Scientists on the tail end of a decades-long study have finally concluded that, for most humans, the act of falling asleep is in fact, physically and mentally impossible.
“We were hoping to find if certain lifestyle changes corresponded with falling asleep faster,” said Dr. Ellen Taccone, the leader of the study and head of the neurology department at Johns Hopkins, “such as avoiding use of laptops or smartphones in bed, drinking less alcohol, increased physical activity, and so on, but it turns out that in spite of their best efforts, people can’t actually fall asleep. It simply can’t be done.”
This official report confirms what many have known for years: there’s nothing anyone can do to make falling asleep any easier, or indeed humanly possible.
Part of the problem, the study concludes, is the human brain itself, which lies in wait for its unsuspecting host to remove itself from all distractions — other people, entertainment, conversation, visual stimulation — before striking. Lying very still and quiet in a dark room is in fact the worst thing a person can do, as it gives the brain an unparalleled opportunity to flood the body with invisible horrors and anxious, waking nightmares.
“It turns out that lying down by yourself in total darkness is the least restful thing a person can do,” Taccone added. “It’s a recipe for setting your brain on fire.”
If, by some miracle, a person finds him- or herself approaching the horizon of sleep, the brain has a way of short-circuiting this process by performing a helpful self-check: Are we asleep? Have we fallen asleep yet? The very nature of asking such a question, of course, flings the victim back into startled watchfulness, often accompanied by an involuntary jump and a horrible sense of falling.
“We had made some progress, at first,” Dr. Taccone said in an official statement, “with watching TV shows with our laptops resting on their stomachs until we reached a point of dazed insensibility, but then the next thing that happened was it was morning, and we didn’t remember falling asleep at all.”
“So that was a real bust,” she added.
Tags: scientists, sleep
I find obsessively refreshing articles to see how many points my Toast comments have made puts me to sleep reeeeeeal never.
I never do that. What are you, errant in some way? Are you being validated by +numbers, is this all you live for, were you raised desperately seeking the attention of your distractible parents and you need the internet to tell you you’re lovable, witty, and wise?
I just can not understand.
In any way.
At all.
+1
I just liked this comment. DO WITH THAT WHAT YOU WILL.
I WILL LIKE YOURS IN RETURN IS WHAT I WILL.
And so too shall I like this. It seems we are trapped in some sort of perpetual cycle of co-dependent, passive-aggressive, meaningless politeness.
Wait… ARE YOU MY MOTHER?
Is this the place to mention my theory that the like button is basically our version of picking bugs off each other as a bonding mechanism?
Aww, I just imagined the internet telling me I’m lovable, witty and wise. Like a little doge image pops up right after you make a comment and is all “so wit. many wisdom. much adore.”
wow.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE REACTION.GIF
You can do it more efficiently and put less strain on the site by refreshing your IntenseDebate profile. Or so I hear.
OH REEEAAAALLLLY?
well it’s not like I’ll ever be doing that again. for at least an hour.
I hate you for telling me this.
Now that you mention it, I just received a grant to study the effects of red wine and Nyquil. Let me know if you want to be in the Experimental group!
Damn but nothing puts me out faster than a carafe of good Pinot NoirQuil.
I’ve always enjoyed a shot of tequila and a couple Benedryl. Perhaps you can do a follow up!
for science!
Scotch and Robaxacet puts you right out. Or so I hear.
Scientists should study me, in my office, heating all wonky-high, looking at that koala asleep in a tree. They’d learn lots about falling asleep!
The only way to fall asleep is to be on a crowded train going home at the end of the day where you definitely don’t want to stop paying attention because you’ll miss your stop.
Recent insomnia stories: I was awake at 1 am a few nights ago listening to what sounded like a diesel motor a block away. The sound shows up periodically, always between 1 and 2 in the morning, and putting on noise-cancelling headphones doesn’t help at all. The sound is the same inside and outside the house. Can’t stop hearing it once it starts. My 2 am googling indicates that I may be encountering the Hum. Lucky me. On the plus side, it’s kinda like being in an X-Files episode?
