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The Sleepyhead's Bedside Companion
Sleep remains one of the most mysterious areas of our lives. We all sleep, maybe not as much as we would like, but it’s a universal human experience, as necessary as breathing and as nourishing as eating. But how much do we really know about sleep? What happens in the third of our lives when we’re slumbering? How have sleep, dreams and nightmares been interpreted over the centuries? Why do so many people feel that they are deprived of sleep? How did our ancestors use to sleep? Sleep has its own unexpected and rich story, ranging across science, history, literature, and philosophy. It’s been a cultural battleground between those who see sleep as a gift from nature and those who have seen it as an idle waste of time. In an overcrowded, exhausting 24-hour culture, sleep has become a valuable, rationed commodity. It’s something that people are thinking about more than ever before. This bedside-table companion responds to this interest in sleep, providing a mixture of short, browsable pieces and more extended sections. The style is informed, thoughtful, and entertaining, in keeping with the subject matter. It is intelligent but playful, quirky, and amusing. Any study of sleep has to savor the delight of the long sleep-in and the sexual musk of night time; discuss the history of the bed, the origin of pajamas, and how the Elizabethans saw the pillow as a sign of moral weakness; and examine why the Italians called the bed the "the opera of the poor."
- GenresNonfiction
272 pages, Hardcover
First published March 19, 2009
22 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 25, 2023
Weird start but then a lot of quite interesting information for the majority of the rest of the book.
October 11, 2017
What is the book really about?
A wide-ranging, rambling series of short essays about various issues, ideas, old-wives’ tales and scientific exploration of sleep. A random compendium of some topics covered: the unmanly pillow, weekend jet lag, Andy Warhol’s five hour sleep movie, why kids like frightening bedtime stories, does early to bed and early to rise actually work, narcolepsy and microsleeps restless leg syndrome, REM sleep, dreams, surrealism and dreams, light pollution, hibernation, sleep and death. And plenty more.
How did you react to the book? A rather misleading title, which does not give confidence about its seriousness and range of research. A very well written book, as well, the style light, easy, but probing and inquisitive. It was much fun, especially as a bed-time read. Reading it worked to make me sleepy.
What will you remember about the book? I will remember how pleased I was about reading the book. I will not likely remember many of the points raised, except for the discussion of the need we seem to have, especially as children, for sleep to integrate what we have learned and help us remember things.
A wide-ranging, rambling series of short essays about various issues, ideas, old-wives’ tales and scientific exploration of sleep. A random compendium of some topics covered: the unmanly pillow, weekend jet lag, Andy Warhol’s five hour sleep movie, why kids like frightening bedtime stories, does early to bed and early to rise actually work, narcolepsy and microsleeps restless leg syndrome, REM sleep, dreams, surrealism and dreams, light pollution, hibernation, sleep and death. And plenty more.
How did you react to the book? A rather misleading title, which does not give confidence about its seriousness and range of research. A very well written book, as well, the style light, easy, but probing and inquisitive. It was much fun, especially as a bed-time read. Reading it worked to make me sleepy.
What will you remember about the book? I will remember how pleased I was about reading the book. I will not likely remember many of the points raised, except for the discussion of the need we seem to have, especially as children, for sleep to integrate what we have learned and help us remember things.
January 31, 2022
A sweet little bedside book about sleep and all things sleepy.
Some interesting trivia and food for dreams as you drift off to the land of nod!
Bit size chapters lend itself to a little pre-snooze reading.
Goodnight.
Some interesting trivia and food for dreams as you drift off to the land of nod!
Bit size chapters lend itself to a little pre-snooze reading.
Goodnight.
February 20, 2012
This is a book by Sean Coughlan. Its a book of facts and theories and experiments and beliefs about something very close to our heart. We either love indulging in it, or we hate it for being such a time-killer. Sleep. Yes, its a book about sleep and everything connected with sleep.
It contains interesting facts and theories and beliefs about sleep, beds, pillows, dreams, fantasies and fairy tales. It also mentions some experiments carried out based on scientific means to ascertain the meaning of dreams, sleep, etc. Though it is a book of facts, it is nicely woven together in question/answer form where every chapter is a question. Every chapter answers (or atleast tries to) answer the question while posing many more. The book starts out with the invention of a bed, how it evolved over the years, how the need for a pillow arose. It then moves on to sleep, the phases of sleep, and how you move on from one phase to the other. The book finally ends with the comparison between sleep and death.
There are a lot of studies being conducted in this area to find out how much sleep a person needs at a given time in his life. Though it is not predictable, there are some observations that can help one tune his/her sleeping hours to remain fresh by sleeping for the number of hours required by his/her body. Some observations reveal that those who need more sleep are mostly creative, reticent people. Einstein's sleeping habit is peculiarly interesting. He required a lot of sleep in short spans. He usually slept with a pencil in his hand. When the pencil dropped, he used to wake up from his sleep, feeling fresh and refreshed to continue working.
