Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 171, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1910 — DROVE AWAY HIS INSOMNIA [ARTICLE]

DROVE AWAY HIS INSOMNIA

Simple Device Succeeded Because Sufferer Had Become Convinced That It Would. Some months ago a friend informed me that he was a great sufferer from sleeplessness. He had experimented with all manner of remedies —baths, drugs, exercises, dieting—but could find no relief. “How- about the ‘spot on the wall’ cure?” I asked him. “I haven’t heard of that. What is it?” “It’s very simple,” I told him, “yet very efficacious. I presume that some light from the street lamp or the moon usually gets into your bedroom? Well, where it strikes the wall you will be pretty sure to find spots that seem to stand out vividly from the dark background. Select one of these patches of brightness, one preferably not much larger than a silver dollar. Settle down comfortably in such a way that it will be within easy range of your vision without straining to see it. Then gaze at it steadily. "Do not, however, try to stare it out of countenance, so to speak. Instead, let the muscles of your eyes relax until the spot appears to have a confused outline. At the same time, if possible, think of nothing but the one idea. "I am going to sleep!” “Before long your eyes will begin to feel tired, and they will gradually close. Open them and once more gaze at the spot on the wall. Again they will close. Again open them. Presently you will find it impossible to open them, and the next instant you will be asleep.” Recently I again met him, and found him full of enthusiasm. “That was a splendid scheme,” he said. “I sleep like a top nowadays—am asleep almost as soon as I touch the pillow. But I can’t for the life of me understand why that should have worked when everything else failed/’ It “worked” for the reason that I had succeeded in lodging in his mind the idea that it would work. Chronic insomnia, such as my friend suffered from, is in many cases nothing more than a habit, and may accurately be described as the result of a frame of mind. It is distinctly a psychical rather than a physical malady.—H. Addington Bruce in the Delineator.