Sleep

“ Had her sleep been lighter at the dead hour of the night, when the wind was whistling loudly outside, and darkness lay over the valley like a pall, had her sleep been lighter that noisy night, this true story would never have been written. ”

“ Might it not be that this host of angels is descending upon the sleeping world to soothe the restless, worried ones, and smooth the puckered, aching brows in quiet slumber? Lulled by their gentle music, or the rustle of their approaching footsteps, the weary one would soon find refreshing sleep. ”

“ Oh, all you happy over the earth,
That night, how could I sleep?
I lay and watched the lonely gloom;
And watched the moonlight creep
From wall to basin, round the room.
All night I could not sleep. ”

“ I said it with my thought to the dark wings, and it replied—‘You shall pass away together.’ Then it came closer to me, like a watching mother to the bed, and I felt it come down on my eyes like a shadow, and then I seemed to sleep a long, long while. Such a sleep as one is half conscious of, and the refreshment of which he fully enjoys. ”

“ I can sleep long, I can sleep often, and I can sleep sound. When I put my head on the pillow I pass into a fathomless peace where no dreams come, and about eight hours later I emerge to consciousness, as though I have come up from the deeps of infinity. ”

“ You eat and sleep and forget the cares of life, forget its troubles, and smelling the incense of the pines, sleep comes to you the moment your head touches your pillow and lasts unbrokenly until breakfast-time the next day. ”

“ Sleep shows material sense as either Sleep an illusion oblivion, nothingness, or an illusion or dream. Under the mesmeric illusion of belief, a man will think that he is freezing when he is warm, and that he is swimming when he is on dry land. ”

“ It seemed to me, young mothers, that I understood you! sleep is the mystery of life; there is a profound charm in this darkness broken by the tranquil light of the night-lamp, and in this silence measured by the rhythmic breathings of two young sleeping creatures. ”

“ Poor tired World, for whose weary inhabitants oftentimes the greatest blessing is sleep! Good-night! sleep well! but the sleep implies waking.—waking to a morning of pleasure or sorrow,—or labor that is only lightened by,—Love! ”

“ And again, when sleep Has bound our members down in slumber soft And all the body lies in deep repose, Yet then we seem to self to be awake And move our members; and in night's blind gloom We think to mark the daylight and the sun ”

“ We know that the surface idea connected with sleep is that of resting. The eyes of the sleeper ache no more with the glare of light or with the rush of tears; his ears are teased no more with the noise of strife or the murmur of suffering ”

“ During sleep we enter a strange, mysterious realm which science has thus far not explored. Beyond the border-line of slumber the investigator may not pass with his common-sense rule and test. Sleep with softest touch locks all the gates of our physical senses and lulls to rest the conscious will—the disciplinarian of our waking thoughts. ”

“ We slept a great deal, too, days as well as nights, and the sleep was at first of that delicious kind which one enjoys in the moments between waking and rising—a conscious sleep, in which one feels the myriad renovative changes of tissue, when each little cell seems to stretch and tingle and feed against the waste of the coming day. ”

“ Since you, vast, outstretched, wordless Sleep Permit of no beyond, ah you, whose dreams We are, and body of sleep, let it never be said I quailed at my appointed function, turned poltroon For when at night, from out the full surcharge Of a day's experience, sleep does slowly draw The harvest, the spent action to itself ”

“ Rightly he said “asleep”—the long sleep that is the sweetest and happiest in that it knows no waking here; the long sweet sleep that no evil dreams disturb; the sleep after which the eyes open upon the light of immortality, and the weary heart rests upon the bosom of its God. ”

“ Sometimes at night I sleep, and when I sleep I rest, and when my eyes are opened in the morning the weight comes back and sits upon my heart, and the strength seems to pass from my limbs and the will from my brain. ”

“ A membrane of sleep, like a black blanket.{198}
We walk in our sleep, in this land,
Somnambulist wide-eyed afraid.
We scream for someone to wake us
And our scream is soundless in the paralysis of sleep,
And we know it. ”

“ The restlessness is allayed, and a quiet state of body and mind succeeds. It needs but a suggestion to induce him to retire for the night. After being a few minutes in bed, sleep steals over him, and his heavy breathing tells that he is in the world of dreams. ”

“ When on my Bed I Senseless lie,
My Soul with Heavenly thoughts supply.
Let no Ill Dreams disturb my Rest;
No Powers of Darkness me molest.
6.
Dull Sleep does me of Life deprive;
I am but half my days alive. ”

“ Sleep we cannot call it for it was more of the nature of a waking dream than refreshing slumbers; and, after enduring two or three hours of increasing restlessness, he sprang from his couch, and, while it was yet early morn, strolled forth to refresh his fevered brain. ”

“ Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir-tree. ”

“ What is sleep? I do not ask, of course, how sleep can be explained physiologically. That is a special question, and besides is far from being settled. I ask what is sleep psychologically; for our mind continues to exercise itself when we are asleep, and it exercises itself as we have just seen on elements analogous to those of waking, on sensations and memories; and also in an analogous manner combines them. Nevertheless we have on the one hand normal perception, and on the other the dream. ”

“ Persons who walk in their sleep, as I know from experience, get out of bed with their eyes open, see and feel the objects about them, open the window, and leisurely survey the opposite trees and houses, long before they recollect where they are, or before the fresh air and the regular succession of known objects dispel the drowsy phantoms of the night. ”