I dunno, dude, but for the longest time I wondered who was the asshole on my street with the sound system cranked so high I could FEEL the rhythmic bass at 6:30 in the bloody morning, every morning. After, no joke, a couple of MONTHS of this, my roommate told me she’d been using this bed-shaker alarm clock thing that you stick under your mattress and I realized that’s what I’d been hearing/feeling every day. What’s really sad is that the bed shaker DOESN’T WAKE HER UP (nor do the 8 other alarm clocks she uses) even though it’s strong enough that it wakes me up in the next room.
Holy crap. That is some sturdy sleeping. Now I’m sitting here wondering if I somehow managed to buy a vibrator with an alarm clock feature without know it.
It could also be a regular diesel engine. My dickbag neighbor likes to run his truck’s engine for, like, a half hour at 1 am and 6 am, and it’s perfectly possible that there’s *another* dickbag neighbor with a similarly loud truck down the street on a different truck-running schedule.
*Sits, seethes.*
A friend of mine fell asleep on a train once and accidently went to Wales. The intended stop was ten minutes away; Wales is about two hours. That’s a hell of a nap.
i was thinking to myself last night at 4:30 while i lay, perfectly awake, in my bed, how lucky those people whose insomnia wakes them up in the morning so they can’t get back to sleep are. i’ve decided now as a corollary to this research those people probably don’t exist and the story was created just to make me feel even guiltier for being late to work again.
The movie Russian Ark always, always put me to sleep. The gliding camera, the hushed voices, the time-travel… it’s like I’m already dreaming. It’s available on Netflix for your experimentation.
(And if it doesn’t put you to sleep, congratulations, you just took a video tour of the Hermitage!)
2001: A Space Odyssey almost always puts me to sleep, even though I find it thrilling and infuriating by turns and I have a higher-than-average tolerance for slow-paced meditative films. (I once incurred the wrath of my fellow Videoport reviewers by suggesting that the best way to watch Solyaris (1972), Tarkovsky’s ~3-hour Russian-language meditation on the borders of identity and our construction of reality, was silently, alone, with the lights switched out and your phone turned off, and – this was the stumbling block – twice in a row.)
But something about 2001 almost always knocks me out, which is especially vexing when I’m trying to write about it. I think it’s the score that does it, those long sustained notes that should get me ennervated instead send me off into a trancelike doze.
I can’t wait the Kiera Knightly Pride and Prejudice anymore – I used to fall asleep the soundtrack so often that now the music starts up and I’m conked out.
I’m embarrassed to say everytime I try to watch Blade Runner, I’m asleep within the first 20 minutes of the movie.
One time I was doing a training course in an overheated airless room after eating two small plates of triangular catering sandwiches for lunch and I DIDN’T fall asleep. I know! I was like, ‘that was weird’.
Sleep — is that the thing where you’re watching Netflix season twenty-three of something at three a.m. and suddenly you’re full of regret about your entire life and your boobs are smeared with chocolate dribbled from your slack-jawed mouth and then you go to wipe them off but you get Cheez-It dust there instead?
So last night I spent about an hour and a half trying to fall asleep, but actually writing/editing my daughter’s birth story in my head, even though I have no intention of publishing said account anywhere because no one cares, and I remember it all perfectly well, BRAIN, so why is it so important that it be grammatically correct????
It’s the am-I-asleep? self-check that gets me every time.
And, should you find yourself trying to sleep at 4am, do not, I repeat DO NOT ask yourself “what is space made of?” It’s not helpful.
My 7-year-old nephew asked me what my superpower would be, and I said, “The ability to fall asleep whenever and wherever I wanted!” He was not impressed, so then I said, “OK, actually, it would be the ability to control gravity around me.” That went over better.
Is that a sign of age? Because I would absolutely pick “I can fall asleep whenever/where ever I want” as my superpower, no hesitation.
Also on my list:
– Ability to magick up some caffeine any time
– Ability to make the bags under my eyes DISAPPEAR at a moment’s notice
– Ability to turn the fat content of my fave foods into something good for me, like vitamins or proteins or whatthefuckever
– Ability to become extroverted without effort (“Why yes, Person I Have Just Met at This Party, I would love to talk to you about your life woes while I am sober because this no longer taxes me!”)
I would pick “ability to wake up and get out of bed and be awake” as a superpower, but then I realize that that is a normal human ability and I am just subpar.
Shall we start a support group? No meetings before 11:00 am, though.
Having tried gazillions of different kinds of alarms to find none of them really do anything, I’m now obsessively researching Teasmades. Commonweath Toasties, any reports on using a Teasmade?
