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Article: 'Sleep no more': is sleep the newest casualty of late capitalism?
- Article from:
- Arena Magazine
- Article date:
- June 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Arena Printing and Publications Pty. Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Is something like sleep essential to our sense of being human? What would it mean to go without sleep, or to reduce our sleep needs to a couple of hours each night? What kind of culture would regard this as desirable? These questions arise because scientific research appears to be on the threshold of producing a new range of drugs that significantly reduce our reliance on sleep in order to function.
Of course, the way we sleep and the meanings we attribute to sleep have been historically mutable. Before the invention of the electric light and the normalisation of clock time, humans slept quite differently. In a review of Roger Ekirch's At Day's Close: A History ...