CHAPTER LIV

CONCLUSION

When the shining day doth die, Sweet is sleep.

DORA READ GOODALE.

We have finished our long inquiry, and it has brought us to thoughts and perhaps to conclusions for which we did not look. Such is the leading of the Spirit, into ways that we know not of.

“So read I this—and as I try To write it clear again I find a second finger lie Above mine on the pen.”

Much of the ground we have merely passed over, it may be hurriedly, but we have seen a promised land of Peace, and, wherever the soles of our feet have trodden, the land shall be given to us and to our children for an inheritance—if we will.

Now, once again, dear reader—dear, for, in striving and in helping each other to get a clear view of these important matters, we become dear to each other—try these things.

If you have read and merely approved or disapproved, you will get little good from the reading. You remember the pathetically comic story of the little boy who was asked if his father was a Christian:

“Yes,” he said, “pa is a Christian; but he does not work much at it.” That man might more hopefully have been an infidel. You must put all that you can accept into practice if it is to be of any use.

We have found that what we call body and mind and soul are so closely bound together that no one of them can be well or ill independently of the others. We divide them in our thought and speech; but we cannot find any line of separation. Every state joins on to the next one: mineral and vegetable and animal are composed of the same elements which pass from one state to another. The silex and the lime are taken up to make the wheat hard, we eat wheat and these elements pass into our bones, and, when our bodies return to Mother Earth, the rootlets take them up again to run the round once more.

So the body and mind and soul are all one Life. There are no divisions in Nature. The form differs, but the essence is uniform. We classify for the sake of convenience and of clear statement. As Sir Oliver Lodge says, in “The Survival of Man”—“Boundaries and classifications must be recognized as human artifices, but for practical purposes distinctions are necessary”; but the philosopher never loses sight of the fundamental fact that each animal, flying-fish and whale, seal and polar bear, bat and bird, can be classified only by seizing on some acquired characteristic, such as the temperature of the blood, the method of birth, or the structure of the bones. These mark the animal as belonging to an order.

We see, then, that all are One, different manifestations of the Universal Life, which must be understood and treated as a whole to see and avail ourselves of the Universal Harmony. Accordingly we find that we must work with Nature if she is to bring forth abundantly, of bodily or of spiritual things, to satisfy our desires. Only in the sweat of our faces do we absorb the full comfort and strength of the bread of life.

Whatever you have willingly received, willingly give to others. Only when you cast the seed, this your mental bread, upon the fertilizing waters, shall it return to you in the harvest after many days.

* * * * *

What I have written, I have written as much for myself as for you: if it were not so, it would be useless both to you and to me. We must go up each for himself and take the strongholds of our own Ignorance and Distrust and Fear. Let no one think that he can get life by merely reading these words of life.

Try these things for yourself—teach these things to your other selves; breathe them in and live them out. Open your mind and enlarge your heart so that the Spirit may be able to bless you and keep you with him, and to be kind to you, and to lift up the Light of his countenance upon you and give you

PEACE.

APPENDICES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Some matters of interest mainly to students of sleep phenomena have been mentioned in the text and put in these appendices. In this way the general reader is saved the trouble of skipping in the body of the text.

Appendix “A” contains some medical information on the subject of Insomnia and sleep-inducing drugs.

Appendix “B” and “C” have been translated from the Latin by A. T. Craig especially for use in “The Gift of Sleep.” They are of value chiefly as showing the attitude of the ancients towards this natural function.

Appendix “D” gives some provisional conclusions based on a Questionnaire on Sleep. The returns are as yet incomplete.

