In July 1833, Jane Rider, servant to the Stebbins family of Springfield, Massachusetts, rose from her bed, dressed and made her way downstairs. Quickly and efficiently, she set the table for breakfast, arranging the crocks, cutlery and condiments with the utmost precision. She negotiated a narrow doorway with a large tray laden with coffee cups then went to the pantry to skim the milk. Without spilling a drop, Rider poured the cream into one cup, the milk into another. She cut the bread, put the slices on a plate and divided them neatly down the middle. None of this would be at all strange except that it was the middle of the night and Jane had her eyes shut tight.
FESTUS STEBBINS was alarmed. The family鈥檚 new servant had started to do strange things in the night. The girl, a fresh-faced 16-year-old called Jane Rider, joined the household in April 1833. At the time, she seemed healthy and well suited to her new place. Her father was 鈥渁n ingenious and respectable mechanic鈥� in Brattleboro, Vermont, and Rider was intelligent, obliging and 鈥渂etter educated than most in her position鈥�. Stebbins had no reason to suspect she would disrupt the family鈥檚 sleep and attract a stream of visitors to his home.
Rider had her first 鈥減aroxysm鈥� on 24 June. As she fought to get out of bed, the family fought to keep her in it. Her face was flushed, her pulse raced and she complained of an intense pain in the side of her head. Stebbins thought she was deranged and sent for Lemuel Belden, a local doctor with an interest in the workings of the mind. He blamed the attack on undigested food in her stomach and gave her an emetic. Rider went back to sleep. The next day she remembered nothing.
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A month later, Rider suffered a second paroxysm. This time the family gave up the struggle to keep her in bed and watched what happened next. Rider dressed, went to the kitchen and began to prepare breakfast. 鈥淪he went through the whole operation鈥� with as much precision as in the day with her eyes closed and no light,鈥� Belden reported. Duties done, Rider returned to bed. Next morning, when she discovered the breakfast laid, she asked why she had been allowed to sleep on while someone else did her work.
In the early 19th century, there was intense interest in somnambulism. Were sleepwalkers mad or somehow guided by spirits? Public fascination with these notions prompted a rash of popular songs, plays and books featuring sleepwalkers. In 1829, Bellini鈥檚 opera La Sonnambula thrilled audiences with a heroine who wandered the rooftops in her sleep. Belden鈥檚 ideas were more down to earth: he believed all mental processes could be explained by physiology. He thought sleepwalking was a state somewhere between dreaming and madness that was somehow triggered by physical disease. That being the case, it could be cured.
Rider鈥檚 attacks grew more frequent. Sometimes she pottered about her room, tidying things away in drawers, which she was unable to find when she woke. Sometimes she sat bolt upright in bed and sang songs or recited poems she later denied she knew. Occasionally she performed more complicated tasks. She threaded a needle and sewed. She cooked dinner, fetching in the wood to light a fire, collecting vegetables from the cellar, then preparing and cooking each type in the right manner, testing them at intervals to see if they were ready.
What intrigued Belden most was that Rider appeared to acquire extraordinary visual skills during her attacks. The Stebbinses told him they were sure she could see in the dark and even with her eyes closed because she never groped for things and neatly sidestepped obstacles they put in her way. Belden had read reports of sleepwalkers who possessed amazing powers of perception or heightened intellectual abilities. Presented with a case of his own, he decided to investigate. On 10 November, Belden sat the sleeping servant in a corner where it was too dark to see and asked her to read from cards. No problem. He gave her coins and she called out their dates without hesitation.
By this time, the story of the Stebbins鈥檚 servant had made the pages of the Springfield Republican and curious townsfolk began calling at the house in the hope of seeing the Springfield somnambulist in action. As Rider鈥檚 fame spread, their numbers increased. So did the attacks, which also began to happen during the day. Naturally enough, Belden wondered if Rider was faking. Yet he saw 鈥渘othing in her character to suggest she was an impostor鈥� and declared that 鈥渁nyone who witnesses her during a paroxysm is convinced nothing is feigned鈥� because of the 鈥渁rtlessness and consistency of her conduct鈥�.
鈥淭here was nothing in her character to suggest she was an impostor鈥�
He needed to be sure, however, and so he arranged an experiment in front of witnesses. On 20 November, Belden placed cotton wads over Rider鈥檚 eyes, then tied a black silk handkerchief lined with cotton around them. In the presence of a group of 鈥渞espectable, intelligent men from Springfield鈥�, he presented Rider with cards on which people鈥檚 names were written. 鈥淪he read them as soon as they were presented to her and always held the paper right side up and brought it into the line of vision.鈥� He handed her a watch. She opened the case and told him the time. Everyone there was satisfied there had been no deception. 鈥淪he seemed to see as well with her eyes closed as when open,鈥� wrote Belden.
Fascinated though he was, Belden believed the aggravation caused by so many visitors would hamper Rider鈥檚 recovery. If her disease was to be cured, she needed seclusion. And so Belden arranged for Rider to go to the newly opened Worcester Hospital for the Insane. There she was treated with powerful drugs, acid footbaths and a generous application of leeches to her head. Still convinced poor digestion was the root of her trouble, Belden insisted Rider was kept on a light diet and well away from fruit.
Within two weeks Rider had lost her apparent ability to see with her eyes closed. Her paroxysms grew less frequent and although not wholly cured of sleepwalking, after five months she went home to Brattleboro. While she faded into obscurity her case was made famous by Belden, who that year published his account in Somnambulism: The extraordinary case of Jane C. Rider, the Springfield somnambulist.
How did Belden explain Rider鈥檚 behaviour? He had little trouble with the sleepwalking part. Illness, probably some digestive disorder, disturbed her sleep and prompted her wanderings. Her heightened night vision was more of a puzzle. He concluded that despite the darkness and blindfolds, 鈥渨hen Jane read, wrote etc, she actually saw鈥�. Ruling out miracles, he reasoned that during a paroxysm, Rider鈥檚 eyes were peculiarly sensitive to light. He also argued that darkness is never absolute: some light must pass through even blindfolds and eyelids. To make sense of the faint images on her retinas, the part of Rider鈥檚 brain that dealt with perception must also have been 鈥渆xcited鈥� to a higher level than normal.
A simpler explanation is that Rider suffered from not one, but two distinct sleep disorders 鈥� sleepwalking and a fugue or amnesic state 鈥� and Belden was right to think her case extraordinary. Much of her nocturnal behaviour was probably quite genuine, says Jim Horne, director of the at Loughborough University in the UK. Sleepwalkers are in a deep sleep and move like automatons, unaware of their surroundings. 鈥淲hen Jane stayed in her room and tidied things away in drawers, she was probably sleepwalking,鈥� says Horne. 鈥淏ut when she did more complicated tasks such as threading a needle or preparing dinner, she was in what鈥檚 known as an amnesic state 鈥� wide awake and able to see but unable to remember it later.鈥� Neither state is likely to have been triggered by eating too much fruit. 鈥淪he seems to have been a rather disturbed individual,鈥� says Horne. 鈥淎mnesic episodes are generally in troubled people and triggered by anxiety.鈥�
And what of those incredible visual powers? 鈥淭hat can only have been fraudulent,鈥� says Horne. 鈥淚f your eyes are closed, you can鈥檛 read. End of story.鈥� Belden may have embellished the case to impress his colleagues. More likely he was tricked by a smart girl with a good memory who enjoyed being the centre of attention and learned how to pull off some fairly simple tricks, with or without an accomplice. That part of the case is unlikely ever to be solved.
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