Basically, on the topic of sleep and how best to come by it, world opinion separates into two camps.
Some say – and this is the older theory – that peace and quiet will help bring on the state of slumber. This approach led to the development of the Do Not Disturb sign.
Other, more modern thinkers, believe noise, or at least sound, is the essential ingredient in snooze inducement. Turn on a vacuum cleaner, washing machine or lawnmower, they say, and the rhythmic decibels which emanate from them will konk out even the most previously wide-awake person.
These no-peep-no-sleep theorists believe sounds from motors have hypnotic, soothing effects on people, especially babies. What they forget is that a baby’s purpose in life is to sleep, among a few other functions. They know how to do this very well and never need any auditory encouragement.
But even if the theory does hold some validity for infants, it gets a little weak when it’s applied to adults who have a lot more sleep-preventing things going on inside their heads most of the time. One of those things is worrying about their babies sleeping in the next room.
The nod-off-to-noise notion was originated years ago by the makers of clocks and of radios who were alarmed, so to speak, at how their sales were failing off. After years of doing brisk businesses, almost everybody who wanted alarm clocks and radios had all they needed.
So, putting their heads together, the manufacturers of radios and alarm clocks came up with the radio-alarm clock, the perfect solution for falling to sleep and for waking up pleasantly in the morning.
Having trouble doing both, I wandered into a store recently, put down $29.95 and brought home technology’s flashy cure for insomnia.
“Drift off to sleep to the soothing sounds from your radio,” the owner’s manual reads, “and wake up hours later to your favourite music.” What could be simpler? Or more effective?
Beats leaving your vacuum cleaner or lawnmower running all night.
The first night I had it, I could hardly wait to go to bed. As it was, I headed there a half hour earlier than usual, just to try it out. I set the time I wanted to wake up, then hit the sleep button and on came the music. It stayed on for 59 minutes and then the radio shut off until morning when it came back on at the preset time.
Drift off to music, wake up to music. A dream, so to speak, come true.
As I lay there listening to the mellow sounds from the radio, I could feel my eyes get heavy and I thought, “Isn’t technology wonderful?” That’s the last thing I remember until 6:30 the next morning when I briefly woke up to music and as I drifted off again, I thought, “Isn’t technology wonderful?”
I woke up late and got to work late and that night it occurred to me: “You can’t have it both ways. If the music puts you to sleep, it’s not going to wake you up too.”
So, that night, I switched the wake button to “alarm” instead of “music” and at 6:30 the next morning, a faint “beep, beep, beep” slipped lightly from the radio speaker, and I barely came to.
Experimenting, I realized that, the beep was controlled by the radio’s volume switch and that if I wanted it to be loud enough to wake me in the morning, I’d have to keep the radio turned up loud when I put it on at bedtime. This I did and eventually got used to drifting off to sleep to the loud sounds of soft music.
This worked until my favourite bedtime radio station started switching over to rock music at the same late hour every night so while I’d drift asleep to the soft sounds of Catch A Falling Star by Perry Como, I’d awake a half hour later to the rockin’ hellroar of Love Stinks by J. Geils.
But the problems reached their peak when I became so attuned, so to speak, to falling asleep to music, that I no longer can sleep without it. So now, every 59 minutes, when the radio automatically shuts off, I automatically wake up, reach over and hit the sleep button again so it will carry on for another 59 minutes.
This goes on all night.
And lately, every time I hear a radio, I want to roll over and go to sleep. This is not handy when I’m driving in my car.
Now I am looking for a device which helps a person sleep without sound.
If it doesn’t plug into a wall, I’ll buy it.
©1989 Jim Hagarty
