Key Takeaways
1. Modern Sleep is a Recent, Anomalous Invention
What is strangest about these expectations and social rules is that for all their power today, at most times and in most places in human history, practically no one followed any of them.
Historically unique. The "normal" sleep we strive for today—sleeping in one straight shot through the night, in a private, sealed-off room, with a rigid routine, and training children to do the same—is a peculiar invention of the last two centuries in the Western world. For most of human history and in many cultures today, sleep was a far more communal and flexible affair. This modern standard, often seen as natural, is actually a recent cultural construct.
Social and flexible. Before 1800, communal sleeping was common, even with strangers, as documented by figures like Erasmus and Samuel Pepys. Anthropological studies of cultures like the Asabano, Cook Islanders, and Maori reveal elaborate rules for shared sleeping spaces, emphasizing companionship, warmth, and protection from spiritual forces. The very idea of a "bedroom" as a dedicated sleep space is relatively new.
Colonial influence. Efforts to privatize sleep were often driven by colonial powers and health reformers who deemed communal sleeping "perverse," "backward," or "unhealthy," particularly among non-Europeans and the urban poor. This push for private sleep was intertwined with notions of "civilization" and racial superiority, creating a stigma around traditional, shared sleeping arrangements.
2. Industrialization Reshaped Our Relationship with Time and Sleep
What we now think of as “time” is largely an invention of the industrial age.
New rhythms. The industrial revolution fundamentally altered human experience of time, disconnecting it from natural rhythms of day, night, and seasons. Factories demanded workers adhere to uniform clock time, leading to standardized work shifts and the erosion of segmented sleep patterns common in pre-industrial societies. This shift created a "restless, nervous, bustling nineteenth century" where natural sleep was increasingly challenged.
Artificial light's impact. The spread of powerful artificial lighting, from gaslight to electricity, played a crucial role in consolidating sleep. As activities extended into the night, bedtimes shifted later, squeezing the traditional "first" and "second" sleeps into a single, unbroken block. This novel arrangement put immense pressure on individuals whose circadian rhythms struggled to adapt, leading to a rise in complaints about poor sleep.
Thoreau's critique. Henry David Thoreau, a keen observer of these changes, saw his countrymen as "permanently unawake," driven by the frantic pace of commerce, technology (like railroads and telegraphs), and information overload. He famously wrote, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us," using the metaphor of railroad "sleepers" (ties) to highlight the exploitation and dehumanization inherent in the new industrial order, which literally ran over those who couldn't keep pace.
3. Sleep Became a Medical Problem, Not a Spiritual One
More needs she the divine than the physician.
Spiritual origins. For centuries, disordered sleep, particularly sleepwalking and altered states of consciousness, was primarily interpreted through a spiritual lens. Puritan ministers like Increase and Cotton Mather viewed sleeping in church as a sin, a sign of Satan's influence, and a threat to communal faith, advocating for vigilance and even physical nudges to keep congregants awake. Lady Macbeth's doctor, confronted with her somnambulism, famously declared she "more needs she the divine than the physician."
Medicalization takes hold. By the nineteenth century, however, physicians began to challenge these spiritual interpretations, increasingly viewing sleep disturbances as purely mechanical or neurological problems. Cases like Rachel Baker, a young woman who preached in her sleep, initially drew spiritual awe but were soon subjected to scientific scrutiny by medical men like Samuel Latham Mitchill, who sought physiological explanations.
Asylums and control. The case of Jane C. Rider, a somnambulist committed to the Worcester State Lunatic Asylum, exemplifies this shift. Doctors like Lemuel Belden and Samuel Woodward, using theories like phrenology and digestive imbalances, subjected her to a battery of treatments—bleeding, emetics, and various drugs—to "cure" her "disordered" sleep. Asylums became "total institutions" where sleep was rigorously controlled and monitored, transforming unruly sleep from a spiritual threat into a medical pathology requiring institutional discipline.
4. Sleep as a Tool of Control and a Site of Resistance
More slaves are whipped for oversleeping than for any other fault.
Unequal distribution. "Normal" sleep remains a privilege, largely inaccessible to the world's poor and marginalized. Historical accounts, from Edwin Chadwick's reports on London's urban poor to George Orwell's memoir of tramping, vividly illustrate how poverty inherently means sleep deprivation, exposing individuals to cold, vermin, violence, and constant disruption.
