The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1888-08-18
THE HORRORS OF INSOMNIA.
Futility Of Prescribed Remedies---The
Genius of Sleep Will Not Appear.

t Futility Of Prescribed Remedies-.-Th
8 Genius of Sleep Will Not Appear.
: Those who are afflicted with in
$ somnia know to the full the futilit
! ! of recipes, says London Queen
Some advocate pine-needle pillow
some hop pillow; others one 81
hard that it might have Jacob
stone in the middle. For the frs
two, you are oppressed by thei
odor-oppressed rather than sooth
ed-the last makes your head ache
J and gives you sore spine all thu
day after. Others, again, tell yor
to eat and drink before going to bed
A "nightcap," they say, of genia,
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 sleepless.
ness like magic. You follow their
advicc-the prescription being pleas.
ant-and you find that you have
had 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 bathe your face and
wrists in cold water, and you do so,
whereby you have a swinging cold
which confines you to bed for a
week and to the house for fortnight.
Then you have mental prophy-
latics, and you hear with envy how
one man cures himself of insomnia,
drives off the hags who beset him,
and wins back the sweet Genius of
Sleep by counting imaginary sheep
jumping over an imaginary fence.
He goes off like a lamb, he says,
before he gets to the hundredth.
You try the same experiment and
you 60 on to a thousand or more,
with the result of feeling in a kind
of whirlwind, where the flying straws
take the form of f]eecy ewes and
the whirling dust-heaps are aero
batic rams. Your jumping sheep
become 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.
Now, then, you think you have
finally laid that noisy demon, and
are free to turn your mind to the
contemplation of silence. Not bit
of it. Suddenly the tune starts out
again-louder, clearer, more insist
ing than beforehand you have to
so over your work once more, and
have for the second time the bitter
ness of failure You try, too, to
come to sleep by repeating poetry;
all the poetry you know. Some
times this has lulling effect, as
when you pound away at a piece
known by heart as familiar as the
alphabet. 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, Il men,
tai stimulant instead of a sedative.
Then you are wider and wider awake
than ever, and your pains are in
creased, not lightened.
Then there flow in on you all the
sorrows of your life, and everything
you would gladly forget insists on
being remembered with photograph
ic clearness and in gigantic proper
tions. Are you little at cross
corners with a beloved friend? The
slight misunderstanding, which a
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 thoughtfulness be-
comes the intentional insult, the
designed outrage. The look that
had no significance at al becomes
as the thrust of a sword and the
sting of a whip; and wherever you
can torture yourself you do-all
because the power Of sleep has gone
from you, and your fevcrish blood
is firing your throbbing brain. So
with all your life.
If you are in a momentary diff
Guilty about money, you are on the
verge of ruin, and the threshold of
the workhouse. If you have had
m infinitesimal check in your ca
rccr, you are cast down from your
secure holding and can never make
your footing secure again. What
ever may have happened to ruf1e
the still waters of the lake and break
the deep silence of the woods is a
cataclysm, no less, and sleepless-
ness exaserates like the microphone
md makes the footsteps of the fly
ike the swinging tread of the gren-
adler. Thus you give yourself up
for lost, and to the physicist tor
nents of your condition are added
he mental agonies of fear, despair |
nd opt;osno%o Ioot r,,o+1on