ON SLEEP

Evening Star, Issue 19127, 19 December 1925, Page 19

ON SLEEP

AKB THE LACK CF IT Tbo fat boy in 1 Pickwick ’ had the faculty of going to sleep anyhow and anywhere. At any moment “ Nature’s soli nurse ” w r as ready to tako him in her arms and no lullaby was neededNapoleon had a similar privilege. To come nearer home (says a writer in the ‘Ago ’), Mr Richard Seddon, some time Now Zealand’s Premier, belonged to the same company. Travelling by train and chatting with his friends, ho would sometimes say all of a sudden: “ Now, excuse mo, but I want a nap. You may go on talking. It won’t disturb me/’ And m.a trice he was sound asleep. At tho opposite extreme stands the great multitude of those who perpetually wpo sloop, but find her coy. The victims of insomnia are to bo pitied. Some tell us ours is a sleepless generation, and that neither poppy nor mandragora can ever medicine us to that sweet sleep which our grandmothers enjoyed. Numbers of people live too fast and pay the penalty in hours of wakefulness. Nerves are so strained that tho slightest noise jars upon them. Among physical cats as of insomnia one must not forgot indigestion, and we have not yet reached the wisdom of declaring indigestion to be a crime.

But where is tho quack or the doctor who dare lay down a universal law .and toll us we must not drink hot milk at bedtime or eat lobster for supper, and go to bed upon an empty stomach? Fancy telling a Scot that Ids toddy is bad for him or an Englishman that his nightcap is suicide! The world is full of divers and sundry fiends who would have ns follow their prescriptions in respect of food, exercise, fresh air, and baths. Because they are virtuous and self-denying, break the ice to get; 3 ,a bath, stand breathing at an open window, lie on their stomachs on the floor and raise themselves by help of their knuckles, they would fain set the whole world to these contortions and heroics’. Their efforts to standardise and nirtvcrsalise an individual experience are doomed _ to tho failure they deserve. They might succeed if they could build all babies to pattern, and so adjust tho world’s work that no one man would bear an ounce of strain more than his neighbor carries. Till that is arranged ho bettor let each of us find what best suits bis own constitution and occupation. We object to being treated like sausage meat, which issues from the machine in a monotonous string of preordained bags. What is scientifically called primary insomnia is really a mental and spiritual ailment which Macbeth and his lady knew all about. Ho murdered sleep, tho innocent sleep, and according to Shakespeare described it in the most felicitous passage tho world possesses. Sleep tltat knits up the rarell’d sleave of care, Tho death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great Nature’s second course, Chief noraishcr in life’s feast-,

The citizen whom no crime keeps awake is frequently the _ victim of worry, which itself is a crime. It is easy to say why worry, but there are natures which neither logic _ nor rolicion can soothe into serenity. The faro grows drawn and haggard, tho appetite fails, the flesh fails off tho bones, and tho grasshopper becomes a burden. Tho patient cannot minister to himself, nor does any doctor’s prescription help. He is tho victim of hjs constitution. Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sloop, can do nothing with him. Ills only hope is complete and regular distraction in travel or golf or some occupation in absolute contrast with his daily task and demanding steady concentration of brain. Happy the man w T ho has a hobby which borders upon a craze. It is a sure defence against insomnia. Sleep is la normal condition and normal men slip into it easily. In infancy wo sleep much, in middle life a good deal lass, and in old ago wo are back to our second childhood, and sleep longer and oftcncr. Life is a circle ending whore it began. Just as the young couple begin their married life so do they end it. Tho children born of tho marriage grow up and leave tho nest, and when old ago comes it finds Darby and Joan alone as they wore the first week after they took up house. So is it with sleep. _ The demands of infancy return as insistently in old ago. Tho first indication is tho after-dinner nap which some doctors say we should take religiously as soon as wo reach the bonier lino of forty-five.

What a mystery is sleep! We sink into unconsciousness, itself a mystery, and without any effort on our part somo of'life’s functions continue with unabated precision. Digestion proceeds, the heart beats, we breath air into our lungs. “ Strange that, a harp of thousand strings should keep in time so long.” To into a Jess poetic figure, tho machinery is self-oiling and self-regulating. Tho mystery deepens when we remember that tho brain is never totally at rest. It goers off on its own advent ores. Somo invest igai tors maintain that we dream all the. I time, and our mental lilo, in sleep is iso crowded with experiences that only i few of them can ho recalled.

It is not surprising that the problems relating to mind in sleep are insoluble, for the physiology of sleep hits raised more questions than have yet boon answered. What causes sleep? Somo maintain it is due to a diminished flow of blood in tho body. Others hold it lias a chemical explanation. Fatigue substances accumulate and use the oxygen required by the brain. Sloe)) is therefore a “physiological intoxication ” duo to poisonous alkaloids in tho tissues. If this is correct, then every twelve hours wc arc subjected to the indignity of “ sleeping oil’ the effects of the bout.” An eminent American finds tho central fact of sleep in monotony. Only variety of sensations keeps us awake: hence tho advice when you cannot sleep count sheep jumping one by one over a gale. Kipling tells ns that in a few generations people will all live to he over 100, hut they also require cloven hours’ sleep out of the twenty-four. One wonders if it will he worth while living longer if the added lime is to bo spent in unconsciousness.

What an imparted benediction is sleep! Beggars pet as much pleasure in it as kings. It calms and purifies emotion. It heals us when wo are not aware. It brings us hack to tho state, of innocence. What wonder that the poets sing its praises unceasingly! It, is a return 1o the bosom of Nature. “ thence to reissue healed and strong.” An excellent discussion might he raised to which of the immortals has most happily written in praise of sleep. Probably the competitors might ho narrowed down to four—Cervantes, Sir Thomas Browne, Keats, and Shakespeare. And when tho long and careful examination had been completed it would probably ho found that, the Bard of Avon shone above them all in the varietv and happiness of his encomiums.' But there, is no denying tho humor of Cervantes. “Blessings light on him who first invented sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all. like a cloak. It makes the shepherd equal to the monarch, and the fool to the wise.”