“Insomnia has become a public-health emergency.”
sleep
Trying to Stay Awake
“Inexpert though I am in all other fields, I am a connoisseur of sleep.”
Bed Habits
“One insomniac’s descent into the world of sleep research to understand what screens before bed are doing to our brains.”
Night Shifts
“Clearly dreams do something for us,” writes Michael W. Clune. “If not, why would evolution have endowed us with the capacity?” In this essay, Clune explores the fascinating world of dream engineering via a device called the Dormio, which enables a person to shape the images that appear during hypnagogia, the transitional stage between wakefulness […]
Searching for Sleeper Trains
“Trains are still a part of my blood, my birthright. Through them I embrace my own kind of mobility and ambition, those two valued traits in my family line, if not quite manifested in the direction I’m heading.”
Insomnia: To Pursue Sleep So Hard You Become Invigorated By the Chase
Insomnia is not just a state of sleeplessness, a matter of negatives. It involves the active pursuit of sleep. It is a state of longing.
Miles to Go Before You Sleep
“When the safety crew came to retrieve him, Brandon was adamant he’d been underground for two full days. In reality, he’d only been below for twelve hours.”
Technology for Problem Sleepers
Having trouble sleeping? In The New Yorker, Patricia Marx writes about the economy of slumber, offering a lively survey of current gadgets and expensive equipment designed to get you a night of rest, and she nestles it snug as a bug with a primer on the growing science of sleep. From deprivation to natural cycles to oversleep, […]
Searching for the Secret to Waking Up Early
I abhor waking up. Every morning, I silence the first of my iPhone’s three alarms (set for 5:30, 5:45, and 6 a.m., thanks to the fact that I work East Coast hours from the West Coast), bend myself reluctantly out of bed, pick crud out of my eyes, and try to convince myself that today […]
A look at hypersomnolence, a condition that causes a person to sleep excessively, and the difficulty of treating a rare sleeping disorder: Sumner needed sleep like an addict needs a fix. ‘It was this overpowering desire in me, a physical urge,’ she says. ‘And there was always the hope that, maybe this time, I would […]
