HOW TO MAKE THE BRAIN WORK FOR US DURING SLEEP
Would you not think yourself fortunate to have a secretary of great
ability and worth absolutely subject, day and night, to your will, and
so susceptible to instructions that even your slightest mental
suggestion would be faithfully carried out? If you had such a secretary,
and knew that in spite of his great ability he would be able to do what
you suggested only in proportion to your belief in his power to do so,
would you not be careful to entertain no doubts of his ability to carry
out your wishes or suggestions?
Now, just substitute for this personal secretary your subconscious self,
that part of you which is below the threshold of your consciousness, and
try to realize that this self is actually the sort of secretary I have
endeavored to describe, capable of carrying out all your desires, of
executing all your purposes, of realizing your ambitions, to the exact
extent of your belief in its powers, and you will get some idea of what
it can accomplish for you.
This secretary is closer to you than your breath, nearer than your heart
beat, a faithful servant, walking by your side all through life, to
execute your faintest wish, to carry out your desires, to help you to
achieve your aims. Every bit of help, of encouragement, of support you
give to this other self will add to the magnificence, the splendor of
your destiny. On the other hand, all negative, vicious thoughts, all
selfishness, greed and envy, all doubts and fears, all the discouraging,
destructive thoughts you entertain, will impair and weaken your
secretary or servant in exact proportion to their intensity and
persistency. In fact it rests with yourself whether your secretary shall
be your greatest help, a heavenly friend and assistant, or your greatest
hindrance, your worst enemy.
It doesn't matter what we call them,--subconscious and conscious self,
or subjective and objective mind, we are all conscious that these are
two forces constantly at work in us. One commands and the other obeys.
We know that one of these, the subjective mind, does not originate its
acts, but gets its instructions from the objective mind, which contains
the will power. Experience shows us that the subjective or subconscious
mind, which I have called a "personal secretary," is a servant which
obeys our will, carries out our wishes, and registers in the brain a
faithful record not only of every thought, word and act of ours, but of
everything we see, and everything we hear others say.
Coleridge tells of a remarkable instance of the truth of this. A young
German servant girl was taken ill with a fever, and in her delirium she
recited correctly long passages from famous authors in Latin, Greek and
Hebrew. Scholars were called in to hear this uneducated girl speaking
fluently tongues of which she had no knowledge in her conscious moments,
and to tell if they could what it meant. They were much puzzled and
could make nothing of it; but later the miracle was explained. Years
before, it seems, the girl had lived in a minister's family, and was
accustomed to hear her master recite the classics aloud. She had
listened attentively, and her subconscious mind had faithfully recorded
every word in her brain, and reproduced what it had heard when the
objective mind was quiescent.
Numerous instances might be cited to show that our subconscious mind is
the record storehouse of all that has ever happened to us. Every
thought, every experience, whatever passes before the eye, or that we
see or hear or feel is registered accurately in our brain by our
subconscious mind.
Now, if this other self, personal secretary, subconscious mind, or
whatever we choose to call it, has such enormous power, why can it not
be trained to work for us when we are asleep as well as when we are
awake? Have you ever thought of the possibilities of spiritual and
mental development during sleep? Has it ever occurred to you that while
the processes of repair and upbuilding are proceeding normally in the
body, the mind also may be expanding, the soul as well as the body may
be growing?
"When corporal and voluntary things are quiescent, the Lord operates,"
said Swedenborg. The great Swedish philosopher was a firm believer in
the activity of the other self during sleep. He claimed that his
"spiritual vision" was opened in the unconscious hours of the night.
The Bible teems with illustrations of the activity of the subconscious
mind or self during sleep. Warnings are given, work is commanded to be
done, visions are seen, plans are outlined, angels are conversed with,
courses of conduct advised; and every suggestion made to the soul in the
dream state is literally carried out in the waking hours.
Theosophists believe that during sleep the soul or spirit acts
independently of the body; that it actually leaves the body and goes out
into the night to perform tasks appointed it by the Creator.
As a matter of fact, few people realize what an immense amount of work
is carried on automatically in the body under the direction of the
subconscious mind. If the entire brain and nervous system were to go to
sleep at night all of the bodily functions would stop. The heart would
cease to beat, the stomach, the liver, the kidneys and the other glands
would no longer act, the various digestive processes would cease to
operate, all the physical organs would cease working, and we should
stop breathing.
One of the deepest mysteries of Nature's processes is that of putting a
part of the brain and nervous system, and most of the mental faculties
which were in use during the day, under the sweet ether of sleep while
she repairs and rejuvenates every cell and every tissue, but at the same
time keeping in the most active condition a great many of the bodily
processes and even certain of the mental and creative faculties. These
are awake and alert all the time while the sleeper is in a state of
unconsciousness.
