THE PURPOSE OF SLEEP
Sleep is a life giver as well as a life saver.
WILLARD MOYER.
But none of these things lessens the benefits of real sleep, nor are
they intended to show that sleep is unnecessary, for although it may be
true, as Dr. Charles Brodie Patterson says in “The New Heaven and the
New Earth,” that man will some day get along without sleep, no one is
yet able to do that.
Although our troubles make us lose sleep, we could lose all or nearly
all our troubles if we got natural sleep. Forgetfulness of daily frets,
of the wear and tear of contact with the sharp edges of our own temper
and the temper of others—these are the things that sleep blots out.
“Go to sleep,” says Mother Nature, “and forget your troubles.” And
to blot them out even for a time means surcease of sorrow and worry
for that time at least, and a new way of looking at them when we have
awakened. That is what sleep is for. It is the use of it.
Pat took Mike to church for the first time, and, when the ceremony was
over, he said, “Well, Mike, what do you think uv it?” “Think uv it,
Pat? The candles, the bowings, the incinse, and the garmints,—it do
bate the divil.”
“Sure,” replied Pat, “thot’s the intintion.” And so it is the
intention of sleep to “beat the devil” of unrest and dissatisfaction.
Nothing makes us feel better than a good night’s sleep. It soothes the
aching muscles, quiets the jangling nerves, brushes away the cobwebs of
the mind, and leaves us rested and refreshed, strong to meet the events
of the new day.
It is after a bad night that we rise oppressed with fear for what the
day may bring us; overwhelmed in advance with shadowings of evil. This,
in itself, makes us unequal to the demands of the day. If any seeming
strain is put upon us that day, we are apt to make errors in meeting
it; if we find anyone has failed to do just what seemed to us best, we
upbraid him roundly and unlovingly, making him and ourselves unhappy.
At the close of such a spoiled day, when we review its happenings, we
say: “I knew this morning that this would be an unlucky day. I felt it
as soon as I got up.” But we may not realize that that very attitude
of fear and apprehension may have caused all that we call ill-luck.
Remember this, then, lest the one bad day should spoil another night.
Often after a night of sound, wholesome, refreshing sleep we are
surprised to find that what looked like a mountain at midnight is now
scarcely a hillock. We find that we can see around it on all sides,
and the prospect of surmounting that difficulty fills us with peculiar
delight. We are no longer apprehensive of anything. The things we see
in our work in the world are no more terrible than what we see in that
unknown world which we enter nightly through the gate of sleep. We
long to pass that gate, yet we know nothing of where we go, how far we
travel, or by what means we come back.
If we can trust Life for what the night brings, we can trust it further
and gladly accept what the day brings. We feel this, even if we are not
conscious of it, and after a good sleep (this is what sleep is for), we
accept it much as the child accepts his mother’s care.
A little boy was riding in a trolley car with his parents and persisted
in standing up, to the terror of his mother, who begged him to sit down
lest he get hurt.
Turning to his father he whispered, as he reluctantly took his seat,
“What a ’fraid-cat mother is.” “Oh, well!” replied his father,
“she is nervous, but you know she has to take care of her little boy.”
“Yes,” said the child, “that’s what she is for.” So that is what
sleep is for—to take care of us, but we cannot compel sleep; and the
advantage of recognizing the possible gifts of wakefulness is that we
thus get around to the frame of mind where we drop into natural sleep.
Impatience not only delays the coming of sleep, but it robs us of any
benefit we might receive from lying peacefully in the dark.