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Sleep: A Sociological Interpretation. I

Vilhelm Aubert and Harrison White Acta Sociologica 1959 4: 46 DOI: 10.1177/000169935900400207 The online version of this article can be found at: http://asj.sagepub.com/content/4/2/46.citation

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Sleep:
by

Sociological Interpretation ). 1

I.

Vilhelm Aubert and Harrison White

&dquo;Night, having Sleep, the brother of Death. From whose eyelids also as they gazed dropped love.&dquo; This beautiful cryptic passage in Hesiod2) seems full of unexplored meanings, some of which must concern even a sociologist. To face &dquo;the brother of Death&dquo; once a day is certainly not a trivial task, nor one which
the individual can manage alone, without social support, no more than he can face death itself alone, without funeral ceremonies, rituals of bereavement or philosophies of the passing away. The social nothingness of sleep, implied by the comparison with death, points to a universal, recurrent absence of interaction. Sleep represents the most common case of social isolation, thereby providing us with a continuous experimental situation organized around the theme night and day. Hesiod, however, did not restrict his perspective to the nothingness of sleep. He connected the state with love, just as our own vernacular does. Let us be clear about the starting point: Sleep is a physiological state, a biological necessity. So are sex, reproduction, illness, eating, aging and physical pain. The physiological nature of these other states, however, has not prevented scientists from demonstrating that the manner in which they are enacted, and the ways in which they impinge upon society are legitimate sociological concerns. Such is our task with sleep, to demonstrate that it is more than a straightforward biological activity.3) The thesis of this paper is that human sleep is an important social event.

1) While this paper was being prepared for publication, Kaspar Naegele sent us a draft on sleep in a sociological perspective Like our paper, it originated at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California. 2) The Theogony. Line 910. This and most of the following literary references are from Bartlett, Familiar Quotations. Cf. also Richard Broxton Onians, The Origins of European Thought. About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fale. Cambridge
1954, p 422.

3) The need for doing

so becomes clear when for example, in Time Budgets of Human Behavior, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939. P Sorokin and C Berger dismiss the portion of time spent on sleep as of only physiological significance. In their statistical tables on pages 192—197 in which the number of hours of participation in each given activity is broken down according to types of motivation, to sizes of participating group, and to types of social interaction involved, the entries opposite

46

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If we return to the literary tradition for a moment, it seems that the great poets and writers have been much concerned with sleep, and have adopted philosophical and social viewpoints relative to the state. Hesiod was only one among the first, known writers to cloth his worry about &dquo;the brother of Death&dquo; in poetical

language.~ )
Cervantes

developed

another

theme, the democratic

nature

of

sleep:

drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. Tis the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap; and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man even.&dquo;5) But sleep has also been viewed as reward for deserving conduct. The Psalmist put it this way: &dquo;He giveth his beloved sleep.&dquo;6) The aspect of social sanction is also fairly clear when the Ecclesiastes says: &dquo;The sleep of a labouring man is sweet.&dquo; &dquo;But the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.&dquo;7) A very forceful expression of the idea that lack of sleep is a punishment for evil is given in Macbeth.S)

blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep! over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; tis meat for the hungry,

It

covers a man

&dquo;Now all

The literary tradition suggests, that to fall asleep is m a part at least motivated act, and that the idea of sleep has been bestowed with moral, that is social, connotations. The normal state of sleep means to occupy a culturally determined role which includes the behavior in the transitional periods before and after physiological sleep. The right to enter the state with full privileges furthermore is assumed to depend upon achievements in the state of wakefulness. Sometimes an individual may fall asleep as an autonomic reaction to great exhaustion. Usually, however, falling asleep is not the fulfilling of an immediate biological need, but a result of activities bearing many overt symptoms of roleplaying. Sarbins characterization of the hypnotic process applies well to falling asleep: &dquo;In the hypnotic experiment the subject tries to take the role of the
-

sleep heading are left blank. We find the same blindness to the significance of sleep as a core activity of the family in the empirical monograph, Housing need, of Western Farm Families, U S. Agricultural Dept., 1952: sleep is not even given a heading as a Household Activity. Herbert Spencer, however, did include "Ideas of Sleep and Dreams" among his "Data of Sociology". The Principles of Sociology. Vol. 1, New York
the

1893, pp. 132—42.

4) Cf.

in Bartlett quotations from Homer, Sophocles, lomew Griffin, Shelley, Aristophanes, Swinburne,

Plutarch, Leonardo da Vinci, Bartho-

Shakespeare, Tennyson. John Donne,

Philip Freneau, Byron.

5) 6) 7) 8)
Don Quixote. Part II, Book IV Chap 68, Page 898 The Bible: Psalms: CXXVII, 2. The Bible: Ecclesiastes, III, 12. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act II, Sc 2, Line 36 ff.

