Читать книгу The psychology of sleep - Bolton Hall - Страница 16

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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.