Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1901 — Sleeping and Waking. [ARTICLE]

Sleeping and Waking.

“The ability to wake at a given hour by forming a resolution to do so before going to sleep,” said a physician affafi after dinner discussion a few daysago, “Involves a problem that scientists do not pretend to have definitely solved. Their theory, however, is certainly plausible. A great many acts of life, as we all know, are only half voluntary. A man will begin whittling a stick and continue while his mind is engrossed upon something else. It is the same with walking. In other words, the action is started by volition and then keeps on going, like au engine. “It is known also that the will persists to a certain extent In what we call unconsciousness, both from anaesthetics and during sleep. How far that persistence extends is an open question, but It is reasonable to assume that most of us can set an Impulse on the principle that an alarm clock Is set, and the half voluntary mechanism of the brain carries it along without further attention. But, as I said before, It is only a theory. To tell the truth, our 1 real knowledge of such things is startlingly slight.”—New Orleans Times-Democrat.