the medianimic faculty, or, rather, they are two orders of phenomena very often found combined. The somnambulist acts under the influence of his own spirit; it is his soul, which, in moments of emancipa- tion, sees, hears, and perceives, outside the limit of the senses ; what he expresses, he draws from himself; his ideas are, in general, more just than in the normal state, his knowledge more extended, because his soul is free; in a word, he lives, by anticipation, the life of spirits.
The medium, on the contrary, is the instrument of a foreign intelligence; he is passive, and what he says comes not from himself. To recapitulate: the somnam- bulist expresses his own thought, the medium that of another. But the spirit who communicates to an ordi- nary medium could also as well to a somnambulist; often the state of emancipation of the soul renders this communication more easy. Many somnambulists see spirits perfectly, and describe them with as much pre- cision as the seeing mediums; they can talk with them, and transmit their thought to u s ; what they say beyond the circle of their own knowledge is often suggested to them by other spirits. Here is a remark- able example, where the double action of the spirit of the somnambulist and of the foreign spirit reveals itself in the most unequivocal manner.