APPENDIX A

The “Dictionary of Psychological Medicine” (1892), giving the terms used in medical psychology with the symptoms, treatment, and pathology of insanity. Two vols. Edited by D. Hack Tuke, M.D., LL.D., Examiner in Mental Psychology in the University of London; lecturer on Psychological Medicine, etc., says:

LOSS OF SLEEP AS A CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE OF INSANITY: Insomnia is the indication of a morbid condition. It is also, when prolonged, something more. Loss of sleep may frequently be a cause, or one of several causes, of mental disorder. To remove it is therefore of the greatest consequence in the early treatment of the insane. _In a large number of instances it is doubtless the consequence and not the cause of mental trouble._ The agony of mind associated with melancholia, or the rapid flow of ideas in acute mania, may render sleep an almost unattainable boon, and in these cases it requires great discrimination to decide when, if at all, to administer hypnotics. (P. 1173.)

REMEDIES KNOWN AS SOMNIFACIENTS, SOPORIFICS, HYPNOTICS, AND NARCOTICS: At the outset we must put the question, Is there a distinction between hypnotics and narcotics? Dujardin-Beaumetz answers in the affirmative. He holds that for the drug to be hypnotic it must imitate the natural condition of sleep by effecting a lowered intra-cranial pressure, and that drugs which, though bringing about unconsciousness, do not lower cerebral pressure, or which increase it, cannot claim to be hypnotics. On this line he separates chloral as a hypnotic from opium as a narcotic ... in the different forms of artificial or drugged sleep it is probable that these two factors—quantity of blood, including blood pressure, and quality of blood, do each play a part. (P. 1129.)

Medical science has been able so far to do little for sleeplessness, except to call it “Insomnia.” INSOMNIA: Loss of sleep has been classified under various heads by writers on wakefulness. Thus German-Sée has made no less than nine divisions:

a—dolorous insomnia.

b—digestive.

c—cardiac and dyspnoeal insomnia.

d—cerebros-spinal, neurotic insomnia comprising lesions of encephalon, general paralysis, acute and chronic mania, hysteria, hypochondriasis.

e—psychic insomnia (emotional and sensational).

f—insomnia of cerebral and physical fatigue.

g—genito-urinary insomnia.

h—febrile, infectious, autotoxic insomnia.

i—toxic insomnia (coffee, tea, alcohol).[10]

[10] Tuke’s “Dictionary of Psychological Medicine,” vol. i., p. 703.

Among the causes of insomnia those of a predisposing character are the female sex, old age, nervous temperament, intellectual pursuits.

Of exciting causes may be enumerated organic or functional diseases of the brain, worry, anxiety, grief, and bodily pain; noise, if not monotonous, fever, coffee, tea, etc.

Among the insane, insomnia is one of the most frequent symptoms, except in chronic dementia. In melancholia it is the most distressing accompaniment of the disorder, and is especially marked in the early morning.

A careful analysis of the conditions or causes of insomnia has been made by Dr. Folsom (U. S.). The principal ones may be briefly enumerated as follows: Habit, reflex causes, as indigestion, genito-urinary disorders; autotoxic causes, as gout, lithæmia, syphilis, habitual constipation; anæmia, vaso-motor changes, neurasthenia, hallucinations of sight or hearing, astigmatism—the strain of the eye which in health may be unnoticed, producing “in states of debility, headache, dizziness, spasmodic muscular action or wakefulness” and the neurotic temperament.[11]

[11] Tuke’s “Dictionary of Psychological Medicine,” vol. i., pp. 703-4.

APPENDIX B

ABSTRACT FROM ARTICLE: “LUMINOUS SLEEP” By P. ARUNOCHALAM

Deep sleep is a sleep of darkness, that is, the sleep of the nerves, and the utter relaxation of the body. Its refreshment is due to absence of thought.

Is there a sleep of light, a luminous sleep, in which, while there is absence of thought, there is not darkness and oblivion, but perfect consciousness? To suppose this did not seem irrational to the Greeks. (An instance is cited of the abstracted moods of Socrates, Sympos: 174-5.) (Further citations of this eccentricity of Socrates are in: The Tamil Sage; Charmides; Phaedrus; The Republic; also Tennyson, “The Ancient Sage.”)