There are some pretty amazing facts you would find in this book. I'm listing a few of them
- Did you know that there is a bed tester? Yes, like we have a software testing team that basically checks the quality of the code, there was a job previously that of a bed tester!
- Did you know that there was a movie called "Sleep" that just showed a person sleeping for the entire movie. Yes a person sleeping! Why? Because the director felt that sleeping will become obsolete at a later time and this movie would capture that phenomena (Yes, given our busy lifestyle, we hardly sleep eh?)
- How do dolphin's sleep? The question arises because the dolphin needs to come to the surface to breathe. If the creature falls asleep, how will the brain control this activity? The answer is that for a dolphin, the brain takes turns in sleeping (resting). The left brain will sleep first while the right one controls movement to the surface to breathe. This is a natural system, its not man-made!
- There are many beliefs about dreams. It was believed earlier that dreams are some supernatural means of communicating with a person. Freud and Jung later proposed theories stating that dreams were mrely dependent on the fears, traumas of the person and that they were linked to the subconscious. Painters in those ages than also tried to depict dreams in their paintings. How would you depict a dream in a painting? Interesting question right!
- Towards the end, Sean also states the beliefs that sleep and death are twin brothers and how both are linked with each other.
All in all, its a wonderful read which will leave you with loads of questions about the human body. I for sure am going to delve deeper into dreams and their studies!
It contains interesting facts and theories and beliefs about sleep, beds, pillows, dreams, fantasies and fairy tales. It also mentions some experiments carried out based on scientific means to ascertain the meaning of dreams, sleep, etc. Though it is a book of facts, it is nicely woven together in question/answer form where every chapter is a question. Every chapter answers (or atleast tries to) answer the question while posing many more. The book starts out with the invention of a bed, how it evolved over the years, how the need for a pillow arose. It then moves on to sleep, the phases of sleep, and how you move on from one phase to the other. The book finally ends with the comparison between sleep and death.
There are a lot of studies being conducted in this area to find out how much sleep a person needs at a given time in his life. Though it is not predictable, there are some observations that can help one tune his/her sleeping hours to remain fresh by sleeping for the number of hours required by his/her body. Some observations reveal that those who need more sleep are mostly creative, reticent people. Einstein's sleeping habit is peculiarly interesting. He required a lot of sleep in short spans. He usually slept with a pencil in his hand. When the pencil dropped, he used to wake up from his sleep, feeling fresh and refreshed to continue working.
There are some pretty amazing facts you would find in this book. I'm listing a few of them
- Did you know that there is a bed tester? Yes, like we have a software testing team that basically checks the quality of the code, there was a job previously that of a bed tester!
- Did you know that there was a movie called "Sleep" that just showed a person sleeping for the entire movie. Yes a person sleeping! Why? Because the director felt that sleeping will become obsolete at a later time and this movie would capture that phenomena (Yes, given our busy lifestyle, we hardly sleep eh?)
- How do dolphin's sleep? The question arises because the dolphin needs to come to the surface to breathe. If the creature falls asleep, how will the brain control this activity? The answer is that for a dolphin, the brain takes turns in sleeping (resting). The left brain will sleep first while the right one controls movement to the surface to breathe. This is a natural system, its not man-made!
- There are many beliefs about dreams. It was believed earlier that dreams are some supernatural means of communicating with a person. Freud and Jung later proposed theories stating that dreams were mrely dependent on the fears, traumas of the person and that they were linked to the subconscious. Painters in those ages than also tried to depict dreams in their paintings. How would you depict a dream in a painting? Interesting question right!
- Towards the end, Sean also states the beliefs that sleep and death are twin brothers and how both are linked with each other.
All in all, its a wonderful read which will leave you with loads of questions about the human body. I for sure am going to delve deeper into dreams and their studies!
April 20, 2013
This book has completely changed my point of view towards sleeping. I now realise one shouldn't feel guilty about staying in bed longer. It's only a gift the nature gives us and it's free! It also opens my eyes to look at other perception about what's wrong and what's right in life too. Suddenly, a lot of guilty pleasure doesn't feel that guilty anymore!
March 17, 2013
A curious book... keeps you awake. Jokes apart, it is a wonderful compendium of everything to do with one of my my most favourite activities.
January 24, 2015
This book contains a lot of fun anecdotes about sleeping. Worth the read.
August 16, 2016
Interesting read with quirky tidbits about the one activity we don't honour enough but actually should give much more attention to.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews