I am going to sleep. I shall not lie awake. I cannot lie awake. I am going to sleep. The tired eyes are closing. The blood is flowing from my brain to my extremities. There is no longer any pressure on the brain. The muscles are relaxing. Sleep is stealing over all my senses. They are growing numb. I am getting drowsy, drowsy. I am softly sinking into sleep, dreamless sleep. I am sinking deeper, deeper, deeper. I am almost asleep. I am asleep, asleep, asleep. I am asleep. FOOTNOTES [15] It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that no charge is ever made for the Emmanuel treatment, though grateful patients sometimes make a thank offering to the church of which the Emmanuel worker is the Rector. THE ULTIMATE EFFECT Even if, in spite of this, one sometimes fails to sleep, one will at least be free from the nerve-strain which a night of worry about sleep invariably brings. And if, in the face of every discouragement and every temptation to lapse from this wholesome attitude toward sleep, one habitually practises each night some such auto-suggestions, he has forever turned his face away from chronic sleeplessness. He may not always sleep at will. He may not always live up to the light vouchsafed to him. But he will sleep much better than he slept before. He will be free from the morbidness and worry of insomnia. He will have faith where he had fear, peace where he had the troubled mind, and the light at eventide of a night which is not dark with griefs and graves. More than this, he will sleep. He will sleep habitually—to his body’s health, his mind’s contentment, and his soul’s supreme delight. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES I. CURED BY SUGGESTION ALONE _A.—Waking Suggestion_ 1. The Emmanuel Clinic in Boston reports the case of a distinguished lawyer who after nine months of insomnia came to Emmanuel Church for counsel. He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His habit was to take his work and worries every night to bed with him. He was advised to submit to the rest cure under a good neurologist. He replied that, with important cases coming up at once for trial, rest was impossible. In fact, he could at most spend a few hours in Boston. The causes of insomnia were then explained to him. Suggestions were given looking toward self-help. The importance of cheerful and uplifting thoughts was emphasised. He went away an hour later to report in a few weeks that he was entirely cured and had not felt so well since he was a boy. 2. Dubois (p. 340) speaks of a physician twenty-three years of age who had suffered for nine months from persistent insomnia. By bromides, bathing, travel, and the cessation of all work, he had obtained only transient results. Dubois drew his attention to the psychic causes of insomnia, counselled the immediate abandonment both of the treatment he had been giving himself and of all apprehension of insomnia. In a few days sleep returned, the convalescent resumed his customary duties, and was soon completely well again.