The art of natural sleep : $b with definite directions for the wholesome cure of sleeplessness : illustrated by cases treated in Northampton and elsewherePowell, Lyman P. (Lyman Pierson)
Religion
The art of natural sleep : $b with definite directions for the wholesome cure of sleeplessness : illustrated by cases treated in Northampton and elsewhere
Powell, Lyman P. (Lyman Pierson)
Emmanuel movement; Insomnia; Sleep
A widow, seventy-three years of age, suffering for twelve years from
neurasthenia, was apt to wake about the middle of every night and to
go to sleep no more. The loss of sleep was bad enough, but the morbid
fancies which invariably came in swarms sometimes all but drove her to
distraction. There was such a bad family history as to sleep and such
poor circulation with its inevitable cold feet, that the physician
gave me little hope of relieving her insomnia. During the first month
of her treatment I, therefore, confined myself almost entirely to
the upbuilding of her faith by a course of optimistic reading and by
suggestion. I seldom spoke about her sleeplessness at all. To her
surprise and mine in a few weeks her sleep began to improve. At the
end of two months, though she still awoke two or three nights every
week, no morbid fancies came. She filled up her mind with wholesome
thoughts, repeated again and again the auto-suggestions on page 68,
and usually awoke almost as much refreshed as though she had slept the
whole night through. Now after almost a year she reports what used to
be one bad night out of every four or five, but as compared with the
bad nights—four or five a week—of former years it were better called,
she thinks, a good night than a bad one.
_C.—Waking early in the morning_
1. A college girl of unusual ability and character had practically
all her life been inclined to wake at two or three o’clock in the
morning and often go to sleep no more; or if she went to sleep, to
sleep badly and be subject to hideous dreams and horrible nightmares.
After one treatment, June 15th, she began at once to sleep much better.
Though she sometimes woke as formerly at two or three, she at once by
relaxation and auto-suggestion usually went off to sleep again and
suffered little from dreams and nightmares. She has had two treatments
since, and is not only much improved in body but is happier and more
serene in mind.
2. The Emmanuel Clinic in Boston reports the case of an unmarried
woman, fifty-two years old, who usually slept four hours a night,
awaking at 2.30 and never sleeping more. Her treatment was begun June
20, 1907, and was followed by immediate improvement. By July 1, 1907,
she was sleeping without waking eight hours every night, and reported
August, 1908, that the improvement had become permanent.
_D.—Semi-sleep_
1. A college girl had never had the feeling of being sound asleep. She
thought she was half conscious the night through. What sleep she got
never seemed to refresh her. She came to me for treatment, February 7,
1908, slept somewhat better for a night or two, and came back, February
14th, 18th, 25th, for other treatments. On March 13th she reported
that though she was not completely cured she was sleeping more soundly
and felt better in every way. There was in this case the unhappy
complication of organic heart trouble.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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