I honestly think some of us are just more nocturnal. Eveningness, I think it’s called.
When I was a kid I would listen to books on tape to fall asleep. But like, the same ones over and over. I would also listen to the soundtrack for Oklahoma. Or other things with music and plot (Classical Kids anyone!?). These things are not restful though! I would stay up longer just to listen to them. What were my parents thinking?
But it turns out I’m pretty good at falling asleep now, so maybe all that childhood sleep deprivation is finally paying off!
A glass of red wine at night works wonders.
My brain is like “Ohhhh you’re comfy in bed and it’s late? Now is the perfect time to think about dying!!”
Nothing more like a coffin than a bed!
D-: Malloryyyyy quit ruining everything!
YES WHY THIS, BRAIN, WHY.
So, this is the thought that lulls me comfortingly to sleep. “Lalalala maybe I’ll die in my sleep and I won’t have to wake up in the morning! Yes, think of all the ways this could happen…”
I do something similar except it’s “Let’s think about your family dying!!” Really restful.
If I ever somehow am asleep and then wake up in the middle of the night, it is always 100% because I am dying.
I read this just as I was settling into bed thinking I’ll just check The Toast one last time for any pearls of wisdom.. Thanks a lot Toast!! That will teach me. It is past midnight here and I’ve had a few nights of the 4AM ‘Am I asleep yet?’ check.. This article speaks the truth.
Academic advisor: How’s life?
Me: Well, I’m having trouble sleeping.
Academic advisor: Have you tried pot?
Me: Uh, I don’t like smoking.
Academic advisor: How about some liquor before bed?
Your academic advisor sounds wise.
Recommended for falling asleep: the voice of one Cecil Baldwin/Cecil Gershwin Palmer. Welcome to Night Vale knocks me right out (I usually use A Story About You for this and I can’t even remember the last time I heard the end of the episode!) and also beats back any lurking questions of self-worth by giving my brain else something to focus on. But you have to be careful about what episode you choose because sometimes the weather can jar you out of sleep. :<
Relatedly, if someone were to make something that was just a solid half-hour of Cecil’s voice–an uneventful episode with the weather cut out, or him reading lorem ipsum text or smth idek–I would buy it so hard and never have trouble sleeping again.
The guy who narrates The History of England podcast also has a soothing voice for falling asleep to. Sometimes it means I have to re-listen to the episode the next day, but at least I don’t watch 7 episodes of the Tudors instead.
Garrison Keillor’s voice makes me sleepy (cheers for Sunday afternoon naps). I’ve seen PHC twice live and both times nearly fell asleep.
Question: Are weird dreams and Nyquil a thing? Because I took Nyquil for the first time on Tuesday night, and again last night, and had some REAL CRAZY ones.
Yes! When I take Nyquil, I get dreams that seem to have some extra dimension – like I’m acutely aware of really low, pervasive music in the background, or everything’s especially glittery. I had one years ago with a shiny round staircase and deep creepy music that still gives me chills (in a good way) to think about.
All 3 times I’ve had to read Plato’s Republic in my academic career, I was asleep within minutes. Highly recommended.
I had to give up coffee last autumn and OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS this thing happens now where I close my eyes at night and open them in the morning and I guess this is that “sleep” thing people are always on about.
My caffeine intake had been consistently high since childhood, so I sincerely had no idea it could be like this. Related: I used to say things like “Oh, caffeine doesn’t really affect me much.” Ahahahahaha NOPE WRONG.
Well, not if you're breastfeeding, apparently. So why not lie there reliving the attachment of the EFM?
I can't wait the Kiera Knightly Pride and Prejudice anymore – I used to fall asleep the soundtrack so often that now the music starts up and I'm conked out.
I do something similar except it's "Let's think about your family dying!!" Really restful.
Story time even though this post is from a day ago. I’m going to share a full-proof tactic I use to fall asleep when my brain decides to go down All Your Failings Avenue at night.
Step one: Have a favorite period-piece drama. Mine is Agatha Christie’s Poirot
Step two: Imagine an episode that would include your friends and family. Who are the nobility? House, Hotel, or Resort? Relationships? What is everyone wearing? I usually drift off before I have to think up an actual crime or plot.
This is GENIUS.