This reality, sleep that is a sort of abstraction from the bodily condition, is pure consciousness of spirit, “Luminous sleep,” an intellectual and spiritual condition as contrasted with physical sleep. To the general aspects of the genius and life of Ancient Greece, to its philosophy of the reality of pure abstraction, of absolute knowledge and the possibility of attaining it, such a theory would seem reasonable.

Dr. Jowett is cited as maintaining that pure abstraction is mere negation.

APPENDIX C

THESE CLASSICAL, THOUGH ENTIRELY A PRIORI, THEORIES OF SLEEP ARE NOT WITHOUT INTEREST

SLEEP AND WAKING

By GIOVANNI ARGENTERIO (A.D. 1556)

PREFACE

That it may well be difficult to explain the nature, differences, causes, and importance of sleep and waking, I think is made clear enough by the fact that concerning them there is great doubt and dissension among the highest philosophers and physicians. For Galen, when he questioned what sleep was, and what waking, decided at length that he could not be certain in what order of phenomena to classify them. Aristotle indeed, in his definitions of sleep and waking, arranges them in different places. Judging from selected books of all authors, no one, in my opinion, has been able to enumerate the general differences of sleep and waking by any certain method. Alcmœn thinks sleep is produced when the blood in the veins flows back and becomes congested. Empedocles believes it to arise from the chilling of heat in the blood. Diogenes states that sleep is induced by the blood pushing to the inner cavities of the body the air that is introduced into bodies. Plato and the Stoics taught that it arose of itself by the letting go of the spirit (or the releasing of the breath) and the consequent relaxation.

It is needless to refute the cause which Aristotle gives for sleep, and Galen for waking. They do not accord. The one thinks the true cause arises and has its seat in the heart,—the other in the brain. On account of which disagreement, great contention has been excited among more recent philosophers and physicians, as to which view to adhere to. Some attribute one significance, others another to these things. And so, because of the great difficulty introduced, there is nothing relative to the matter which is not in the deepest obscurity and doubt. A knowledge of this thing is, nevertheless, most useful, even if come upon by any other fortunate means, and not only through the knowledge of the doctors; by such means, for instance, as through the study of the general arts; for if it is joyful to philosophize, and to happen upon the hidden and abstruse things in the secret places of nature,—who would not find great pleasure in learning the causes of the sleeping and waking of creatures, why now they take long, now short sleeps; why at one time it is difficult to capture sleep,—at another time impossible to dispel it?

We wonder how at one moment sleep leads to waking; how waking and sleeping mutually succeed each other; why diverse things serve to explain each other, as sleep, waking,—and waking, sleep.

Sometimes these, sleep and waking, are injurious,—at other times beneficial. For sleep and also waking bring forth diseases, intensify them; both equally drive them away, soothe sorrows and likewise intensify them; by one and the other alike, morbid causes are often destroyed more effectually than by any other remedy; indeed, in conjunction with the benefit of these (sleep and waking), concoctions, food, purgatives, and finally all the functions of the different parts of the body may be exercised to the best advantage; nor is it possible, indeed, for a creature to live, or to maintain his life, without sleep and waking.

There is no action of the body or mind which has greater values to the body, nothing which supplies more reliable signs for discerning bodily ills, and showing how to be rid of them.

Of which things, indeed, the investigation and knowledge is most useful, and not without pleasure to those who delight in the understanding of things; that is what Aristotle, prince of philosophers, notices, when he writes his whole book concerning sleep and waking,—and often elsewhere at random in his writings. Not the less does Hippocrates notice them in his citations, for he wrote most sayings on the subject, so many that I omit them; and there are many in other books, of which a definite impression does not remain in my memory. But as I have said, when all, or certainly most writers on this subject may be perplexed with regard to these things, and involved in many difficulties, no one ought to condemn me, if, after them, and many men, I presume to write on this subject.