Sleep, as a human endeavor and aesthetic pursuit, is in a terrible state of decay. The great sleepers of our age go uncelebrated, and are even despised for the appearance of effortlessness that pervades their work. It is time that we addressed our culture of insomnia-- but to whom can we look for a philosophy of sleep? Merleau-Ponty’s succint: “I call up the visitation of sleep by imitating the breathing and posture of the sleeper” is hardly helpful. For how many of us pass hours every night merely pretending to sleep, praying that our act will be convincing enough to merit the loss of consciousness, or at least a visit from the BFG?
There are times when a philosophy of life must be aided and informed by science, and so The School of Life invited us to recover the lost art of sleeping this past Thursday under the guidance of sleep psychotherapist Elisabeth Scott. Strengthening our resolve by sipping valerian tea and red wine intermittently, we learned first to abandon the 'imitate sleeping to sleep' principle. Our bodies, being creatures of habit, are just as likely to develop a routine of sleepless tossing and turning as they are to catch on to our actual designs. We might think then to look to our waking lives, and weed out there the causes of our insomnia. Yet the original cause of our insomnia— be it stress, disturbance of the body clock, or attending a coffee-taster’s getaway in Ethiopia— need not persist in order to ruin our sleep. Our bodies are devastatingly efficient in learning to do without rest.
Elisabeth presented us with a vast array of methods with which to effectively court sleep, but over and above these she called upon us to address the ever-increasing anxiety that we feel over loss of sleep. We measure out our sleep with (decaffeinated) coffee spoons, agonizing over lost sleep as though our true purpose in resting were to remain focused on our waking responsibilities and projects. If we hope to improve our sleep only in order to better tackle the problems of the next day, then we have yet to appreciate ourselves as sleepers.
John Lidwell-Durnin is a freelance journalist and parent. He is currently co-authoring a book on Education and the will to know. Visit his blog at: http://considerthegourd.wordpress.com/
The next date for ‘Sleep: Overcoming Insomnia’ with expert Elisabeth Scott will be announced shortly.
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