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The author who “looked” at Literature, and at “Love and Life” and who took the “Literary Pulse” has now presented the subject of insomnia for popular consumption. Sleep is referred to as “the chief nourisher in life's feast,” and insomnia as “an artefact, the penalty of ignorance, transgression and sin,” moreover, this insomnia is something “to be cured by enlightenment, determination and discipline, not by drugs, coddling and self-indulgence.”
In the first chapter Dr. Collins makes a short discussion of the nature of sleep principally from a phenomenological standpoint and then proceeds to describe the varieties of insomnia and classes of poor sleepers. The usual theories of the cause of sleep and in addition the more recent concept of Pavlov of its mechanisms are simply and briefly stated in preparation for what is to be said later concerning disorders of this important function. Insomnias are divided into two large classes (1) those due to “purely physical causes” and (2) those initiated by mental, moral or emotional factors. There is also a third group termed “secondary insomnia” which is not particularly important in a study of insomnia as it is caused by temporary or passing disturbances of more or less trivial significance.
The main factors in two large groups of insomnia are set forth in some detail, and throughout the presentation, the author stresses the fact that the sufferer tends more and more toward the conviction that sleep is impossible; which attitude of mind in turn prolongs the insomnia. The fear of insomnia which favors its appearance and prolongation, and the various tricks of the mind tending to substitute insomnia for normal sleep.
In his comments on dreams which occupy a special chapter the author presents the Freudian viewpoint and remarks “Although Freud's theory of dreams is not generally accepted, it is only since his time that we have made any real advance in the scientific study on the subject … it is highly probable that on the foundation