Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents and all other spelling and punctuation
remains unchanged.
The quotation from Ballad of Reading Gaol, (Chapter VIII) has been
corrected from
And Sleep will not lie down but walks
And wild-eyed cries to time.
to
And Sleep will not lie down but walks
Wild-eyed and cries to time.
Footnotes are located at the end of the relevant paragraphs.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.
[Illustration: BOLTON HALL
“THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SLEEP”]
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
SLEEP
BY
BOLTON HALL, M.A.
Author of “Three Acres and Liberty,” “Things as They Are,”
“Free America,” etc.
With an Introduction
BY
EDWARD MOFFAT WEYER, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy, Washington and Jefferson College
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1917
Copyright, 1911, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
_All rights reserved_
Published October, 1911
THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS
RAHWAY, N. J.
TO THE MEMORY OF
THE REVEREND DR. JOHN HALL
WHO PREACHED FROM THE WORD
WHAT I TEACH FROM THE WORLD
INTRODUCTION
At the request of the author, I have read this book in proof sheets,
and, from the point of view of one interested in psychology, I have
suggested many amendments which have all, I think, been adopted.
As will be seen by the intelligent reader, the best sleep involves more
than a normal body; it involves healthy thought and the application
to our daily lives of the moral principles laid down by our great
spiritual teachers.
The cure of sleeplessness has hitherto been left largely to the
physician, who is not always a specialist on that subject and who
will welcome a treatise that will enable his patient to co-operate
with his restorative measures. Mr. Hall has already shown in _Three
Acres and Liberty_ and in _The Garden Yard_ his ability to put into
clear, popular language and readable form scientific truths that
non-scientific people need to know and wish to learn.
The proper management of our own bodies is even more essential to our
happiness and well-being than the proper management of the land, and I
hope that this book will be no less welcome to students and physicians
than to the great mass who for lack of knowledge or of attention do not
wholly avail themselves of the freely offered gift of sleep.
The book may be useful to many who find it difficult to harmonize their
lives with their surroundings, and may bring to many a happier view of
the ways of God to man.
EDWARD MOFFAT WEYER,
Washington and Jefferson College.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I SLEEP 1
II HOW MUCH SLEEP 5
III THE TIME OF SLEEP 11
IV WHAT SLEEP MAY MEAN 15
V HOW TO GO TO SLEEP 20
VI SLEEP IS NATURAL 26
VII THE DUPLEX MIND 30
VIII WAKEFULNESS 36
IX SIMPLE CAUSES OF WAKEFULNESS 40
X “LIGHT” SLEEPERS 47
XI THE GIFTS OF WAKEFULNESS 51
XII THE PURPOSE OF SLEEP 58
XIII THE SLEEP OF THE INVALID 62
XIV THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF PAIN 66
XV OPIATES 73
XVI DEVICES FOR GOING TO SLEEP 78
XVII MORE DEVICES FOR GOING TO
SLEEP 84
XVIII STILL FURTHER DEVICES 88
XIX HYPNOTIC SLEEP 94
XX “PERCHANCE TO DREAM” 101
XXI NATURAL LIVING 108
XXII FRESH AIR AND REFRESHING
SLEEP 113
XXIII THE BREATH OF LIFE 117
XXIV EATING AND SLEEPING 124
XXV SLEEPING AND EATING 128
XXVI SOME MODERN THEORIES OF
SLEEP 133
XXVII EARLY THEORIES OF SLEEP 138
XXVIII MORE THEORIES 142
XXIX STILL MORE THEORIES 147
XXX WE LEARN TO DO BY DOING 153
XXXI VAIN REGRETS 156
XXXII THE LOVE THAT IS PEACE 162
XXXIII THE SPECTER OF DEATH 167
XXXIV A NATURAL CHANGE 175
XXXV THE DISTRUST OF LIFE 180
XXXVI REST AND SLEEP 186
XXXVII THE NEED OF REST 192
XXXVIII SAVING OF EFFORT 196
XXXIX ANTAGONISM 201
XL STRUGGLE IN THE FAMILY 205
XLI UNNATURAL LAWS 210
XLII THE NATURAL LAW 215
XLIII “LETTING GO” 219
XLIV REST IN TRUTH 225
XLV THE SPAN OF LIFE 229
XLVI WASTE STEAM 233
XLVII UNDERSTANDING 238
XLVIII THE SUPERSTITION OF FEAR 246
XLIX IMAGINARY FEARS 251
L ILL SUCCESS 257
LI SOCIAL UNREST 263
LII ECONOMIC REST 269
LIII “IF HE SLEEP HE SHALL DO
WELL” 275
LIV CONCLUSION 280
APPENDICES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 284
APPENDIX A 285
APPENDIX B 287
APPENDIX C 288
APPENDIX D 293
APPENDIX E 297
FOREWORD
This book is intended no less for those who do sleep well than for
those who do not. It is just as important to be able to teach others
to act well as to be able to do so ourselves. To teach we must analyze
and comprehend our own action and its motives: for being able to do a
thing well is far different from being able to teach it. In order to
teach anything we must know how we do it and why others cannot do it.
