The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1909-10-16
THE RIDDLE OF SLEEP
"A Mystery That the Mind Of Man
Is Unable to Penetrate.
THE CAVERN OF MORPHEUS.
Vt Is Pitch Black as Far as Human
Understanding Goes, For We Know
No More About II Than We Do About
Its Twin Mystery, Death.

When all is written, how little we
eyes, disappearance, wondering re-
turn. In uneasy slumbcr. in dreamless
dead rest, in horrid nightmare or in
ecstasies of somnolent fancics the eyes
are blinded, the body is abandoned,
while the inner essence is we know not
where. We have no other knowledge
, of sleep than we have of death. In de
lirium or coma or trance, no less than
in normal sleep and in dissolution, the
soul is gone. In these 1t returns, In
that II does not come again, or So we
ignorantly think.
Yet when reflect ON my death for
get that | have encountered II many
times already and find myself none
the worse. l forget that | sleep. The
ay has no shorter existence than
mans. We hustle about for few
years with ludicrous importance, as
bottle1ies buzz at the window panes
They too, may imagine themselves OF
Infinite moment in this universe we
share with them. But this is to take
no account OF the prognostics of sleep.
There Is something hidden, something
secret, some unfathomed mystery
whose presence we feel, but cannot
verify; some permeative thought in
sistently moving ia our hearts, some
phosphorescence that glows we know
not whence through our shadowy at
onIs
Neither sleep itself nor half its prom
ises nor mysteries have been plumbed
1t is the mother of superstitions and
of miracles. In dreams we may search
the surface powers of the freed soul
Visions in the night are not all hallu-
cinatons; voices In the night are not
all mocklng. There is 4 prophet dwells
within the mind-not of the mind, but
deeper throned in obscurity.
The brain cannot know Of this holy
presence nor OF its life in sleep. The
brain Is mortal aud untrustworthy, a
phonograph and camera for audible
and palpable existence Strike 1t
blow in childhood so that it ceases its
1abors and awake it by surgery after
forty years and It will repeat the in
fantile action or word il last recorded
and will take up its task on the In
slant. making no account of the inter
mediate years They are nonexistent
TO It. Yet to that hidden memory those
diseased years are not blank. 1t knows.
II has recorded, though the brain has
slept, And in hypnotic, or psychic
trance. when that wonderful ruler is
released from the prison of the body. Il
can speak through the atom blcnt ma.
chinery of the flesh and tell of things
man himself could not know because
of his paralyzed brain. This ruler Is
not asleep in sleep, nor in delirium is
Vt delirious, and in death is it dead?
Through all the ages it has been our
sphinx. which we have interrogated In
vain. 1t joins not IN our laughter nor
our tears. We have fancied IL with i'm.
mobile, broodiug features Of utmost
knowledge and wisdom and sorrow II
has asked us but Que question. nor
from the day OF Ocdpus unto today
have we answered rightly SO that we
die of our ignorance. II is Osiris llv-
Ing In us, II is the unknown God 10
whom we erect our affairs, the fire in
the tabernacle, the presence behind the
veil. Not in normal wakefulness at
least VIII II answer our queries, but in
sleep sometimes 1t will speak. And it
may possibly he that at last. after all
these centuries, we are learning how
10 question il and in hypnotic trance
and In the fearful law Of suggestion
are discovering somewhat OF it's mys
terry and how to employ il for our
worldly good. Yet to IFS essential Sc
cret we are no closer than our fore
fathers were.
We may define dreams and night
mare, coma and swoon and trance
3 with what terms we win. search their