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Member 5. Sleeplessness and frightening dreams remedied.
Just as harmful wakefulness must by every means be avoided, so sleep, which helps so much, must likewise be brought about: by natural or artificial means, by internal or external medicines, and prolonged beyond the usual time if possible, since it is an especially valuable aid.
It moistens and fattens the body, processes food, and helps digestion—as we see in dormice and those Alpine mice Gesner describes, which sleep all winter and are found asleep under the snow in midwinter, as fat as butter. It drives out cares, calms the mind, and refreshes weary limbs after long work.
Sleep, rest of all things, Sleep, gentlest of the gods, Peace of the mind, whom care flees, who soothe bodies Wearied by hard service and restore them for work.
Sleep, rest of all things, O delightful deity, Peace of the soul, who put cares to death, Refresh and soothe weary bodies.
Paracelsus calls sleep the chief thing in all medicine, “surpassing all the secret virtues of gems and metals.” The best time is two or three hours after supper, when food has settled at the bottom of the stomach. It is good to lie first on the right side, because in that position the liver rests beneath the stomach, causing no disturbance but heating it as a fire heats a kettle set beside it. After the first sleep, it is well to lie on the left side so that the food may descend more easily; and sometimes on the belly again, but never on the back.
Seven or eight hours is a sufficient time for a melancholy man to rest, Crato thinks. But to lie in bed without sleeping for a day or half a day together, as some do, indulging pleasant fancies and empty imaginings, is harmful in many ways. To obtain this sweet, moistening sleep, it is best to remove, if possible, whatever prevents it, and then use internal or external remedies that may bring it about.
“It is well established today,” says Boissardus in his treatise On Magic, chapter 4, “that many are so bewitched that they pass whole nights without sleep, in extreme unrest of mind and body.” Many cannot sleep because of witches and enchantments, which are all too common in some places; they call it “giving someone a bad night.”
But the ordinary causes are heat and dryness, which must first be removed: a hot, dry brain never sleeps well. Grief, fears, cares, expectations, anxieties, pressing business—“so that you may sleep at ease on either ear”—and all violent disturbances of the mind must be eased to some degree before we can hope for good rest.
A man who sleeps during the day, lives in uncertainty or fear, is in any way troubled in mind, or goes to bed on a full stomach can never hope for quiet rest at night. “For lodgings do not admit sleep,” as the poet says. Inns and similar noisy places are no places to sleep: one calls for the stable-hand, another for the bartender; one cries and shouts, another sings, whoops, and bellows.
——The boatman and the traveller, drenched in sour wine, Sing of their absent sweethearts.
Who, unless accustomed to such noises, can sleep among them? Anyone intending to rest must go to bed “with a mind at ease, quiet and free”—with a secure and composed mind, in a quiet place: “All things of the night will be settled in peaceful rest.” If that does not suffice, or cannot be obtained, he must seek whatever further means are needed.
He should lie in clean, sweet-smelling linen; before going to bed, or in bed, hear sweet music, which Ficino recommends in book 1, chapter 24. Or, as Joubert says in Medical Practice, book 3, chapter 10, he should read some pleasant author until he falls asleep, or have water continually dripping into a basin beside his bed. He might lie near the pleasant murmur “of gently sounding water”: sluices, arches, waterfalls, as at London Bridge, or some continuous noise that may numb the senses. “Gentle motion, silence and darkness, and even the will itself, bring sleep.”
As a gentle noise brings sleep to some, so, as Bernardino Telesio rightly observes in his book On Sleep, silence in a dark room, and the will itself, are most effective for others. Piso recommends rubbing the body; Andrew Boorde, a good draught of strong drink before bed. I suggest a nutmeg and ale, or a good draught of muscadine with toast and nutmeg, or a posset made from it. Many take these in the morning, but I think them much more suitable at night for those with dry brains.
Some prescribe a sip of vinegar at bedtime—a spoonful, says Aëtius, Tetrabiblos, book 2, section 2, chapter 10; book 6, chapter 10. Paul of Aegina, book 3, chapter 14, and Piso recommend it a little after food, “because it thins the melancholic humour and creates a desire for sleep.” Donato Antonio Altomare, chapter 7, and Mercurialis approve it if the disorder proceeds from the spleen. Sallustius Salvianus, On Remedies, book 2, chapter 1; Hercules de Saxonia, in Pan.; and Aelianus Montalto, On Diseases of the Head, chapter 28, on melancholy, oppose it altogether. Luis Mercado, On the Causes of Internal Diseases, book 1, chapter 17, allows it in some cases.
Rhazes seems undecided about it: though Simeon recommends it in sauce, perhaps, he still questions it. As for baths, warm applications, oils, potions, and single or compound medicines taken internally for this purpose, I shall discuss them elsewhere. If people lie awake in the middle of the night, as they commonly do, tossing and turning without sleep, Rantzau would have them, in warm weather, rise and walk three or four times around the room until they are cool, then go to bed again.
Against frightening and troublesome dreams, the nightmare, and similar troubles that afflict melancholy people, the best remedy is a light supper of easily digested foods, without hare, venison, beef, and the like; not lying on the back; not dwelling during the day on anything terrifying; and especially not talking of such things before bed.