Thursday, May 15, 2008

Before-Sleep Thoughts

So there was this study that I once heard about that said that people who are told that the placebo they are taking has a side-effect of causing insomnia sleep better than people told that the drug has a side-effect of drowsiness. Apparently the former attribute all of their inability to the sleep to the drug, and stop stressing over it, while the latter figure 'If I can't sleep despite this drug, I must be really, really keyed up about something.'

My question: If you know about this study, and decide to believe that your cough medicine must be keeping you up, so that it won't, and then decide to believe what's keeping you up is your belief that you should be going to sleep faster because you believe that your cough medicine is keeping you up, and then decide to believe that what's keeping you up is your belief that your belief in your belief in your cough medicine's keeping you up is keeping you up..... at what point does the whole thing become ridiculous and serve in and of itself to keep you up?

(This whole thing is remarkably similar to the 'that was my most recent thought' game, that used to drive me crazy when I did it.)

2 comments:

הצעיר שלמה בן רפאל לבית שריקי ס"ט said...

No! Not ridiculous! Never ridiculous! It's all about the f--king mind! Peoples well-being is dependent on their thoughts more than they want to imagine.

Miri said...

I think that's the new counting sheep game. that would put e to sleep in seconds.