THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



be confused, and to lapse again into unconsciousness if 

 allowed to do so. Familiar illustration of this comes 

 within the experience of most persons who are often 

 aroused at night. The physician, for example, often 

 finds it positively distressing to be aroused when he has 

 been but a short time asleep, while minding but little a 

 call that comes later in the night. A touch of his bell 

 awakens him at either time because his mind is keyed 

 constantly to responsive expectancy in regard to that one 

 sound; but from the profound period of sleep he 

 awakens momentarily confused, and perhaps even 

 with a feeling of tension amounting to pain in his 

 head, from the sudden onrush of neural energy; while 

 from the less profound later sleep he awakens fully at 

 once, and without sense of oppression. 



The fact that the organism sinks to its lowest level 

 of kinetic energising so soon after consciousness is 

 lost has given rise to the current saying that "an hour's 

 sleep before midnight is worth two after midnight"; 

 a statement that is often true simply because most people 

 retire one or two hours before midnight. The middle 

 hour of the night, as such, has nothing to do with the 

 matter, the fact being merely that the first hours of 

 sleep, other things being equal, are most profound and 

 hence most restful. 



The mistaken notion that sleep is deepest just be- 

 fore waking, is naturally linked with that other sophism 

 that it is darkest just before the dawn. Each is the 

 antithesis of truth. If it be true, as has often been 

 alleged, that Indians are most successful in raiding a 

 camp just before dawn, it must be because the sentry 



