OK, folks, sorry I’m a little late this morning. I slept in until 7:30 (my usual wake-up time is 5:30-6) and it felt GLORIOUS!
Which inspired the topic for the day. What’s the future of sleep?
More specifically, what new ways might we find to alleviate sleep problems? Could we find a way to get rid of sleep altogether, opening up more productive hours in the day (in either the good sense or the dark Big Brother you gotta work sense)? What other future incarnations might sleep take?
Nancy Kress wrote a wonderful book several years ago that addressed this question: “Beggars in Spain.” Children genetically modified to not require sleep became a type of “homo superior” and came into conflict with so-called normal humans. Personally I think humans today are more than busy enough without foregoing sleeping. REM sleep seems to be essential to most (all?) animals for mental health, but the exact function is unclear. Perhaps being plugged into a computer could give us micro-bursts of REM sleep without interfering with our health and productivity, but there goes the weekend! Also, I’ve noticed that some of my most creative brainstorming occurs in those day dreaming/half-awake states, and “sleeping on a problem” really does work.