The Somnambulist exists for the prime purpose of delivering opinionated media to opinionated people.

The Internet, it seems, has become a gathering place for people that believe that they can express themselves any way they want; insulting posts and comments are a usual pest to anyone trying to do something they believe in. Spam is a constant bother, and it just gets worse. Those advertisements constantly teasing the corners of our eyes. Those awfully designed websites, the flash ones that take ages to get going, and the ones that are constantly down instead of up and running.

Why not do away with those lonely blogs, Internet identities, and networks like Facebook and Myspace? You don't really need to be a member, you don't need to say your name; why can't you just contribute to other's people understanding of the world?

The editors would like to offer a reprieve from the tiring smash-n-grab world that is the Internet, the constant struggle for every individual to be heard.

The idea is simple: there are no insulting comments, because we manually go through all submissions. There's no spam, because we manually go through all the submissions. There are no advertisements daunting you, because we don't believe in corporate sponsorship.

Submit your work, be it of any form of media, and if it's good enough, it will be published and featured. The more work submitted the bigger the Somnambulist will get, until we can finally support ourselves and support all contributors that are good enough.

The Somnambulist is designed for simplicity. You submit a piece, and if it gets accepted, the editors tag it accordingly, and that is all the sorting you will need. It's not about making money, but more about a duct to put creative energy through.

Any form of media may be submitted and published, as long as the Somnambulist has the means of publishing it. The Somnambulist is opinionated; clearly demonstrated by the regular editorials. We feature something that we like, something that we think deserves recognition. This will, most probably, do away with sappy poems, unoriginal works, and submissions without any point whatsoever. The Somnambulist openly welcomes and publishes criticism; under the conditions that it is reasonable. There is nothing wrong with a sound rebuke to another piece, as long as it isn't too degrading. Any criticism, however, will be regarded as a submission, and may be featured and published according to quality. Any submission is treated equally. Comments on another submission will link to the original piece.

All work submitted by the editors (tagged as “editorials”) is anonymous. Artists, however, can choose to remain anonymous or use their preferred name.

The editors read through all submissions, and generally refrain from editing anything but typos and grammatical errors. Anything more than that, and we will reply to the artist that either they change the submission or we change it, with their permission. If there is no way to contact the artist, and the piece would be published if not for the error, the editors will go ahead and publish the piece anyways.

All artists should know that there are no copyrights on anything submitted. The Somnambulist is a strictly copy-left publication, even though we realize that in this smash-n-grab world, there are many individuals that may take advantage of this fact. We trust that our intelligent readers will recognize these people accordingly, and therefore will not be drawn to their scheming ways.

The Somnambulist accepts ideas, opinions, and theories of all kind, as long as they are rational and reasonable. If they are none of these we may publish them as “satire” or “pointless works.” All submissions, however, require a requested classification—the type of medium and the subject should be included.

The Editors do not necessarily represent the comments and statements in submissions; instead, we present certain submissions as food for thought rather than as a representation of our opinion. We are not responsible for external commentary that authors receive from readers.

The Somnambulist is a form of media, a literary journal, that favors concise and professional work for the same reason that a photographer worries about composition and a film enthusiast looks at the mise-en-scene. These are essential and standard parts of all art forms, and the Somnambulist just doesn't accept amateurish, sloppy, and boorish work. In constant respect to Orwellian writing style, the Somnambulist attempts to push for simple language. Getting the idea across, that is the main point, and further embellishments could be called needless throat-clearing. In fact, our editorial style seems to be best represented by the Economist, a magazine. We follow its Style Guide, with only a few modifications. Their style guide can be found on their website. Keep in mind that you may “break these rules rather than say anything outright barbarous.” First and foremost comes your idea, your contribution to the world, however you try to express it; we realize that English is a global language; there are more people that try to speak it than there are those who actually speak it well, so we ask that they should not refrain from attempting to distribute their own ideas.

The Somnambulist, an unusual name, has been chosen on more grounds than just the sound of it. As you may expect, it has certain philosophical implications, cultural references, and important ideas behind it.

There are plenty of cultural references: Lady Macbeth famously washes imaginary bloodstains off her sleeves. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has the sleepwalking Cesare who is all but helpless. One of the major motifs of The Great Gatsby is somnambulism; T. J. Eckelburg's eyes glare down on reality with a frightening perseverance. The truth is, we are all helpless, moved to do certain things that we do not wish to do. We go through life, our eyes glazed to the truth, not caring about what we hear around us and just focusing on what we think we should be doing, like the sleepwalker does. Our greatest fears can get expressed when sleepwalking, but in real life we live in a constant state of anxiety. Our responsibility to deal with our situation is huge, and yet we cannot do anything about it, we cannot snap out of it; we'd run the risk of a huge mental shock. There is the case of the laws behind sleepwalking. A somnambulist is often deemed innocent of crimes, because of the fact that he was powerless to stop inflicting them. A sleepwalker, often portrayed with his arms out in front of him and his eyes closed, actually does none of these. He tends to walk with his arms at his sides, his eyes open but not comprehending; they are glazed. The Somnambulist is, therefore, an ironic title; it points us to the fact that it really aims to wipe some of the sleepy glaze out of our eyes. The readers and editors should express a certain openness that is not often seen in this world. Accepting and gathering a pool of ideas, that's what we are about.

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