St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1889-04-27
FOR THE SLEEPLESS.
VARIOUS Plans to Court Sleep
When It Is Say.
1ne Latest Scic ,tific Explanation of the
Cause OF Insomnia. and How Refresh
ing sleep Can He Sccured-Think
Of Old Dreams.

1he Latest scic ,tifRc ExplanatIon Of tho
cause OF Insomnia. ana How Refresh
ing sleep Can He Sccured-Think
Of Old Dreams.
III any unusually acute inventor could
tell US of an infallible contrivance for
going to sleep just when we wish to do
so there can be no doubt whatever OF
the substantial benefit which would
thereby be secured for mankind. Some
fortunate individuals. like Napoleon l..
can command sleep the moment they
lay their heads on the pillows. others
nnd themselves all through life sleep
ing the sleep of the just every night.
without any difficulty being expert
enced as to occasional waiefulness, ex-
cept when illness happens to inter-
vene.
The Duke of Wellington. who always
slept on a camp bedstead. had max
i'm that when a man turned in bed 1t
was time to turn out; and here it may
be remarked that great soldiers ap-
pear to be peculiarly constituted In
their power to summon sleep at will.
Possibly this may be due to the habits
of discipline which they have learned.
They say to their brains: go to
sleep" and at once the word of COM
mand is obeyed.
Insomnia, however. is an evil Of
civilization which is growing, and II
the letter which correspondent has
addressed to weekly contemporary is
to be relied on a plan has at last been
hit upon to cure the malady and to Sc
cure natures sweet restorer at a mo-
ment's notice. We are all familiar
with the stereotyped advice in cases OF
this kind to ''turn the pillow" to
''thfnk of something elsc." or to i'm
agine and connt a number of mountain
sheep going through q gate. Many a
time and oft has the too wakeful BRAIN
worker attempted to carry these and
similar prescriptions into practice.
usually with results disproportiOnate
~ the efforts involved.
II may be said without much exag-
geration that the man who can first
imagine a flock of sheep, then q half
open gate. and then can force his
hypothetical sheep to 60 through one
by one without crowding or dodging
or turning tail, is fit for treason.
strategems or writing the sublimest
poetry. He is no ordinary man. and
it is for ordinary individuals that the
saving prescription is required.
What. then, does our latest savior of
society precisely recommend? First Of
all he enters into a sort of philosophic-
al rationale of sleep and no sleep. 1T
is now. believe" he writes, 'gener-
ally accepted that our conscious day.
light-thinking processes are carried on
in the sinister half of our brains"-why
does he not say the left half at once?-
''that is. in the lobe which controls the
action of the right arm and leg" He
has thought and thought again OF what
use 1.-The dexter half of the brain"
could possibly be. and he concludes
that the right lobe is the organ which
is employed doing what is called ''un-
conscious cerebration" in table turn
ings and other spiritualistic manifesta-
tions.
Now. during sleep we unconscious
" cerebrate. which accounts for our
dreams being of a character which the
correspondent only family describes
when he calls them fantastic. non-mor-
al and spritclike." Musing on these
matters. he camo to the practical in
ference that to bring back sleep when
lost We must quiet the conscious, think
ing and left side of our brains. and
bring into activity the right side alone
This sounds all very we'll. but it
might turn out very difficult to split
our brains into two halves and begin
using the right side when We want the
left 10 be employed. However. the
proof OF this particular prescription
of course lies in the question whether
il really induces sleep or not
.Armed with this idea" says the
cOmmendable experimental corre-
6UOuuChts euS hSAN SiihC 4 Ioutlu Illy
self awakening at two o'clock in the
morning, instead OF merely trying to
Danish painful thoughts and repeating,
as was my habit, that recommendable
soporilic, Paradise and the Peri re-
yerted at once to the dream from
which had awakened and tried to 60
on with ii. In moment was asleep!
And from that time the experiment,
often repeated, has hardly ever failed.
Not seldom the result is sudden as the
fall of a curtain. and seems like o
charm.
II would be more consoling il We
were told that the plan never" failed.
instead of ''har,ily ever;;' also we need
advice as TO when q person has had no
dream to think OF. or can not for the
life II him remember what it was;
and obs iously it is impossible to begin
70 think about our last dream when
one has only just gOne TO bed. With
these deductions the plan may as we'll
be worth tryin: as any other. We can
ne. always have q yot.metd sermons
at our bedside