science

Morpheus And Me

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(Scan by Rev. Byrd| Cited Edition)

Author: Phyllis I. Rosenteur


 Edition Cited in The Compleat Witch

 

Publisher: Funk And Wagnalls

City: New York
Year: 1957

Pages: 344
Binding: Hardback
Size: 5.75″ x 8.75″

 

Back Cover Copy
(from cited edition)
Every facet of the sleep story… for each age group… any member of either sex… endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph… egghead… slugabed… insomniac… aesthete… athlete… student of the supernatural… and the vast mass of those who secretly believe that anything you can’t do in bed probably isn’t worth doing at all.
 
An investigation of every theory from the pathological one that sleep occurs when the system is poisoned by toxic substances to the theological contention (Psalms CXXVII) that sleep is simply God’s gift to His beloved… An exploration of the staggering importance of sleep and sleep’s effect on brain and body… A man may go 40 days without solid food, seven days of longer without food or water, but five days is the maximum he may live without sleep.
 
The book is thoroughly researched and authoritative, but written with a light touch instead of the usual heavy hand and fearsome footnotes.
 
The potential audience for this book is enormous.  A survey made by The American Institute of Public Opinion indicates that more than 50% of our entire populace has a sleep problem of one sort of another.  Psychologies, pathologists, pedagogues, and mattress-makers are all prying into the how, when, where, and why of our unconscious hours… and not all of these efforts are completely altruistic.
 
(continued on inside back flap)

 

Inside Flap Copy
(from cited edition)
(continued from back panel)

The plain truth is that tossers-and-turners spend a pile of money in pursuit of Morpheus.  The imaginary Sandman of our youth has mushroomed into a multi-million dollar industry.  It’s my contention that anybody who’ll buy an oscillating bed and sleep-provoking incense sticks can probably be talked into a book as well.

Though unaccredited medically, clinically, or by a Bedstead Baron, I consider myself a fully equipped expect… an authority who has qualified by spending almost 100,000 hours in sleep or search for same.  I have been comatose in 35 states and 22 countries… on everything from an earthen floor to a pallet of pressed rose petals… with swinging hammocks, splintered spruce boughs, soggy sleeping bags and super-aerated, permanently perfumed, whipped foam between those extremes.  I’ve met the back-scratcher who is under exclusive contract to an oil tycoon, and I’ve been chastised by a Chinese friend for awakening her so suddenly that her soul was nearly scared clean our of her skin.

My own sleep pattern has baffled the best brains.  Occasionally I’ll siesta for 18 hours at a stretch… or three hours a night for days on end.  During the last ten years many of my newspaper deadlines have been made with the aid of acute insomnia.  Several really good sieges have accounted for my previously published books.
Table of Contents
(from cited edition)


1. And so to sleep…  3
2. Science vs. the sandman  13
3. The bed as was…  29
4. …And the bed as is  44
5. In bed with the experts  64
6. Sense and nonsense  79
7. Between the sheets with both sexes  97
8. Small fry in slumberland  120
9. Gizmos and gadgets  139
10. Potions and pills  156
11. Such stuff as dreams are made on… 179
12. …And things that go Bump in the night  194
13. Hip, hip, hypnosis!  210
14. Anarch in slumberland  227
15. Around the world on a mattress  244
16. Enter insomnia  268
17. Exit insomnia  283
18. The rude awakening  300
19. The future of sleep  321

Online Resources
 
Archive.org | GoodReads | Google Books | LibraryThing
OpenLibrary | Project Gutenberg | Wikipedia | WorldCat

 

Editions

(Scan by Rev Byrd | Cited Edition) 

Year: 1957
Publisher: Funk & Wagnalls
Pages: 344
Binding: Hardback
Size: 5.75″ x 8.75″
Cover Price: $3.95
LoC: 57-6504
Notes: 
 
Additional Photos

 

(N/A)
 
Misc. Quotes

“The arguments are still substantially the same; with allowances for individual kinks and historical quirks, the dreams are too. If I study an old drawing of Dante’s Inferno, I can spot my own little demons sprawled all over the scene. When scholars decipher a dead language, they inevitably turn up an accurate description of a dream I enjoyed just last night. The testimony of dreams supplies ample evidence that human nature hasn’t changed one whit since the world began. Inherent appetites have always struggled against imposed mores, and the wise men of each era have ever scoffed at each other’s ideas.”


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