SLEEP SOLVES PROBLEMS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4372, 1 February 1922, Page 3

SLEEP SOLVES PROBLEMS

(By a Nerve Specialist.)

A certain proverb has it that “night brings counsel”; in more colloquial language.we say of some plan that we’ll “sleep on it”—that is, we shall postpone our decision. But these phrases may very well and quite seriously be taken in their literal sense.

It is not simply a matter of consciously think the scheme over again, ranging the pros and cons on either side, and reaching a decision according to a preponderating balance. “Sleeping bn it”' really signifies leaving it to the subconscious, and that means that' our subconscious minds work on and with the material supplied, ajid then present us with the finished article.

It is well known that complicated mental operations are performed during sleep. The subconscious never sleeps.

There are many instances on record ofi certain famous men who have found the solution of a puzzling arithmetical Or mathematical problem ready to hand on suddenly waking during the night or as a first thought immediately on waking/in the morning.

Some poets and writers, hard put to it last thing at night for an idea, have quitted the work, maybe in disgust, and' gone' to bed, only to find, precisely what they wanted on sud-, denly? waking.

And so with more humble individuals like ourselves, we may find some question or circumstance' puzzling us when we .go to sleep, but with, the morning come the disappearance of the difficulty and the right answer. The subconscious mind has done the work, and, moreover, done it much better than we conscipusly would have done. t Again, what isyfeasier for most people than to wake at a icertaip unaccustomed hour when they so desire ? The only condition needful is that they should dr, op off to sleep with' the wish and expectation- definitely formulated in the mind. It may thep safe-i .ly be left to the subconscious'to see that the instruction —as it were—is carried out; and carried out It is, often with the greatest These things are well enough known, but they 'are apt to he passed over simply as strange and unusual phenomena.

Is there any good reason, however, why they should' not be made use of and turned to goad account ?

Suppose you are* in a dilemma and do not know whether, to ..turn tp the right or to the left'. You have looked at the position from! all sides, and exhausted, as far as you can see, all the pros and cons. Well, then—now, resolutely quit the subject, give it a rest. take the assured attitude that the fuller powers of the subconscious can be left to tackle thte conditions, then “wait and :see.”

Tn other words, “sleep oh it” —leave it to the subconscious.

The result will be, in!" the majority Of cases, the course mfeiffe clear.