Sleep and Insomnia

By João Baptista Cottas, M.D.

Sleep is the partial cessation of mental and physical activities. It is a period of rest during which the energies consumed in daily activity are restored. For Christian Rationalists, sleep is the means by which the spirit recovers from the psychic life spent. It is by diminishing the psychic functions and abolishing the voluntary movements of the physical body that the spirit disconnects itself from it, even though it is attached by fluidic, invisible cords, as stated by the spiritualist and scientist Dr. Pinheiro Guedes. In this disconnection or detachment, it ascends to its world of Superior Astral light, receiving effluviations, new strengths and energies for the daily life struggle.

Sleep and physical nourishment are indispensable to the organism. For perfect health, it is necessary to sleep well and provide the body with healthy food.

A good night's sleep, free of unpleasant dreams, provides physical well-being and contributes to the elimination of toxins that have accumulated in the body during the day.

The disposition of the spirit that we take with us when we go to bed has a considerable influence on the quality and duration of sleep. The last scenes, actions or facts of the day and especially at night, are recorded in such a way in our spirit that they can cause disturbances to sleep, giving rise to dreams, which are nothing more than ideas and images presented to the spirit while the body remains asleep.

Have you ever observed how harmful certain television programs are to children at dinner time, making them irritable and disobedient?

Have you evaluated the disturbance and nervousness that cause certain police programs, sudden deaths, murders, fights, in the minds of children and adults, just before they go to bed?

Before bed, we should all read a good book, an interesting one, even entertaining, or listen to good music.

While sleep restores our energies, calms us down and rejuvenates, insomnia disturbs, makes the individual irritable, nervous and moody.

A bad night's sleep, full of nightmares, unpleasant dreams, causes the individual pain in the body and indisposition to work.

The annoyances, the worries should never accompany us to bed, because they can really disturb our sleep, arousing the nervous system and causing insomnia.

Every agitated, nervous person who leads an irregular and restless life is subject to insomnia, and the less sleep the more irritable he or she will become, to the point of reaching madness, psychic imbalance, due to the wear and tear of his or her animistic life.

There is insomnia provoked by mental conditions; by worries of abnormal character; at the beginning of acute infectious diseases; by meningitis, brain tumors, cerebral syphilis, etc. In these cases, insomnia should be treated in specialized clinics.

We also have the elderly insomnia, proper of their age. In old age one sleeps little. A sleep of three to four hours satisfies.

Let us avoid, then, at bedtime, emotions, annoyances, let us leave the problems for the next day, let us listen to some music or delight ourselves with a good book, and then there will be no insomnia or unpleasant dreams.