perspective, her stage performance could also be described as one of "artificial" (rather than spontaneous) somnambulism—her friends arranged for her to visit the local surgeon James Braid, who had discovered hypnotism in 1841: Drama The sleepwalking scene (Act V Scene 1) from William Shakespeare's tragic play Macbeth (1606) is one of the most famous scenes in all of literature. In Walley Chamberlain Oulton's two act farce The Sleep-Walker; or, Which is the Lady (1812), "Somno", a histrionic failed-actor-turned-manservant relives his wished-for roles when sleepwalking. Literature In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, the character Lucy Westenra is described as a sleepwalker. It is while sleepwalking that Count Dracula lures and attacks her. Sleepwalking as a legal defense As sleepwalking behaviours occur without volition, sleepwalking can be used as a legal defense, as a form of legal automatism. An individual can be accused of non-insane or insane automatism. The first is used as a defense for temporary insanity or involuntary conduct, resulting in acquittal. The latter results in a "special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity." This verdict of insanity can result in a court order to attend a mental institution. In the 1963 case Bratty v A-G for Northern Ireland, Lord Morris stated, "Each set of facts must require a careful examination of its own circumstances, but if by way of taking an illustration it were considered possible for a person to walk in his sleep and to commit a violent crime while genuinely unconscious, then such a person would not be criminally liable for that act." While the veracity of the cases are disputed, there have been acts of homicide where the prime suspect may have committed the act while sleepwalking. Alternative explanations to homicidal or violent sleepwalking include malingering, drug-induced amnesia, and other disorders in which sleep-related violence may occur, such as REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, fugue states, and episodic wandering. Historical cases 1846, Albert Tirrell used sleepwalking as a defense against charges of murdering Maria Bickford, a prostitute living in a Boston brothel. 1961, Sergeant Willis Boshears confessed to strangling a local woman named Jean Constable in the early hours on New Years Day 1961, but claimed that he was asleep and only woke to realize what he had done. He pled not guilty on the basis of being asleep at the time he committed the offence and was acquitted. In 1981, Steven Steinberg of Scottsdale, Arizona