I've read many books on sleep, from the scientific, to the spiritual, to the medical standpoints. I'd say that this book is a good place to start if you're just beginning to take an interest in the topic of sleep. It covers just enough on different aspects of sleep so that you get a sense of the topic, but the author never really digs deep. Filled with her own thoughts and musings on the topic (which were generally harmless and pleasant enough), it seems like a nice introductory book if you want to look at sleep from an entirely different perspective.She touches upon science of sleep (why do we sleep? How does it affect our everyday lives?), dreaming, sleeping pills and their daytime counterparts, all while intertwining various philosophies and quotes on sleep.I enjoyed it. It's really nice when you find a book that really speaks to you. Non-fiction, too! I like the sociological approach to this- liked the cross-cultural references like lullabies/words/customs from each culture, and how one stretch sleeping is a relatively new concept.Like how the Industrial Age has created Clock Time where everybody adheres to a strict schedule. Sleep at the same time, wake at the same time, work in the day, rest at night. Like clockwork. Lost steam towards the end but I enjoyed the insights.Some of my favourite passages:Sleep as a separate world"It seemed that my sleeping life was the bigger and more fluid me, and my waking life the smaller, more limited me.""The ancient Greeks conceptualised this swipe of forgetting as the river of Oblivion (Lethe) that circles the cave of sleep (Hypnos) in the underworld. They said that the murmuring waters of Lethe made people drowsy and washed their memories away when they came close to sleep, for in this ancient understanding, sleep required forgetting oursevles in order to enter it inner sanctum.""When we prepare for sleep, we strip of ourselves of the accoutrements of selfhood: our clothes, glasses, makeup, and false teeth. We bid goodbye to the people around us, lie down in stillness, and return to our original, solitary nakedness.Heraclitus(the ancient Greek Philosopher): "The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own."Once the lights are off, and our eyes closed, even the world, as we've known it, vanishes, and the familiar "I" evaporates. Shakespeare: "the death of each day's life"Vladimir Nabokov on the daily wrenching from the waking world: "betrayal of reason, humanity, genius."For brilliant minds and prodigioius achievers like Nabokov and Edison, succumbing to sleep can feel like defeat. After all, it requires that we put down our tools, relinquish our ambitions, and submit to something we cannot control or even put off for another day."TH's thoughts: Isn't this what we studied in Shakespeare? Where death is the equaliser of all men- from kings to paupers- ashes to ashes, dust to dust."O bed! O bed! Delicious bed!" wrote the English Poet Thomas Hood, " That heaven on earth to the weary head.""Sleep is commonly used as a euphemism for "death"."On Insomnia"Now, when people wake for one or two hours at night, they are apt to call it insomnia and ask their doctors for sleeping pills.""Author Blake Butler, a chronic insomniac, calls the tendency to do this sleep catastrophizing. Anxiety only fuels insomnia."One of the cruelties of insomnia is that the effort to escape ensures it failure because there's a part of our brains that keeps checking to see if we are accomplishing our aims, thereby keeping us awake.Now, when I wake in the night, I tell myself that repose is still rest and it is a gift to get a few extra hours when I do not have to do anything or be responsible to anyone. The French call this place of semi-conscious inactivity dorveillle, meaning "twixt sleep and wake", and many poets consider it to be the best time to write. Writer Lisa Russ Spaar explained: " As a poet, I like.. that liminal space between sleep and waking, where 'reality' and inner vision blur, and all the big questions loom with heightened clarity." TH: giggles at 'liminal space', something I learn in Soci.Insomnia undoubtedly has its miseries, but it is the demands we make upon ourselves by day that turn those miseries into nightmares.An article from 1894 "The subject of sleeplessness is once more under public discussion. The hurry and excitement of modern life is held to be responsibile for much of the insomnia of which we hear; and most of the articles and letters are full of good advice to live more quietly and of platitudes concerning the harmfulness of rush and worry."Night Owls"A friend of mine once confided that the moment she retired frrom her eight-to-five job, she started staying up late, reading, writing, and drawing, just as she had done as an adolescent. She did not know it was still in her to be like that, and after years of forcing herself to get up before dawn to cart the kids to school and drag herself to work on time, she was relieved to discoer that she was not inherently dull or depressed. She was just a night person."
What do You think about The Secret Life Of Sleep (2014)?
