Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1899-06-23
MYSTERIES OF SLEEP.
SOME QUEER WORKINGS OF
NATURES SOFT NURSE"
Instances Of SIumber Under Extraordinary Con.
ditions-Why We can Awaken at Set Time
How Sleep is Ruled by Habit.


ditions-Why We can Awaken at Set Time
How Sleep is Ruled by Habit.
DR.. Andrew Wilson, in Harper's Magazine.
One of the most remarkable facts to
be found in the history Of sleep con-
sists in the utter inability to resist its
Several remarkable instances are given
in which persons have continued to
walk onward while sleep has overcome
them, the automatic centers Of the
brain evidently controlling and stimu-
lating the muscles when consciousness
itself had been completely abrogated.
1t is recorded that at the battle OF the
Nile, amid the roar of cannon and the
fall of wreckage, some of the overfa-
tigued boys serving the guns with
powder fell asleep on the deck. DIR.
Carpenter gives another instance of
allied kind. In the course of the Bur-
mese war the captain of frigate act
lively engaged in combat fell asleep
from sheer exhaustion and slept
soundly for two hours within yard
of one of the biggest guns, which was
being actively worked during his
slumbers.
1t is matter OF common medical
knowledge that extreme exhaustion in
face of the severest pain will induce
sleep. Here the imperative demand
of the body-a demand implanted, as
we have seen, in the constitution of
our frames-asserts its influence, and
even pain, the ordinary conquerer of
repose, has in its turn to succumb.
One of the most extraordinary cases in
which the overruling power of sleep
was ever excmplified was that of Da-
miens, condemned for treason in Paris
in 1857. He was barbarously tortured
but remarked that the deprivation of
sleep had been the greatest torture of
all. 1t was reported that he slept
soundly even in the short intervals
which elapsed between his periods OF
torture.
Among the Chinese form Of pun.
ishment for crimes consists in keeping
the prisoner continually awake or in
arousing him necessarily after short
intervals of repose. After the eighth
day of such sleeplessness one criminal
besought his captors to put him to
death by any means they could choose
or invent, so great was his pain and
torment due to the absence of "na-
ture's soft nurse" Persons engaged
in mechanical labor, such as attend
ing a machine in factory, have often
fallen asleep despite the plain record
of pains and penalties attending such
dereliction of duty, to say nothing of
the sense of personal danger which
was plainly kept before their eyes.
One of the most interesting phases
connected with sleep is that in which
determination, formed overnight,
that we should wake ut a certain hour
acts true to the appointed time. In
certain instances with which l am ac-
quainted the idea acts perfectly, in
Others it acts occasionally, and in
other cases. again, it fails completely.
The explanation of this habit depends
on what one may term a dominant
idea," or an idee fxe, as the French
term it. There is something akin in
this waking notion to the dominant
idea" with which hypnotist may inn
press his facile subject. If we substi.
tute for the hypnotist the individual
himself, or mayhap the idea of the
friend who has been impressing upon
him the necessity for sounding the
reveille at given hour in the morn
ing, we can discern the rationale of
the action with fair degree Of clear
ness.
The dominant idea in the shape of
the necessity for awaking at certain
time is impressed on the brain and is
probably transmitted to those auto
matte or lower centers which rule our
mechanical acts which are responsible
for the visions of the night and which
are capable of carrying out, either in
the entire absence of consciousness or
in the exercise of a subconscious con-
dition, many complex actions.
Through the hours OF sleep the domi-
nant idea remains impressed on these
lower centers. The head of the busi-
ness sleeps on while the night watch.
man is awake, and so, prompt to the
time or shortly before or after it, the
desired result is attained and the
siumbering brain is awakened to the
full measure Of its activity.
That sleep is ruled by the habits OF
the individual is extremely evident.
An instance is given in which per-
son who had taken passage ON board a
warship was rudely awakened by the
morning gun, which startled him ex-
ceedingly. On succeeding mornings
the gun woke him at first sharply and
then much more quietly, until at
length he slept on without being dis
turbed at all in his slumbers by the
report. 1t is also notable that when a
special habit of life has become part
and parcel of the daily routine sleep Ii