Slavery's sleep regime. On slave plantations, sleep was systematically manipulated as a tool of control. Slaveholders imposed strict schedules, enforced by the whip, to extract maximum labor and break the will of the enslaved. Thomas Tryon documented slaves falling into boiling syrup from exhaustion, while Solomon Northup and William Wells Brown recounted brutal whippings for oversleeping.
Racial justifications. Figures like Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adolphus Cartwright propagated racist theories, claiming that Black people naturally required less sleep or were predisposed to a "beast-like stupor" due to "defective atmospherization of the blood" during sleep. This pseudo-scientific rationale justified their exploitation and denied their capacity for "reflection." However, enslaved individuals, like Nat Turner, used the cover of night for resistance, demonstrating self-mastery over their bodies and time.
5. The Child's Bed: A Battleground for Modern Norms
The young child may be upset by the parents’ intercourse, which he misunderstands and which frightens him.
A modern problem. The intense anxiety and micromanagement surrounding children's sleep in middle-class Western families—particularly the expectation of solitary, uninterrupted sleep from an early age—is a historical anomaly. While children's crying has always been a burden, pre-industrial societies lacked the psychological tension and elaborate routines of today.
Philosophical shifts. Early thinkers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau advocated for minimal interference with children's natural sleep, focusing only on early rising or avoiding habits. However, the 19th century introduced new anxieties, particularly around masturbation and "self-pollution," turning the child's private bedroom into a zone of moral surveillance. Physicians like William Whitty Hall warned against co-sleeping as a source of "self-abuse."
Psychosexual anxieties. By the mid-20th century, Freudian theories, popularized by pediatricians like Benjamin Spock, further cemented the need for children's solitary sleep. Spock argued that children should be out of the parents' bedroom by six months to prevent psychosexual trauma from witnessing parental intimacy. This led to extreme measures like Spock's "badminton net" and B.F. Skinner's "baby-in-a-box," all aimed at enforcing separation and promoting "independent" sleepers.
6. Utopian Visions for Reimagining Sleep
The world is in a deep sleep, and nothing but a loud voice can waken it.
Revolutionary ideals. Throughout history, utopian thinkers have envisioned societies that fundamentally rewrite the rules of sleep, often as a cornerstone of broader social transformation. From Sir Thomas More's 16th-century Utopia, which proposed six-hour workdays and eight hours of sleep for all, to the 18th-century Shakers who practiced communal, sex-segregated sleeping, these movements sought to democratize rest and labor.
Feminist and socialist experiments. The 19th-century Nationalist movement, inspired by Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, and feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland, imagined worlds where collective childrearing freed women from the "nervous exhaustion" of constant childcare. Gilman's stories, like "Making a Change," proposed systematic solutions where children were raised in nurseries, allowing mothers to pursue careers and enjoy life, thus challenging the nuclear family structure.
Kibbutz and Walden Two. The Israeli kibbutz movement, a socialist-Zionist experiment, implemented communal childrearing where children slept in nurseries, freeing parents for work and social life. Similarly, B.F. Skinner's utopian novel Walden Two envisioned a community managed by behavioral experts, where children were raised in climate-controlled cubicles to foster self-sufficiency and optimize sleep. While many of these real-world experiments eventually abandoned communal sleeping, they highlight sleep's deep connection to social structures and its potential for radical re-engineering.
7. Global Weirding: Technology and Capitalism Disrupt Sleep Worldwide
The future is already here; it’s just not very evenly distributed.
New global rhythms. The industrial age's rigid sleep norms are cracking under the weight of a 24/7 global economy. Outsourcing, exemplified by call centers and factories operating across time zones, forces workers like "Mike" in India to maintain anti-circadian schedules to cater to Western convenience. This creates a "global weirding" of sleep, where local biological rhythms clash with global economic demands.
Economic pressures. The drive for efficiency is also eroding traditional napping cultures, with countries like Spain pressured to abandon siestas to "modernize" their economies. Meanwhile, in places like Delhi, a "sleep mafia" profits from the severe sleep deprivation of the homeless, selling minimal protections against the elements, mirroring the commodification of sleep in more privileged sectors.
