SLEEPING

I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; and the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.

—Luke 17:34

5766 Questionnaires On Sleep

Questionnaires were given the more than 4000 entering freshmen at the University of Florida. Fewer than half reported that they averaged 7½ to 8½ hours sleep per night the year before. In children and old people, sleep is even more variable. Seventy-five normal infants in their first three days of life showed a range between 10½ and 22½ hours per 24. In a group of 70-year-olds, totals ranged from 5 hours to 12 hours. Several striking cases of extremely short sleep (as little as three hours per night) have been confirmed by laboratory recordings.

Studies in the laboratory have consistently indicated that sleep length makes no more difference in people than big or little ears.

How long should you sleep? Only your particular nature can provide the answer. Why not go to bed at the same time for a number of nights. In the morning, when you wake up naturally, note the hours slept. Then see whether you function effectively throughout the day on that amount of sleep. It may or may not be eight hours.

—Wilse B. Webb

5767 Shock Victim Recovers

Seymour, Texas (AP)—Gene Tipps woke up and discovered the Vietnam War was over. His old girlfriends had long since married and had children.

“Last thing I remember is that we were all kids and single. I know I’m 28, but to me, I’m still 20,” 8 years of almost constant sleeping.

Tipps was critically injured in an automobile accident May 21, 1967. He suffered shock and acute swelling of the brain associated with trauma, and doctors held little hope of recovery. He was comatose for three weeks following the accident, but after he came out of the coma he suffered from complete amnesia.

“We would get him up and feed him and no matter what we did, he would go lay down and go to sleep. He had no desire to do anything,” says his mother, Mrs. O. E. Tipps.

Last month, while recuperating from gallbladder surgery, Tipps brushed away a nurse’s efforts to give him some medication and he snapped out of his eight-year daze.

Tipps thought he had been asleep two weeks. He doesn’t remember when he used to sit in a chair, staring, or his parent’s efforts in the past five years to exercise him on a stationary bicycle to maintain his muscle tone.

5768 Unconscious For 30 Years

On August 5, 1941, a six-year-old girl entered a Chicago hospital for a routine appendectomy. Elaine Esposito has never regained consciousness since that day. She remains alive but unconscious, with no perceptible change in her condition over all the years, as this is written.

5769 He Got His Text

While a student at Bucknell University, I was invited to speak at a church in New Columbia, Pennsylvania. The night before, I set my alarm in ample time to reach the church ahead of schedule. Unknown to me, my roommate came in late that night and turned off the alarm. Much to my chagrin I awoke an hour later than I had planned. By the time I reached the church I was thirty-five minutes late for the service. When I finally got up to begin my talk, I had to announce my text from Romans 13:11, “Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep.”

—James H. Middleton

5770 Underwater Record

A young Australian skin-diver’s attempt to set a world record for staying underwater failed when an assistant hauled him to the surface by mistake. Cris Warner, 22, spent only 23 hours in a fishpool. He had hoped to break the world record of 37½ hours set in Florida in 1972. His colleague, Bill Foster, said he heard the diver call over the intercom line from his helmet: “I’m going under, I’m going under.” Believing Warner was in danger, Foster and several bystanders pulled him to the surface only to find that he had been asleep—and was having a nightmare.

5771 Spoon On Plate On Lap

Salvador Dali reports that when he needs a short nap, he puts a tin plate on the floor, then sits in a chair beside it and, holding a spoon over the plate, relaxes into a doze. At the precise moment of the onset of sleep, the spoon slips from his fingers, clatters onto the plate and he is snapped awake. Dali claims that he is completely refreshed by the sleep which occurs between the time the spoon leaves his hand and the time it hits the plate.

—William C. Dement

5772 Asleep On Finishing Line

To the cheers of 4,000 spectators, a garden snail won the World Champion Snail Race in Gundarro, Australia, and then fell asleep on the finishing line. The snail, known only as No. 806 and owned by eight-year-old Tracey Prisk from nearby Canberra, covered the two-yard course in just less than 20 minutes to beat 12 rivals.

5773 A Snail’s Pace

When you feel that the motorist ahead of you is proceeding at a snail’s pace, check your speedometer. A snail’s pace, according to the University of Maryland scientist, is . 000363005 miles per hour.

—Executive Digest

5774 The Yawn Break

Many know that the yawn stimulates the brain. A Japanese transistor manufacturer has scheduled 30-second “yawn breaks” in the factory schedule. On cue, everyone raises hands over head and yawns in unison. The manufacturer claims production has jumped considerably.

5775 One-Year Sleepers

Herodotus alludes incredulously to a race of Scythians or Tartars who were reported to sleep six months continuously in a year.

5776 On Sleep Walking

Somnambulism is practiced mainly by children and seems to be caused by an immaturity of the central nervous system. It is not at all uncommon, and most children eventually grow out of it. Some people sleep-walk all their adult lives, and there are many tales of the things they have done—driving cars, cooking, even committing murder.

Sleepwalkers frequently keep their eyes open and wear vacant expressions, but do not hold their arms out stiffly in front of them the way it’s done in comic strips. They do, however, move somewhat rigidly.

Bobby Bessen once walked out the front door of his house, circumnavigated the block and then returned to his own bed without waking up. On other occasions he has wondered around switching on lights and the TV. Like all sleepwalkers he never remembers his night’s adventures.

5777 A Sleepwalker’s Death

A few years ago, a young girl, a somnambulist, one dark night got out of the skylight window in her little room which was situated in the very top of the house, and while still asleep she walked to and fro on the roof. A crowd soon gathered and stood trembling and in silence, discussing how they could save her.

