Читать книгу The psychology of sleep онлайн

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It is always difficult to make the super-sensitive person realize that his suffering is due chiefly to self-consideration and a desire to control others. It is an undue recognition of one’s own claim upon the very circumstances of life that makes one offer so many surfaces which may be “hurt.” We may be disturbed in our sleep by the ordinary pursuits of our fellows because we have an exaggerated idea of the importance of certain conditions that appeal to us and make for our comfort. We wish to sleep at a certain time, and we should like to regulate all our neighbors so that they, too, should suspend all activities at that same time. We accustom ourselves to quiet; and then insist that we cannot do without it.

There is a story told of a man working in a foundry who formed a part of two “shifts” of workmen and betweenwhiles slept for some hours in the foundry. When released from that strain, he found that he could not sleep at home because it was so quiet, and it became necessary for the members of his family to unite in making ringing, pounding noises to lull him to slumber.