Benjamin Reiss (1)

The author is a self-described insomniac who wrote this book as a history of sleep itself and not to give recommendations on how to achieve and maintain sleep so uses written documentation from historical writers (like Thoreau) to describe sleep behaviours within he last 200 years. He believes “our society is undergoing two sleep crises; a psychological struggle experienced by those who live in relative states of comfort try to wrestle their sleep into submission, and a more existential struggle experienced by those who are expected to sleep by the rules of others yet are denied the time, space, and security to do so.” The main cause of insomnia is the complete overturning of regular sleep patterns which were based on daylight and darkness; sleep starts when darkness falls and ends with the rising of the sun. The depletion of food supplies in winter meant people staid indoors, less work was done, slept more, and ate less to conserve energy. With the availability of artificial light, work times no longer depended on the light of the sun so society had to change to suit working hours. With the working class rising early to travel to work, the necessity arose of shaping the sleeping patterns of both adults and children who were now allotted individual rooms and sleeping arrangements in beds, however “all available historical and cross-cultural evidence suggest that solitary sleeping for children is an anomaly of the modern, industrialized West. No ethnographic research has found a widespread tradition of infants sleeping outside of the mother's room anywhere else.” An interesting read.… (mer)