Sleep and Sleeplessness
- Author:
Addington Bruce. Boston: Little, Brown and
Co., 1915. Pp. ix-f219.
“Exhaustive and painstaking,” says Mr. Bruce, “have been the researches of modern psychologists with regard to the general problem of the state of the mind in sleep.” This being so, we might expect him to present to us the fruit of some of these researches. His complete failure to do anything of the sort makes his book insignificant. Among the many miters whom he quotes, only three or four lmvo any standing as psychologists, and of these all but one, William James, have become known rather by their popularity among lay readers than as contributors to the advancement of science.
One of the results of psychological investigation Mr. Bruce believes is “the gaining of unexpected insight into the true significance of dreams.” He devotes two long chapters to the interpretation of dreams, touching lightly upon the Freudian hypothesis. Of Freud he says that while he “has allowed the passion for generalization to carry him to a rash extreme, I am nevertheless convinced that he has furnished the necessary clue to the solution of the problem … of the strange influence exercised over dreams by trivial incidents of the waking state.” Having made this concession Mr. Bruce proceeds to unfold a theory of dreams which betrays that he for one has passed unscathed through the fierce rays wherewith Freud would illumine our less conscious moments. His own theory he states thus: “The subconscious, after all, is closely linked to the conscious. Whatever chiefly concerns a man’s conscious thought will be the chief concern of his subconscious thinking, awake or asleep.” Could anything be more remote from Freud?
Mr. Bruce draws generously upon the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research and like sources, commenting, “It may be that such dreams are evidential of an as yet unrecognized natural power of the human mind.” Discussing the causes of sleeplessness he cites from a medical work a sensible if not highly original suggestion which applies to all who are sleepless from overstimulation of some kind, usually coffee,?”If they cannot do without coffee, they must continue to do without sleep.” Under the treatment of sleeplessness Mr. Bruce favors hypnotic suggestion, and speaks with approval of prayer as a therapeutic agent. He concludes, “The proper treatment for ninety to ninetyfive per cent of insomnia is by psychological means alone, or psychological means plus hygienic and dietetic modifications of the daily life.” In his preface he says, “Evidence is now available indicating that almost all insomnia is curable, and curable without recourse to drugs.”
It is not pleasant to think of a sufferer with gout or exophthalmic goitre trying to secure sleep by the exercise of will power alone, or through hypnotism, while he neglects the medication which might cure his disease. On the other hand, there must be very many sleeplesss persons who lack sufficient occupation and are overmuch concerned about their health, and to these the polite optimism of Mr. Bruce’s volume may prove serviceable in promoting cheerfulness, if not in directly inducing sleep. A. T.
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