“ She goes to bed, but, for the first few hours, she is too much excited to sleep; toward morning, when the air is pure and invigorating, and, when to breathe it, would be to inhale health and life, she falls into a feverish slumber, and wakes not until noonday. ”

“ This excellent and refreshing sleep falls like a soft curtain of oblivion and saves the man's consciousness from the jar and disappointment of an anti-climax. But not only is this sleep a restorative after the strenuous efforts of the transport, it has peculiarly refreshing powers, and many men feel that after such a sleep their whole system seems rejuvenated. ”

“ This interval of being and repose is momentary: she will awake but only to perish at the spectacle of my ingratitude—she will awake only to the consciousness of instantly impending death. When she again sleeps she will wake no more. ”

“ And far below the long vale stretched.
⁠As a sleeper she did seem
That after some brief restlessness
⁠Has now begun to dream.
(All day the wakefulness of men,
⁠Their lives and labours brief,
Have broken her long troubled sleep.
⁠Now, evening brings relief.) ”

“ Let not night herself be all, as it were, the special and peculiar property of sleep. Let not half thy life be useless through the senselessness of slumber. Divide the time of night between sleep and prayer. Nay, let thy slumbers be themselves experiences in piety; for it is only natural that our sleeping dreams should be for the most part echoes of the anxieties of the day. ”

“ You can all sleep and snore the whole night without waking, but I can sleep for only a short quarter of an hour at a time; and once when the dog came to me in that dreadful manner I was only half awake, and I thought it was my bedfellow choking me. ”

“ If it be so in one waking time, when the mind is busy with a multitude of impressions flowing in upon it from every sense—much more is it likely so to be when the impressions made by the senses are few, as is proved by the experience of every reader. In sleep, a slight sound falling upon the ear will suggest a dream of roaring cannon or rattling thunder. ”

“ Sleep is the perfection of repose, the most complete rest; slumber is a light and ordinarily pleasant form of sleep. In the figurative sense, rest of mind, soul, conscience, is not mere cessation of activity, but a pleasing, tranquil relief from all painful and wearying activity ”

“ In profound slumber, when both brains are sleeping, there is no consciousness—time is annihilated to such a sleeper and awakening seems to follow immediately upon falling asleep, although in reality many hours may have passed. ”

“ Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, with such unknown horrors as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams. ”

“ Every morning, arising from the death of sleep, the happy plants and all our fellow animal creatures great and small, and even the rocks, seemed to be shouting, “Awake, awake, rejoice, rejoice, come love us and join in our song. ”

“ And the old giant woman answered, "He slumbers too well. When we sleep we both snore loudly, and when you hear us snoring you may cough as much as you please, for then you will know that we are sound asleep." ”

“ Think of the breath as passing from the nostrils in one continuous stream, and, the very instant the person so conceives, consciousness and memory depart, the muscles relax, the breath comes regularly, he no longer wakes but sleeps. It is all the effort of but a moment. ”

“ Sleep is not, death is not; Who seem to die live. House you were born in, Friends of your spring-time, Old man and young maid, Day's toil and its guerdon, They are all vanishing, Fleeing to fables, Cannot be moored. ”

“ Their supine posture assured me that they were asleep. Sleep usually comes at their bidding, and if, perchance, they should be wakeful at an unseasonable moment, they always sit upon their haunches, and, leaning their elbows on their knees, consume the tedious hours in smoking. ”

“ The night air is calmer, when silence reigns, hence bodily impressions are made in sleep, when slight internal movements are felt more than in wakefulness, and such movements produce in the imagination images from which the future may be foreseen. ”

“ During sleep, the vital forces restore themselves to that healthy balance which the continuance of our being so much requires; all the cramped ideas and feelings, the overstrained actions which have troubled us through the day, are solved in the entire relaxation of the sensorium; the harmony of the motions of the mind are resumed, and the newly-awakened man greets the coming day more calmly. ”

“ It can be lived in while we are sleeping no less than when we are awake. And here shall we consider a few facts in connection with sleep, in connection with receiving instruction and illumination while asleep?
During the process of sleep it is merely the physical body that is at rest and in quiet; the soul life with all its activities goes right on. Sleep is nature's provision for the recuperation of the body, for the rebuilding and hence the replacing of the waste that is continually going on during the waking hours. It is nature's great restorer. ”

“ Sleep, properly regarded, when it is perfect, is a state of absolute rest and inactivity of all the organs and functions of the body save the digestion of food and the circulation of the blood, and of all the mental faculties. Perfect sleep, sleep in which there is absolutely no consciousness, is more rare than those states in which there is more or less consciousness. ”

“ You have probably seen enough of affairs to recognise that occasionally a certain friction——— But even if that was the case, there is a doubt whether he will ever wake. This sleep exhausts slowly, but it exhausts. ”

“ Having drank of immortality all night, the genius enters [Pg 254] eagerly upon the day's task, impatient of any impertinences jogging the full glass.... Sleep and see; wake, and report the nocturnal spectacle. Sleep, like travel, enriches, refreshes, by varying the day's perspective, showing us the night side of the globe we traverse day by day. We make transits too swift for our wakeful senses to follow; pass from solar to lunar consciousness in a twinkling; lapse from forehead and face to occupy our lower parts, and recover, as far as permitted, the keys of genesis and of the fore worlds. ”

“ Fast asleep? It is no matter. Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber; Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies, Which busy care draws in the brains of men; Therefore thou sleep'st so sound. ”