WHY?—

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 11 July 1925, Page 18

WHY?—

Why cannot we sleep with our eyes open ? To begin with, one reason why our eyes are shut during sleep is that it needs effort to keep our eyes open. When we get sleepy we relax that effort, and our eyelids drop of their own weight, “softly as tired eyelids upon tired eyes.’’ So thatO is one answer to the question. We cannot sleep with our eyes open neeause we cannot hold our eyelids up when we are asleep. But another question' is: Why would it keep a man awake to hold his eyes ryien in the light? The reason is that light keeps us awake by exciting our brain, and when we want to go to sleep, of course, one of the first things we have to do is to shut our brain off from the outside world by darkness and by silence. So there are two answers to our question: One is that when we are asleep we cannot hold up our eyelids any more than we can hold both arms up in the air, arid the oilier is that light keeps the brain awake and active.