The Portland daily press., 1882-02-08
TfIE, PRESS.
The Wooing of Sleep.

Good words
An endeavor to go to sleep is mistake. For
example, when the will makes an effort to du!-
the ear, the mental sense behind the sense or
gan is thrown into condition of listening and
tension. The power of hearing is not dimin-
ished, but, as it were, restricted in its range
and in its heightened sensbility-as the vibra-
tile capacity of musical reed may be raised by
reducing the length of the fibre along which its
vibrations are propagated. Noises that would
not previously have been noticed are perceived,
I'd become sources of annoyance This intenl
styling of the sensations in the attempt to go 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 the susceptibility of the
perceptive faculty, frequently to such an ex-
tent that the ticking of a watch or the tapping
of an insect behind the wallpaper 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 increas-
ingly acute and the field of sight is soon crowd
ed with grotesque and rapidly changing images
The worrying effect of this phantasmagoria is
a too familiar experience of the sleep-waiter.
All the mental senses are in like manner stim-
ulated and their acuteness intensified by the
enaeavor to lower the sensiblity of the sense
organs. The mental sense OF smell may be
rendered so keen that the scarcely pei ceptlble
odor of bed-linen will prove offensive Taste
may be SO stimulated that the natural moisture
of the mouth becomes loathsome. General
sensation may be SO intensified that rough
thread in a sheet, or little stream of cold air
finding its way under the coverlet will occasion
the most irritating experience. In short the
whole process of sense-subdulng is unnatural
and opposed to the dictates of reason. No such
effort ought to be made. External quiet should
be secured, if quiet be personally agreeable,
and whether light or darkness be preferable
must depend on the idiosyncrasy No control
ought TO be exercised over the senses The
eyelids should not be closed, but allowed to
droop when weary. There should be no reso-
luton to disregard sounds, or to suppress sem
sations of any kind. The surroundings being
propitious and consonant with the feelings"
or, still better, diSregarded, 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 a
chair during the day. 1t is the effort to sleep
that drives 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, paradoxieal as it may
seem, the consciousness is actually kept awake
to watch for sleep! 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 state of tensive anticipation in
compatible with somnolence. Then comes the
period of restless and irritated disappointment,
in which the mind is so yexed, the brain so ex-
cited, and the organism, as whole, thrown in
to such state of irritablity that the best thing
to do is to rise and take BATH or wash from
head to feet, with the double purpose of alay-
ing the excitement and producing more peace
full mood by physical exercise.