The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1882-03-09
The wooIng of sleep.

An endeavor to 60 to sleep is q
mistake. For example, when the
will makes an effort to dull the ear,
the mental sense behind the sense
organ is thrown into q condition of
listening and tension. The power
of hearing is not diminished, but, as
it were, restricted in it's range and
in its heightened sensibility--as the
vibratile capacity of a musical reed
may be raised by reducing the length
of the fibre along which its vibra-
tions are propagated. Noises that
would not previously have been
noticed are perceived, and become
sources of annoyance. This intensi-
flying of the sensation in the at
tempt to 60 to sleep, of which most
persons are conscious, is doubtless
partly due to the quiet that prevails
in the house and bed-chamber but
there is also an increase of suscepti-
bility of the perceptive faculty, fire.
| quently 10 such an extent that the
ticking of a watch or the tapping of
an insect behind the wall paper will
not only be heard, but be actually
painful. So it is with sight; when
the eyelids are closed the inner
mental sense of vision becomes in
creasingly acute, and the field of
sight is soon crowded with grotes-
que and rapidly changing images.
The worrying effect of this phantas-
magoria is too familiar experience
of the sleep-waiter. All the mental
senses are in like manner stimulated
and their acuteness intensified by
the endeavor to lower the sensi-
bllity of the sense organs. The
mental sense of smell may be rem
dered so keen that the scarcely per-
ceptible smell of bed-linen will be
offensive. Taste may be so stimu-
lated that the natural moisture of
the mouth becomes loathsome.
General sensation may be so inten-
sified that rough thread in a sheet
or little stream of cold air finding
it's way under the coyerlet will oc-
casion the most irritating expert
ence. In short, the whole process
of attempted sense-subdueing is I'M
natural and opposed to the dictates
of reason. No such effort ought to be
made. External quiet should be Sc
cured, if quiet be personally agree
able, and whether light or darkness
be preferable must depend on the
indioysncratry. No control ought to
eyelids should not be closed, but al
lowed to drop when weary. There
should be no resolution to disregard
sounds or to suppress sensations of
any kind. The surroundings being
propitious and consonant with the
feelings" or still better, disregard
ed, mind and body should be left to
take their chance of sleep, without
the striving, which, in truth, is the
principal cause of wakefulness.
This Is why it often happens that
persons who cannot sleep in bed by
night will drop off to sleep readily in
chair by day. 1t is the effort to
sleep that keeps off slumber, and
when there is no effort sleep comes
naturally. If the endeavor to sleep
is made, as soon as it commences ex-
pectancy begins and, paradoxical as
it may seem, the consciousness is
actually kept awake to watch for
sleepl This watchfulness, arising
out of the eagerness of the desire
for sleep and the intensity of the
effort made to WOO it, throws the
mind into a state of tensive antici-
patton incompatible with somno-
lence. Then comes the period of
restless and irritated disappolnt-
ment, in which the mind is so vex-
ed, and the brain so excited, and the
organism, as whole, thrown into
such state of irratlbility that the
best thing to do is to rise and take
a bath, or wash from head to foot,
with the double purpose of allaying
the excitement and inducing
more peaceful mood by physical
exercise.-Good Words.