ng is
instantly wide awake as soon as his head touches the pillow, we may be
sure that a part of his trouble comes from the wrong associations
which he has built up with the thought of night. When a dear little
old lady told me of her constant state of apprehension about going to
bed, I said to her: "When I go to my room, the darkness says sleep.
When I take off my clothes, the very act says sleep. When I put my
head on the pillow, the pillow says sleep." She liked that and found
herself able to sleep all night. The next evening she wanted another
"sleeping-potion" but as I did not want her to become dependent on
anybody's suggestion, I put my mouth up close to her ear and
whispered, "Abra ca dabra, dum, dum, dum." She laughed, but saw the
point. After that she slept very well. She merely broke the habit by
making a new kind of association with the thought of bed. Nature did
the rest.

It seems hardly necessary to remark that drug-taking is the most
inefficient way of handling the situation. Everybody knows that
narcotics are harmful to the delicate cells of the brain and that the
dose has to be continuously increased in cases of chronic insomnia.
If a person realizes that the drug is far more harmful than the
insomnia itself, he is weak indeed to yield to temptation for the sake
of a few nights of sleep. As the cause of insomnia is psychic, so the
only logical cure is a new idea and a new attitude of mind.

THE PURPOSE OF INSOMNIA

Like all nervous symptoms, insomnia is not an affliction but an
indulgence. Somehow, and in ways unknown to the conscious mind, it
brings a certain amount of satisfaction to a part of the personality.
No matter how unpleasant it may be, no matter how much we consciously
fear it, something inside chooses to stay awake.

Started, as a rule, through suggestion or imitation, insomnia is
sometimes kept up as a means of making ourselves seem important,--to
ourselves and to others. It at least provides an excuse for thinking
and talking about ourselves, and furnishes a certain feeling of
distinction. If something within us craves attention, even staying
awake may not be too dear a price to pay for that attention. Strange
to say, there are other times when the insomnia is chosen by the
primitive subconscious mind with the idea of doing penance for
supposed sins whose evil effects might possibly be avoided by this
kind of expiation. Analysis shows that motives like this are not so
uncommon as