Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1888-10-12
GRANGEvILLE, IDAHO.
FiENDS IN YOUR PILLOW.
The Horrors of Insomnia from which
There Is No Escape.

The Horrors of Insomnia from which
There Is No Escape.
Those who are afflicted with in
somnia know to the full the futility of
recipes. Some advocate a pine-needle
pillow; some hop pillow; others one
so hard that it might have Jacobs stone
in the middle. For the first two you
are oppressed by their odor-oppressed
rather than soothed; the last makes
your head ache and gives you a sore
spine all the day after. Others, again,
tell you to eat and drink just before
going to bed. A 'nightcap," they say,
of genial spirits, with few biscuits
munched discreetly, will do wonders
for you. The blood will be brought
from the brain to the stomach and an
active digestion will cure your sleep
lessness like magic. You follow
their advice-the prescription be-
ing pleasant you find that you
have to take your liver and your .'gouty
diathesis" in hand as the result, with
no better nights in the way of slumber
than before. You are told to battle
your face and wrists in cold water, and
yOotoo oO. w lCICDy you nave a
swinging cold which confines you to
bed for aweek and to the house for
fortnight.
Then you have mental prophylac-
tics. ana you hear with envy how one
man cures himself of insomnia, drives
off the hays who beset him, and wins
back the sweet Genius of Sleep by
counting imaginary sheep jumping
over an imaginary fence. He goes off
like lamb, he says, before he gets to
the hundredth. You try the same ex-
pertinent and you go on to a thousand
or more-with the result of feeling in
kind OF whirlwind, where the flying
straws take the form of feecy ewes
and the whirling dust-heaps are aero
batic rams. Your jumping sheep be-
come as torturing as that barrel-organ
tune which sounds in your ears, do
what you will, and they stick to your
brain as the tune sticks-reason or
none. AS for that unbidden music,
you think to exercise it by going over
the strain from the first note to the
last. You are conscientious in your
memory, and put in every little trill
and quaver that may have been incor-
porated. Now then, you think, you
have finally laid that noisy demon and
are free to turn your mind to the con-
temptation of silence. Not bit of it.
Suddenly the tune starts out again,
louder, clearer, more insisting than
before, and you have to go over your
work once more, and have for the
second time the bitterness of failure.
You try, too, to come upon sleep by
repeating poetry-all the poetry you
know. Sometimes this has lulling
effect, as when you pound away at "a
piece known by heart as Familiarity as
the alpabet. But for the most part you
waken up yourself by just so much as
you think to have soothed and the
repetition of poetry proves, like the
counting of sheep, a mental stimulant
instead of sedative. Then you are
wider and wider awake than ever,
and your pains are increased, not light
ened.
Then there flow in on you all the
sorrows of your life, and every thing
you would gladly forget insists on being
remembered with Photographic clear
ness and in gigantic proportions. Are
you a little at cross corners with a be-
loved friend?-the slight misunder-
standing, which few moments OF
honest talk will clear away, becomes
the fracture of your friendship, which
no time, no effort, can ever repair.
The word that was said in thoughtless-
ness becomes the intentional insult
the designed outrage. The look that
had no significance at all becomes as
the thrust of a sword and the sting OF
whip; and wherever you can torture
yourself you do--all because the power
OF sleep has gone from you and your
feverish blood is firing your throbbing
brain. So with all your life. Ii
you are in a momentary difficulty about
money, you are on the verge of ruin
If you have had an infinitesimal check
in your, career, you are cast down from
your secure holding and can never
make your footing sure again. What
ever may have happened to ruffie the
still waters of the lake and break the
deep silence of the woods is a cata.
clysm, no less; and sleeplesness exag.
gerates like the microphone and makes
the footsteps of a fly like the swinging
tread of grenadier. Thus you give
yourself up for lost; and to the physic.
al torments of your condition are ad-
ded the mental agonies of fear. despair
and anticipated destruction. London
Times.