Most of us probably have had the experience of dropping to sleep at
night discouraged because we could not solve some vexing problem to our
satisfaction. It may have been one in mathematics during our school
days, or, later on, a weightier one in business or professional life,
and behold, in the morning, without any conscious effort on our part,
the problem was solved; all its intricacies were unraveled, and what had
so puzzled us the night before was perfectly clear when we woke up in
the morning. Our conscious, objective self did not enter the mysterious
laboratory where the miracle was wrought. We do not know how it was
wrought. We only know that it was done somehow, without our knowledge,
while we slept.
Some of our greatest inventions and discoveries have been worked out by
the subconscious mind during sleep. Many an inventor who went to sleep
with a puzzled brain, discouraged and disheartened because he could not
make the connecting link between his theory and its practical
application, awoke in the morning with his problem solved.
Mathematicians and astronomers have had marvelous results worked out
while they slept, answers to questions which had puzzled them beyond
measure during their waking hours. Writers, poets, painters, musicians,
all have received inspiration for their work while the body slumbered.
Many people attempt to explain these things on a purely physical basis.
They attribute the apparent phenomenon to the mere fact that the brain
has been refreshed and renewed during the night, and that, consequently,
we can think better and more clearly in the morning. That is true, so
far as it goes, but there is something more, something beyond this. We
know that ideas are suggested and problems actually worked out along
lines which did not occur to the waking mind. Most of us have had
experiences of some kind or another which show that there is some great
principle, some intelligent power back of the flesh, but not of it,
which is continually active in our lives, helping us to solve our
problems.
One of the most interesting instances of this kind is given in the
biography of the great scientist, Professor Louis Agassiz, by his widow:
"He [Professor Agassiz]," the writer says, "had been for two weeks
striving to decipher the somewhat obscure impression of a fossil fish on
the stone slab in which it was preserved. Weary and perplexed, he put
his work aside at last, and tried to dismiss it from his mind. Shortly
after, he waked one night persuaded that while asleep he had seen his
fish with all the missing features perfectly restored. But when he tried
to hold and make fast the image it escaped him. Nevertheless, he went
early to the Jardin des Plantes, thinking that on looking anew at the
impression he should see something which would put him on the track of
his vision. In vain--the blurred record was as blank as ever. The next
night he saw the fish again, but with no more satisfactory result. When
he awoke it disappeared from his memory as before. Hoping that the same
experience might be repeated, on the third night he placed a pencil and
paper beside his bed before going to sleep.
"Accordingly, towards morning the fish re-appeared in his dream,
confusedly at first, but at last with such distinctness that he had no
longer any doubt as to its zoölogical characters. Still half dreaming,
in perfect darkness, he traced these characters on the sheet of paper at
the bedside. In the morning he was surprised to see in his nocturnal
sketch features which he thought it impossible the fossil itself should
reveal. He hastened to the Jardin des Plantes, and, with his drawing as
a guide, succeeded in chiseling away the surface of the stone under
which portions of the fish proved to be hidden. When wholly exposed it
corresponded with his dream and his drawing, and he succeeded in
classifying it with ease."
We are all familiar with examples of the marvelous feats performed by
somnambulists. They will get up and dress while fast asleep, lock and
unlock doors, go out and walk and ride in the most dangerous places,
where they would not attempt to go when awake. Many have been known to
walk with sure feet along the extreme edges of roofs of houses, on the
banks of rivers, or close to the edge of precipices, where one false
step would precipitate them to death. They will speak, write, act, and
move as if entirely conscious of what they are doing. A somnambulist
will answer questions put to him while asleep and carry on a
conversation rationally.
In this respect the state of the sleep walker is similar to that of a
person in a hypnotic trance. He can be acted on from without and remain
wholly unconscious. Surgical operations have been performed upon a
hypnotized person without the use of anesthetics; and there is no doubt
that this also would be possible during profound sleep. The subjective
mind is much more susceptible to suggestion when the objective mind is
unconscious. There is no resistance on account of prejudice or external
influences.
That we are on the eve of marvelous possibilities of treating disease
during sleep there is not the slightest doubt. The same is true of habit
forming, mind changing, of mind improving, of strengthening deficient
faculties, of eradicating peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, of
neutralizing injurious hereditary tendencies, of increasing ability. The
possibilities of changing the disposition and of mind building during
sleep are only beginning to be realized.
The power of the subjective mind over the body is well illustrated by
the fact that thoughts aroused in a hypnotized person can very
materially shift the circulation of the blood. They can send it at will
to any part of the body. The hypnotist can make his subject blush or
turn pale, express in his face fierce anger or appealing love. He can at
will produce anesthesia in any part of the body so that a needle or
knife may be inserted in the flesh without causing the slightest pain.
He can so impress the hypnotized person's mind with the belief that the
water he drinks is whiskey that he will actually exhibit all the
appearance of drunkenness. He can make him believe that the spoonful of
water he takes is full of poison so that he will immediately develop
the symptoms of poisoning.