We never know anything thoroughly until we have tried to teach it to
another.
Many persons sleep well only because they are still, like little
children and animals, in the unreflective stage of life. That is the
stage of the Natural Man, and it is good in itself; but later the
mental life awakes, when consciousness of one’s self begins, and
examination of one’s own desires develops. If not rightly understood or
if not at least accepted, that development brings anxiety, unrest and
disturbance of sleep, and breaks the harmony of the whole nature.
The highest stage of development is the spiritual, the all-conscious
state which includes and harmonizes the other two. In that we do not
lose the ready, overflowing enjoyment of our bodily exercises and
functions; rather they are intensified; the physical and the mental are
united in the complete life.
In order to attain this harmony we must examine the means that we and
others use to gain rest and peace; some of these are instinctive and
some prudential, and we must perceive why it is that these means work
or fail to work in different cases. When, with all our getting, we have
gotten this understanding, then, and not till then, all action becomes
natural and joyful, for then we understand it all, and follow willingly
the leading of the Spirit that is in Man.
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born.
SAMUEL DANIEL.
CHAPTER I
SLEEP
Sancho Panza says: “Now, blessings light on him who first invented
sleep! Sleep which covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a
cloak; and is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the
cold, and cold for the hot. Sleep is the current coin that purchases
all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the
king and shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even.”—“Don Quixote.”
Sleeping is the one thing that everyone practices almost daily all his
life, and that, nevertheless, hardly anyone does as well as when he
began. We have improved in our walking, talking, eating, seeing, and
in other acts of skill and habit; but, in spite of our experience, few
of us have improved in sleeping: the best sleepers only “sleep like a
child.” It must be that we do not do it wisely, else we should by this
time do it well.
Even the race of mankind as a whole does not seem to be able to use
sleep, to summon it, or to control it any better than primitive
man did. We talk much of the need of sleep, and sagely discuss its
benefits, but we know neither how to use the faculty of sleep to the
best advantage nor how to cultivate it.
Yet for ages men have studied the mystery of sleep. We have acquired
many interesting facts concerning its variation, and have formulated a
number of theories concerning its cause and advantages; nevertheless,
science has given us little real knowledge of sleep, and less mastery
over it.
Mankind has had idols ever since consciousness began. Advancing
knowledge has changed the nature and number of the idols, but it has
not destroyed them. The idol of the present age is “Science,” and
men worship it in the degree that it seems to fit their needs. They
forget that Science is merely the knowledge of things and persons,
arranged and classified, so as to make it available. In its nature
it is fallible, for some new phase discovered to-day may show that
yesterday’s conclusion was formed from a theory which itself was based
on a mistaken premise. Man has caught a glimpse of something that
resembled truth, has stated it, reasoned about it, and finally either
established its authority or disproved it utterly through the discovery
of the real thing he was seeking. Either result was progress, because
man grows, as Browning says, “through catching at mistake as midway
help, till he reach fact indeed.” So there is no need to be disturbed
by the conflicting opinions of men of science touching the purpose or
method of sleep. Even the rejected theories have added to the sum of
our knowledge, and the field for investigation is still open to all
who are faithful in noting and comparing the manifestations of Nature,
which the scientists call phenomena.
Most of what we call science has to do with physical or material
things. Consequently, we find scientists dealing mainly with what may
be called tangible phenomena, those which may be measured or weighed
or held in the hand or, at least, pinned down by pressure of thumb or
finger.
Material Science’s estimate of man is largely gauged by
“Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O’er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice.”
This is the almost inevitable result of looking upon life as purely
material or physical. We must view life as physical, but not physical
only; as mental, but not mental only; as spiritual, but not spiritual
only.
In studying sleep and its attendant phenomena all these things must be
taken into consideration. So slight a thing as fancy may profoundly
influence our acts; fancies not attributable to any material source, so
fleeting and evanescent that the clumsy net of language cannot hold
them, may induce sleep or destroy sleep.
A review of the theories and conclusions of physicians, both scientific
and unscientific, as well as of others who have found the study of
sleep of absorbing importance, will find a place in our examination of
this vital function of organisms.