What is Sleep and How Do We Dream?
For William Shakespeare, sleep was “the death of each day’s life.” Another English literary giant, Samuel Johnson, once described it as “irresistible stupefaction.” Far less eloquent but much more clinical is the definition provided by the Oxford Dictionary: a “natural recurring condition of suspended consciousness, with the eyes closed and the muscles relaxed.” It is a natural recurring condition in which we will each spend approximately one-third of our lives, because common sense and experience tell us that we have to sleep in order to function well, but whose precise purpose in our lives has still not been scientifically established. Perhaps the most intriguing theory about sleep is that of sleep researcher Nathaniel Klietman, who, in the 1950’s, proposed that sleep is our natural condition and we must be stimulated into wakefulness by sensory experiences and muscular activity. Without such stimulation, we would stay asleep.
