The Art of Lying Down Read Online Free PDF Page A

on their relationship? Is it a signal that the end has already begun? There are no simple answers.

    Some lucky people never have to worry about such thoughts keeping them awake. For them, sharing a bed becomes a habit they never question. For others, sleeping in the same bed is more problematic because of snoring (which can reach one hundred decibels, approaching the sound of an engine starting), sleeptalking, rhythmic flailing of the limbs, or restless legs syndrome. These problems are sometimes triggered by inner compulsions the sleeper cannot control. In such cases, a wider bed or separate blankets can sometimes help. Some couples also decide to stop sharing the bed as they get older so they don’t disturb each other’s sleep.
    Gerhard Klösch, an Austrian sleep researcher, has notoriously claimed that women sleep worse with a man at their side because they feel responsible for him, and that men sleep better next to a woman for the same reason. There may be some truth to this observation; it’s not uncommon for heart attack sufferers to get help more quickly because their partners noticed their distress in bed.
    The question of whether it’s better to sleep alone or together is answerable only on a case-by-case basis. Many people can’t imagine doing without this physical closeness. But even when spending the night in the same bed leads to problems, a willingness to compromise can allow couples to still enjoy falling asleep next to each other. For example, onepartner can switch to a separate bed or room during the night. Zip and link beds are also an option. These are single beds that can be joined with a zipper to create a large bed when a couple craves intimacy and later separated when they prefer to have some space. For some couples, the solution is simply to sleep in the same bed but face in opposite directions. In the early 1920s, the architect Otto Bartning designed a bedroom that sounds like the setup to a joke: the beds were separated by a wall of clear glass that allowed the happy couple to sleep side by side without suffering any resulting inconvenience.
    It was long taken for granted that couples would sleep in the same bed, and it rarely occurred to anyone to question the practice. For many people, it has become an issue only in the last few decades. Now we have a range of options to use as we grapple to find the right amount of nearness and distance to each other. In some cases, sleeping apart or sleeping side by side may be what makes or breaks a relationship.

Lying Down, Sleeping, Waking Up
    Regular sleep—that unconscious downtime—is a physiological necessity. People who often don’t sleep well suffer mental and physical effects, and become irritable and confused. A complete lack of sleep can be deadly. One extreme example is fatal familial insomnia, an exceedingly rare and to date incurable disease recognized only in the last twenty-five years. Entire families are affected by this devastating illness, which is caused by the same genetic mutation as that which triggers Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
    But what is sleep in the first place? The scientists and philosophers of earlier times suggested astonishing answers to this question. Aristotle, for example, claimed that eating caused fumes to form in the blood vessels that collected in the brain, causing sleepiness. Later, in an age that prided itself on its grasp of chemical principles, Alexander von Humboldt explained that sleep results from a lack of oxygen. Today we understand the processes that occur during sleep much better, but we are far from having all the answers. It is clear that sleep, viewed as an interruption of consciousness, erects a kind of barrier to perception, but one that is not completely secureagainst external stimuli. Still, it remains a mystery in many respects. The ways we spend our days and nights, our levels of activity in the phases of the day, whether these activities are physical or mental, are intertwined and