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Pillow talk and inspiring insomnia
SLEEP – that great preparation for death – is a source of worry, particularly when it fails to arrive.
With the Wellcome Collection’s Sleeping and Dreaming exhibition coming to an end on Sunday, chronic night owls joined experts in an exploration of the sleepless night at the museum in Euston Road last week. Bridging the gulf between art and science, forces from both camps assembled to debate the history, brains and artistic legacy of insomnia.
Weary people take comfort: history is full of sleepless luminaries. Napoleon forged an empire on less than four hours a night and Charles Dickens’s nocturnal wanderings furnished his novels.
But past remedies may surprise those accustomed to tossing and turning with warm milk and the shipping forecast.
“The Glaswegian Dr Sawyer recommends bromides, tincture of ergot and cod liver oil, and if that doesn’t work, opium,” said scientist Chris Idzikowski, citing on a 1894 copy of the Glasgow Herald.
Modern sleep science began in earnest with Henri Pieron’s 1912 experiments on dogs, according to the Canadian historian Kenton Kroker. The French scientist discovered that dogs fall asleep when their brains are injected with cerebrospinal fluid taken from another sleep-deprived dog.
Pieron’s ill-fated dogs foretold the presence of sleep-inducing substances, like melatonin, which accumulate in the waking brain and cause drowsiness.
More recently, research into body clocks thickened the plot. The circadian clock regulates 24-hour cycles of sleep and activity, with energy slumps occurring at night and in the early afternoon.
“Studies show that people deprived of sleep performed better at cognitive tasks at 10am than they had at 2am, even though they had been awake for longer,” said Oxford University professor of circadian neuroscience Dr Russell Foster.
Responding to light and darkness, our primeval clock conspires against the hectic dance of modern life.
“Night-workers and people who sleep little at night often find they are unable to take naps during the day even though they may have amassed a significant sleep deficit,” explained Dr Foster.
Drawing on the life of the 97-year-old artist Louise Bourgeois, curator Ann Coxon said that the troubled mind may refuse to fall into the wayward world of sleep and nightmares.
Perpetually sleepless since 1989, Bourgeois wrote in her diary: “Has the day invaded the night or the night invaded the day?” After failing to lull herself with a ticking metronome, she spent her limbo time creating fantastical drawings.
With a miracle cure nowhere in sight, the best advice remains: don’t worry too much. Although insomniacs crash their cars more often, their pillow-bashing hours may be suited to creative activity.
LAURA MITCHISON
• The Sleeping and Dreaming exhibition is at the Wellcome Collection,
183 Euston Road NW1 until Sunday, March 9. |
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