47

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hynotized person; the success of his striving is a function of favorable motivation, role perception, and role taking aptitude&dquo;.~1) As concerns role perception, it is rather more than less likely to be adequate in the case of the sleeper than in the case of the hypnotized person. Going to sleep means going through a number of culturally defined motions, such as dressing in a certain way, modifying light and sound conditions, assuming one of a limited number of postures, closing ones eyes even in darkness, expressing certain emotions and attitudes towards others, and so on. These motions, together with the perceptions of the actual state of sleep, and motions associated with awakening constitute the role of the sleeper. Since childhood most people have been trained to take this role, often with great difficulty. The training of children shows beyond any doubt that sleep at the proper place and time is not a process which is being left to be determined by biological needs alone. The concept of role-playing is usually based upon the notion that incumbents of positions respond with consciousness to expectations from the social environment. This notion applies to peripheral sleep activities, but apparently not to the content of deep sleep. Dreams are the most significant events occurring during deep sleep. To what extent are they socially meaningful events, in the sense that they constitute a response to preceding social interaction or become meaningful in subsequent social reality? The existence of dreams presents man with several large philosophical issues. The most important one is the settlement of the reality of dreams. Which one is the real world, against which to measure the other one, that which we experience when awake or that which we experience when asleep?&dquo;)) It needs no elaboration that the way in which this problem is settled has wide social ianiifications. What may be less obvious is that the way in which the problem is settled is partly determined by culture, by socially shared norms and beliefs. Our culture gives a rather definite answer to the question: The world we experience and manipulate in our waking life is the real world; and the world of the dreams is unreal and irrational. Several non-literate cultures, however, give a different answer. &dquo;Thus the Ashanti assume that, if a man dreams of having sexual intercourse with another mans wife, he will be fined the usual adultery fee, for his soul and hers have had sexual IOtercourse. &dquo;11) Here the assumption of reality is closely connected with
_ -

Sarbin, "Contributions to Role-Taking Theory: I. Hypnotic Behavior". Review. 57, 1950, pp. 255—70. Cf. also R. W. White, "A Preface to the Theory of Hypnotism." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 36, 1941, pp. 477 —505; André M. Weitzenhoffer, Hypnotism. An Objective Study in Suggestibility. New York and London, 1953, pp. 91 ff. 10) For a classic statement of the problem, cf Blaise Pascal, Gedanken. Reclam, Stuttgart
R.

9) Theodore

Psychological

1956,

pp. 121—122.

11) Ralph
48

L. Woods

(Ed), The World of

Dreams. An

Anthology,

N.Y. 1947.

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the idea of responsibility for the content of dieams. This contrasts sharply with much used phrase within western culture: &dquo;The one who sleeps does not sin.&dquo; Other non-literate cultures deal with the world of dreams in philosophical terms analogous to those of the Ashanti. Still others have interpreted dreams as having a meaning, not in relation to everyday, profane, reality, but as events taking place in the realm of a supernatural reality, towards which man is supposed to respond actively also in everyday waking life. In other words, the assumption that waking life is real while life in dreams is unreal, seems to be culturally determined to some extent, and not a necessary derivation from the inherent physiological properties of the states of sleep and wakelfulness.~2) We propose that the validity, reality, and responsibility associated by a culture with the supernatural sleep world of dreams are in part a reflection of the contemporary social structure. We mean by validity the degree to which events in the sleep world are perceived as a true guide to the waking world; by reality the extent to which the sleep world is perceived as cut of the same cloth as the waking world; and by responsibility the extent to which individuals are rewarded and sanctioned for events in the sleep world. These three general attributes vary strikingly from culture to culture: among the Ojibwa, children are encouraged to develop pleasant dreams which may foretell reality,13) while we have lost belief m the direct validity of dreams; the Tikopia sleep in sex-avoidant positions in the of and the Rwala assert the danger of being made female deities 14) buildings an idiot by a full nights exposure to the sleep world,15) but the Woleaians attribute no reality to dreams;1 tj) the Ashanti have reputedly killed men for what occurred in their dreams 17) while the Tikopia do not punish even killing by a man awakened
a

sleep by visions. 1 ;) Furthermore, these three attributes apparently can vary independently, and in particular reality and responsibility do not necessarily go together as we can see from the Tikopia. Certainly the general nature attributed to the sleep world is tied to religion and other elements in contemporary culture.
from

12) Cf. Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams. London & New York 1932; and Erich Fromm, The Forgotten Language. An Introduction to the Understanding of Dreams, Fairy Tales and Myths. New York 1951 13) F. Densmore, Chippeuwa Customs. Washington: Bureau of American Ethnology (Bulletin No. 86), 1929, p. 60. 14) R. Firth, The Work of the Gods in Tikopia. London: London School of Economics,
1940, p. 65.

