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I could not be sure at first who I was; I hadonly the most rudimentary sense of existence, such as may lurk and flicker in the depths of an animal’s consciousness; I was more destitute of human qualities than the cave-dweller; but then the memory … would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being, from which I could never have escaped by myself.
    Perhaps, as Proust believed, our experience of the unfamiliar is particularly intense when we fall asleep at an unfamiliar time in an unfamiliar position. When it comes to understanding the possible associations lying down can have, Proust is a central figure; thanks to his heightened sensibility, seemingly everyday behavior in bed becomes a key to the remembrance of things past: “I would lay my cheeks gently against the comfortable cheeks of my pillow, as plump and blooming as the cheeks of babyhood.” To take this thought a step further: phases of sleeplessness provided Proust with better access to his past. In ways not entirely known, the alternating rhythm of short phases of sleep, dreaming, and awakening undermines the vigilance of our consciousness in a kind of involuntary memory.

    The bed was his world: Marcel Proust
    For some people, an odd perceptual disturbance takes place just before they fall asleep or after they wake up. Although they are lying down, they have the impression that they are moving into a vertical position, as if they were standing up. In such an “out-of-body-experience,” body and mind seem to temporarily separate, a feeling that apparently results when various sense impressions cannot immediately be brought into harmony. The same thing can happen after an epileptic seizure or certain injuries.
    When we stand up, things shift back into agreement with the perspective that day-to-day life demands. Consider for a moment the words of the philosopher Hans Blumenberg in his theory of the life-world:
    Standing up to assume a vertical posture does not only multiply the quantum perceptible to us, extending its perceptibility to the point where it is not yet or no longer acute. It also creates the ability to mediate with the perceived world as the organism which has become human can compare itself to others like it. The higher or, in other words, uprightperson thus also sees and hears more because he can let others see and hear for him—he can delegate these activities.
    But, one is tempted to add, he loses something in the process.

Awake, Napping, Asleep
    The daily cycle of light and darkness provides the underlying rhythm of our sleep, but many other factors also influence when we go to sleep and how long we stay unconscious. There is no such thing as a single natural time for us to sleep. Historically, nighttime did not simply mean peace and quiet. It was also a time of danger, when being on the lookout for enemies and wild animals was imperative. Moreover, before machines and regular working hours imposed their rhythms upon us, several periods of relaxation and sleep broke up the daily routine. Periods of wakefulness after midnight were even common. Concentrating our daily sleep into a monobloc uninterrupted by waking phases is a new habit in line with a modern society in which each activity serves a specialized purpose. Looking at how certain African or Asian societies less subject to strict time rules manage their sleep schedules provides a glimpse of what it may have been like for our society when sleeping followed an older pattern: while some sleep, others get up during the night to chat or make sure the fire does not die out. Even today it’s common in Japan to see people sleeping during the day—in their offices or even the subway. Not only do the Japanese tendto sleep less at night, but falling asleep in public does not carry the same social stigma it does in the West. Of course, the fact that “normal” sleep is relative does not mean that we can simply change the way we organize our