Sleeping daredevil: The first dream hacker


Awareness soon stirred in his sleeping mind (Image: Ronald Kurniawan)


Modern dream research has a lot to learn from the century-old exploits of an eccentric French marquis


IT WAS a dangerous undertaking, but the Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys was nothing if not daring. Walking along the street, he entered the tallest building he could find, and climbed to a window in its highest room. Tranquillity settled on him as he paused a moment to admire the "perfection" of the scene below. Then he jumped.


Confusion followed, but within a minute he was back on the ground, apparently unscathed. "I found myself in the square in front of a cathedral, among a curious crowd which had gathered around a dead man," he wrote. "They told me that the man had thrown himself from the cathedral tower, and I saw his body being carried away on a stretcher."


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