I heard him say, 'Sweet Desdemona,
Let us be wary.'"

Hitherto Othello had borne up manfully against the cruel insinuations of
Iago--but this sleep-revelation "denoted a foregone conclusion," and
carried with it irresistible conviction. Upon the same principle, Lord
Byron founded the story of "Parisina." Not long ago a robbery was
committed in Scotland, which was discovered by one of the guilty parties
being overheard muttering some facts connected with it in his sleep.
Mental anxiety will, almost at any age, give rise to sleep-talking. The
ideas of children during sleep are often very vivid; nor is there any
thing more common than to hear them utter expressions of distress,
connected, particularly, with any fears that may, unwisely, have been
impressed on the waking mind. The case of a little girl came lately
under our notice, who exhibited the most alarming symptoms during sleep;
sobbing and imploring help, under the imagination that she was being
pursued by an evil spirit; in consequence of a foolish, fanatical person
having frightened her with threats of this description, while the child,
before going to bed, was saying her prayers. Very much convulsed
inwardly, she was with difficulty awakened, and for some time afterward
remained in a state of agitation bordering on delirium. Assuredly
parents can not be too careful in endeavoring to make very young
children go to bed with composed and happy minds, otherwise they know
not what hideous phantoms may draw aside the curtain of their sleep;
and, by terrifying the imagination, produce fits, that may be incurable
in after-life. We believe it quite possible that epilepsy itself may be
so produced.

In schools sleep-talking is very common; anxious pupils, in their sleep,
will frequently repeat a lesson they can not remember when awake. The
son of the eminent linguist and commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, tells us
that his father overheard him, in his sleep, repeat a Greek verb which
he was endeavoring to learn, and which, the following morning, he was
unable to remember. This is a curious fact--he knew his lesson in his
sleep, but did not do so when he was awake; the faculty of memory,
however, in a state of somnambulism undergoes many singular
modifications. Thus, persons who talk in their sleep, may, by
conversation, be brought to remember a dream within a dream; and it is
very common, in the higher stages of somnambulism, for a person to
recollect what happened