Digital age challenges. The pervasive use of electronic screens, especially by children, profoundly disrupts sleep by delaying onset and suppressing melatonin due to blue light exposure. This creates new intergenerational struggles over homework and screen time, undermining traditional sleep-training efforts and leading to widespread drowsiness and irritability.
8. The Paradox of Sleep Technology: Both Cause and Cure
Humans have never been ‘natural’: we’ve always tried to manipulate our physical and psychological states by whatever means we could obtain.
Technological entanglement. While technology is often blamed for disrupting sleep patterns, it also offers increasingly sophisticated tools for diagnosis and "cure." From smartphone apps and wearable devices that monitor every aspect of sleep to Wi-Fi-connected "smart beds," we are constantly generating data about our sleep, often using the same devices that caused the disruption in the first place.
Historical parallels. This paradox is not new. Nineteenth-century Victorians, grappling with the "frantic, hyperconnected world" of trains and telegraphs, also turned to electrified sleep gadgetry—belts, rods, brushes, and vibrating helmets—to induce elusive sleep. Today's biofeedback hats, which mimic brain waves to slow racing minds, are refined versions of these earlier attempts to counteract "neuro-electrical meltdown" with more electricity.
Neuroenhancement. The market for sleep aids and wakefulness-promoting agents has a long history, from opium to caffeine. Modern pharmaceuticals like modafinil (Provigil), initially developed for narcolepsy and military use, are now widely used off-label for "neuroenhancement," allowing individuals to optimize performance and gain an edge in a competitive global marketplace. This blurs the line between treating illness and enhancing "normal" functioning, raising ethical questions about "cosmetic neurology."
9. Sleep as a Commodity: Bought, Sold, and Stolen
It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
Capitalism's final frontier. In a 24/7 global economy where everything is commodified, sleep itself has become a marketable product. Cultural critic Jonathan Crary argues that sleep, as a "terrible blank space" in a constantly active society, is first "injured" by nonstop consumerism and then sold back to us in pill form. This perspective views the soaring use of hypnotics as evidence that global capitalism has conquered the final frontier of human consciousness.
Dystopian visions. Novelist Karen Russell's Sleep Donation takes this idea further, imagining a future where a global insomnia plague leads to the literal extraction and sale of surplus sleep from unaffected individuals, with black marketers preying on babies for their "unpolluted" sleep. Similarly, Christopher Nolan's film Inception depicts corporate spies infiltrating dreams to steal information or implant ideas, playing on fears that even our unconscious downtime can be exploited for capital gain.
Erosion of privacy. These works highlight anxieties about the erosion of sleep's privacy, portraying it as an invasion of our innermost selves. Kanye West's "Famous" video, featuring naked wax figures of celebrities "sleeping" in a bed, publicly displays the vulnerability of even the most powerful, turning sleep into a spectacle that both humanizes and commodifies fame. This public display of sleep, whether accidental or intentional, underscores how our most intimate experiences are increasingly subject to public view and economic exploitation.
10. Reclaiming Sleep's Shared Humanity
The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release, / Th’indifferent judge between the high and low.
Universal vulnerability. Despite the myriad ways sleep is commodified, controlled, and unevenly distributed, it remains a fundamental human vulnerability that can foster connection. Poets like Sir Philip Sidney and Walt Whitman have long celebrated sleep as a great equalizer, where "one is no better than the other," binding all people—convicts and freemen, rich and poor, famous and obscure—in a shared state of repose.
Beyond division. While social inequities are often reproduced and magnified in sleep, acknowledging this shared vulnerability can be liberating. Conversations about sleep, even with strangers, can create an instant bond, allowing people to momentarily forget what divides them and connect over a common, mysterious, and often frustrating aspect of life.
Thoreau's invitation. Henry David Thoreau, despite his personal quest for solitude, welcomed visitors to his cabin, offering "three chairs" for conversation. This symbolizes an invitation to pull sleep back into the social world, to share stories of its challenges and wonders, and to find common humanity in our collective experience of shutting down. By letting down our guard and acknowledging sleep's inherent wildness and our shared defenselessness, we can begin to challenge the rigid rules that keep so many of us restless and isolated.