The subjective mind is not only capable of carrying out orders but, as
has already been shown, every impression made on it is indelible. How
often we say, when we cannot recall a well-known name, or the details of
some important event or experience, "Well, I cannot think of that now,
but it will come to me; I shall think of it later." And how often have
the forgotten details flashed into our mind when the occasion had passed
and we were thinking of something else. Again and again have we puzzled
our brains at night trying to think of some particular thing which had
gone out of our memory, only to find it waiting for us in the morning.
We are beginning to realize that all of our experiences during the day,
all of our thoughts, emotions and mental attitudes, the multitude of
little things which seem to make but a fleeting impression, are not in
reality lost. Every day leaves its phonographic records on the brain,
and these records are never erased or destroyed. They simply drop into
the subconscious mind and are ever on call. They may not come at once
in response to our summons, but they are still there and are often, many
years after they have dropped into the subconscious mind, reproduced
with all their original vividness.
I heard recently of a prominent banker who lost a very important key,
the only one to the bank treasures. He claimed that it had not been lost
in the ordinary way, but stolen. Suspicion at once attached to the
employees. A prominent detective was placed in the bank, and, after
watching and questioning every one on the staff, he became convinced
that none but the banker himself knew anything about the key.
Every detective is necessarily something of a mind reader, and this one,
believing firmly in his own theory, suggested a simple plan for
recovering the key. He told the banker to quit suspecting the employees
and worrying about burglars getting the bank's treasures, to relax his
overwrought mind and go to sleep with the belief that he himself had put
the key away somewhere, and that it would be found in the morning. "If
you do this," he said, "I believe the mystery will be solved."
The banker, to the best of his ability, did as the detective suggested,
and on getting up the following morning he was instinctively led to a
certain secret place, and, behold, there was the key. He was not
conscious that he had put it there, but after finding it he had a faint
recollection of previously going to this place.
The banker's objective or conscious mind was probably busy with
something else when he put the key away. Only his subconscious self had
any knowledge of what he was doing. Then when he missed the key his
fears, his worry, his anxiety, his suspicions and generally wrought-up
mentality made it impossible for his subjective mind to reveal the
secret to him. But after his mind had become poised and he was again in
tune with his subjective intelligence the information was passed along.
Dr. Hack Tuke, a distinguished English authority on the subject. "The
memory, freed from distraction as it sometimes is," he says, "is so
vivid as to enable the sleeper to recall events which had happened years
before and which had been entirely forgotten."
Now, if, as we have seen, the subconscious mind can perform real work,
real service for us, why should we not use it especially during sleep?
Why should we not avail ourselves of this enormous creative force to
strengthen all our powers and possibilities, to piece out, virtually to
lengthen our time, our lives? Think what it would mean to us in a life
time if we could keep these sleepless creative functions always in
superb condition so that they would go on during the night working out
our problems, unraveling our difficulties, carrying forward our plans,
while we are asleep! We have sufficient proof already to show that they
do actual constructive work, but the testimony of Dr. Tuke on this point
is of interest. "That the exercise of thought--and this on a high
level--is consistent with sleep can hardly be doubted," he writes.
"Arguments are employed in debate which are not always illogical. We
dreamed one night, subsequent to a lively conversation with a friend on
spiritualism, that we instituted a number of test experiments in
reference to it. The nature of these tests was retained vividly in the
memory after waking. They were by no means wanting in ingenuity, and
proved that the mental operations were in good form."
It is now established beyond a doubt that certain parts of the brain
continue active during the night when the rest of it is under the
anesthetic of sleep. But we have hardly begun to realize what a
tremendous ally this sleepless creative part of the brain can be made in
our mental development. It is well known that most of the growth of the
child, of its skeleton, muscles, nerves and all the twelve different
kinds of tissues in its body takes place during sleep, that there is
comparatively little during the activities of the day. It is not so well
understood that our minds also grow during the night; that they develop
along the lines of the ideals, thoughts and emotions with which we feed
them before retiring. "All the analogies go to prove that the mind is
always awake," says M. Jouffroy. "The mind during sleep is not in a
special mood or state, but it goes on and develops itself absolutely as
in the waking hours."
As a matter of fact we never awake just the same being as when we went
to sleep. We are either better or worse. We changed while we slept.
While our senses are wrapped in slumber, the subjective mind is busily
at work. It is either building up or tearing down. It is my firm belief
that by an intelligent, systematic direction of this sleepless faculty
of the brain we can actually make it create for us along the line of our
desires. As it is, most people by not putting the mind in proper
condition before going to sleep not only do not intelligently use this
marvelous creative agency but they destroy all possibility of beneficial
results from its action. It is as necessary to prepare the mind for
sleep as it is to prepare the body. The following chapter offers some
suggestions on this point.