Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1888-08-16
INSOM MIA.
Horrors OF sleeplessness and the
Vain Attempts to Evade Them.

Horrors OF sleeplessness and the
Vain Attempts to Evade Them.
Those who are afflicted with insomnia
know to the full the futility of recipes, says
the London Queen Some advocate a pine
needle pillow; some hop pillow, others ono
so hard that 1t might have Jacobs stone in
the middle. For the first two you are OPP
pressed by their odor-oppressed rather than
soothcd. the last makes your head ache and
gives you a sore spine all the day alter
Others, ga II, tell you to eat aud 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 tue brain to
the stomach, aud an active digestion will
cure your sleepless ness like magic. You
follow their adyiee-the prescription being
pleasant-and you find that you have to take
your liver and your ''gouty diathetis" 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 you do so whereby you have
q swinging cold whic. confines you to bed for
a week and to the house for fortnight
Then you have mental prophylactic' and
you hear with envy how one man cures him
self OF insomnia, drives off the hays who be-
set him, and wins back the sweet Genius Of
Sleep byk counting imaginary sheep jumping
over an Imaginary fence. He goes of like n
lamb, he says, before lie gets to the hun
dreth You try the same experiment and you
go on to a thousand or more-with the re-
suit of feeling in a kind of whirlwind, where
the flying straws take the form Of heecy ewes
and the whirling dustheaps are acrobatic
rams. -Four jumping sheep become as tor
turing 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 1t 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 culver that may have
been Incorporated. Now then, you think, you
have finally laid that noisy demon and are
free TO turn your mind to the contemplation
of silence. Not a bit OF 1t. 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 10 come upon sleep by repeating
poetry--all the poetry you know. Sometimes
this has lulllDg effect, as when you pound
away at piece known by heart as Familiarity
rs the alphabet But for the most part you
waken up yourself by Just so much as you
think to have soothed; aud the repetition OF
poetry proves, like the counting OF sheep, a
mental stimulant instead OF sedatlve. Then
you are wider awake than ever, and your
pains are increased. not lightened
Then there now In on you all the sorrows
OF your life, and everything you would gladly
forget insists on DelnR remembered Win pnO.
tograpbic cearness aud In gigantic proper
lions. Are you a little at cross-corners with
q beloved friendl-tbe slight misunderstand-
ing. which few moments OF honest talk will
clear away. becomes the facture OF your friend
ship, which no time, no effort can ever repair.
The word that was said In thoughtfulness be-
COMPS the intentional insult-the designed
outrage. The look that had no significance
At all becomes as the thrust OF sword and
the sting OF whip, aud wherever YOU can
torture yourself you do-all because the pow
er OF sleep has gone from you and your fever.
ish blood Is firing your ilrobblng brain. So
with all your life. II you are In q momentory
difficulty without money you are on the verge
Of ruin and the Threshold OF the work house.
IL you have had an infnetesmal check In
your career, you are cast down from your Sc
cure holding and can never make your footing
again. Whatever may have happened 10 rufile
the stu waters OF the lake and break tue
deep silence OF the woods Is a cataclvsm, no
less, and slecpcssness exaggerates like The
mcrophone and makes the footsteps OF fy
like the swinging tread OF the zrenad or.
Thus you give yourself up for lost, and TO the
physical torments OF your condition are added
the mental agonies OF fear, despair aud antic.
ipated destruction.