nothing in the way of voluntary activity either of mind or body. Any
nervous or muscular effort during sleep is not only useless but
worse,--it is pure waste of fuel, and results in direct and
irreparable harm. Realizing fully that sleep is meant for rest, that
the only gain is rest, and that new power for use comes as a
consequence,--how absurd it seems that we do not abandon ourselves
completely to gaining all that Nature would give us through sleep.

Suppose, instead of eating our dinner, we should throw the food out
of the window, give it to the dogs, do anything with it but what
Nature meant we should, and then wonder why we were not nourished,
and why we suffered from faintness and want of strength. It would be
no more senseless than the way in which most of us try to sleep now,
and then wonder why we are not better rested from eight hours in
bed. Only this matter of fatiguing sleep has crept upon us so slowly
that we are blind to it. We disobey mechanically all the laws of
Nature in sleep, simple as they are, and are so blinded by our own
immediate and personal interests, that the habit of not resting when
we sleep has grown to such an extent that to return to natural
sleep, we must think, study, and practise.

Few who pretend to rest give up entirely to the bed, a dead
weight,--letting the bed hold them, instead of trying to hold
themselves on the bed. Watch, and unless you are an exceptional case
(of which happily there are a few), you will be surprised to see how
you are holding yourself on the bed, with tense muscles, if not all
over, so nearly all over that a little more tension would hardly
increase the fatigue with which you are working yourself to sleep.

The spine seems to be the central point of tension--it does not