The Anatomy of Melancholy

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.