Dreaming of an approaching party, she was dressing for the occasion, while singing snatches of some gay song; she was careful to preserve her balance upon the roof (because her sleep was her security); she walked right over to the edge of the roof and seated herself; and stopping in her work, she bent over and looked down smiling upon the street.

The crowd below were horror-stricken and the silence was still more profound. Several times she moved away from her dangerous position, but again she came back to it, always smiling and always sleeping. But suddenly, in the window opposite her a light was seen to appear. The eyes of the sleeping girl caught it, she suddenly awakened and with one piercing cry fell to her death.

—G. R. Macfaul

SLEEPLESSNESS

5778 On Trying To Sleep

Americans are spending more than half a billion dollars a year trying to get sleep; yet many seldom succeed. Julius Segal, of National Institute of Mental Health, said that eight hundred thousand pounds of barbiturates are consumed each year in this country, and there are more than two hundred types of sleeping potions available. He said, “Neither patients nor many of their doctors are entirely aware of the potential dangers involved in the spiraling use of drugs for sleep.”

—C. R. Hembree

5779 Sleepless Records

The longest recorded period for which a man has voluntarily been sleepless is 288 hours (12 days) by Roger Guy English in San Diego, California. His only stimulant was coffee. He suffered hallucinations afterwards.

Other reported cases are Toimi Silvo of Finland who stayed awake for 32 days, 12 hours in 1967. He had to walk 17 miles per day to keep awake and lost 33 lbs. in the process.

Mr. Valentine Medina of Spain claims he lost all desire to sleep in 1904, and has not slept since. During the day, he works on his farm and, at night, patrols the village as watchman. “I’ve taken sleeping pills until I rattle,” he says, “but it does no good.”

—Guinness Book of Records

5780 Sleep And Sleeplessness

Washington Irving’s famous fictional character, Rip van Winkle, slept twenty years. David Hunt, on the other hand, went without sleep for 225 hours. He was a volunteer in a test carried out by a Florida radio station, and he established a world’s record by going nine days and nine hours without sleep.

—Richard Ruble

5781 Studying Insomnia

Stanford, Calif. (AP)—Patrons are paid for sleeplessness at “Hotel Insomnia” where researchers tiptoe through the hallways trying to discover why some people just can’t get to sleep.

About 85 men and women, who gave up counting sheep long ago, are paid from 15 dollars for one night to 500 dollars for two months to have electrodes taped to and implanted in their bodies to measure brain waves and body action during restless sleep.

The large-scale study of insomnia is being conducted by Dr. William C. Dement, director of Stanford University Medical Center’s sleep disorders clinic.

“Insomnia is an ancient affliction,” Dement said. “But there have been only about 100 persons who have ever really been studied while they were sleeping or trying to sleep.” He said his study is one of the largest and most intensive ever made.

“I bet there are at least 100 reasons why people can’t sleep,” Dement said. “Asking what causes insomnia is like asking what causes headache. It could be a lot of things.”

5782 Keep Eyes Open!

When you can’t get to sleep a simple trick may help. Just concentrate on keeping your eyes open in the dark. The more you try to keep them open, the more the lid-closing reflex is strengthened and the more the eyes want to close in sleep. This trick, according to a German medical report, has helped many people fall asleep.

—Farm Journal

5783 Draw Your Breaths

“I found my recipe for sleep in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer,” says novelist Sophie Kerr. “It is simply to draw 20 even breaths, then on the 21st hold the breath as long as possible. By the time I have done this three times I am drowsy.”

—The English Digest

5784 Use Auto-Suggestion

The psychologists say you can cure insomnia with auto-suggestion. Just lie there telling yourself, “I’m a night watchman—I’m a night watchman,” and the first thing you know, you’ll be sound asleep.

—James Thom in Nuggets

5785 “Start An Epidemic?”

When the telephone rang insistently at 3:30 in the morning, my weary doctor husband rolled out of bed to answer it. “Yes?” he croaked into the receiver.

A loud voice crackled: “Doc, sorry to bother you at this hour, but I have a terrific case of insomnia.”

My husband demanded, “Well, what are you trying to do—start an epidemic?”

—Margaret A. Davis

5786 “Alternating Insomnia”

An employer noticed that one of his clerks had not been looking well for months. He had black circles under his eyes, his cheeks were sunken, the color was gone from his face, and his general attitude was one of fatigue. “Don’t you sleep well, Ashley?” he kindly asked.

“No, sir, I do not,” Ashley replied. “My roommate and I both suffer from alternating insomnia.”

“Alternating insomnia? What’s that?”

Ashley explained: “Whichever gets to sleep first keeps the other awake.”

5787 Two Writers’ Habits

Poet Amy Lowell must rent 5 rooms when she is at a hotel: two on either side, one above, and one below—in order to be assured of quiet during sleep.

And Charles Dickens could not sleep until his bed was laid along a North-South axis!

5788 Father Amiable “Revenge”

Leopold Godowsky, the composer, was subject to insomnia. His son, who lived with him until his marriage, was a sound, heavy sleeper. When the father was having a particularly bad night, it was his amiable practice to enter his son’s room, shake him vigorously and exclaim, “What’s the matter, my poor boy? Can’t you sleep either?”

—Bennett Cerf

5789 Epigram On Sleeplessness

•     When you can’t sleep, talk to the Shepherd, Don’t count sheep.

—The Bible Friend

See also: Slothfulness ; Time ; Watchfulness.