15) A. Musil, The Manners and Customs of the Rwala Bedouins. New York: American Geographical Society. Oriental Explorations and Studies, No. 6, 1928, p 412. 16) L. Wyman, American Anthropologist, XXXVIII (1936), p. 651. 17) R. Woods, Op. cit. 18) E. E. Evans Pritchard (ed ), Essays Presented to C. G. Seligman. London: Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co , 1934, p. 67.
49
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that often this nature directly reflects the social structure. In our sociey deny the validity, reality, and responsibility of sleep life. And in our the achievement norm ranks high. According to this pattern the justification society of social actions is to be made by reference to intersubjectively testable performances or experiences by the actor, not by reference to inherent personal qualities or cues from the divinities. Since dreams are exempt from intersubjective testability they form a poor basis for social actions of modern men, and tend to be classified as invalid, unreal events for which actor is not accountable. The raw material for dreams is in part taken from waking social life, the &dquo;dayrest&dquo; of Freud. Stresses inherent in the statuses of individuals will be expressed in dreams and, since the sleeper is relatively blameless, he may experience unacceptable and original solutions to waking conflicts. The degree to which this may provide a guidance carried into social interaction depends upon other aspects of the plulosophical definitions of dreams and the role of the sleeper. It may do so by making the actor aware of his own motives relative to others or by making him directly mention the dream as a mild social sanction of others. Even if dreams are interpreted as invalid descriptions of outer reality, they may be conceived of as reliable experiences of the inner world of the sleeper, providing insights possibly denied the person when awake. This raises the Question of the value assessment of the dream content. Are dreams expressions of mans irrational and evil aspects or do they represent what is good and insightful ? Buth points of view have been maintained among philosophers and psychologists, probably corresponding to a parallell duality in folk-theories.19) Both the expectation that sleep brings out the best and that it brings out the worst in men, present social problems, in the first case mainly associated with in all falling asleep, in the latter case mainly associated with awakening.&dquo; of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in
But
we

assert

we

This may obviously cause or support - conflicts about as theories of the sinfulness of sex cause - or support sexual conflicts. In the fear of the lawless wild-beast may lie one of the roots of insomnia, a deviance from the normal sleep-pattern, usually interpreted as a disease

sleep,&dquo; said Plato. falling asleep, just

subject

to medical treatment.20) If the optimistic theory of dream contents is accepted it may in our society present conflicts over leaving the role of the sleeper, moving from good to worse. If dreams have given new self-insights, which demand action, how is one to find grounds on which to act, since dreams do not furnish legitimation in socially shared experiences? The new psychological theories of dreams, with a positive colouring,

19) Cf Freud, Op. cit; and Fromm, Op. cit. 20) Cf. papers by Conn, Gilman, Karpman and London

in

Journal of

Clinical

Psycho-

pathology,
50

11, No. 2, 1950

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may derive
a

support from the increased emphasis upon perception of the self

as

significant element of any actors social reality. The transitions to and from the physiological state of sleep are perceived as hazardous, in part due to the cultural definition of the role of the sleeper. The possible fears can crudely be classified as: fear of death or not awakening; fear of separation from the everyday world and loneliness; fear of helplessness and passivity; fear of unacceptable inner impulses; fear of insomnia. These fears are in part assuaged by the social structures surrounding sleep, to which we shall return later; and by soothing cultural patterns, like lullabies for children and night-prayer. The Chagga of Tanganyika sleep with their heads pointed to Mt. Kibo,21) and the Tikopia sleep on the graves or their ancestors,22) examples of semi-religious practices thought to ensure safe sleep. The artifacts of sleep such as night clothes and bedding, and approved postures of sleep may be viewed as ritual called forth reassuring by the latent fears which may be aroused patterns, the of by imminency sleep. From the point of view of the sleeper the culturally established kinship with death, is a disturbing one. From the point of view &dquo;memento mori&dquo;, it is a soothing and clarifying notion. Assuming that death requires social structuring and learning in order to be accepted, we may view the bed as a training ground for dying; in the words of Browne:

&dquo; Sleep is a death; oh make me try by sleeping, what it is to die, And as quietly lay my head On my grave, as now my bed!&dquo;23) A quiet death, and the dying persons resignation to his inevitable fate, appears to be highly valued in our culture by the bereaved ones. The notion of sleep as a model of death, the new awakening, and immortality, may possibly be carried one step further. The diurnal cycle, with sleep as a focal point, furnishes a miniature model af the life-cycle, of being born, maturing, aging and dying. Such an over-alle perspective on life, anchored in more concrete experiences, seems necessary in relation to mans long-term activities and social co-ordination in terms of roles appropriate to various stages in the life cycle. These considerations evoke a different problem, the phenomenology of time spent awake and asleep. All societies have some concept of time and apply it to phenomena viewed consciously. This subjective perception of time, however, seems to break down in the state of sleep. There seems to be in our culture a fundamental
.
.

21) O Raum, Chagga Childhood. London: Oxford University Press, 1940 22) R Firth, We, The Tikopia London Allen and Unvin, 1936, p 77, p 23) Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Part 2, Sect. XII.

90

51

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of view of the sleeper. A also may appear as no more than a mc~ments unconsciousness. For other cultures in which the homogenous time of the clock and Newton is not so much or at all imbedded, the contrast between the perception of time when awake and asleep may not be so great. even Sleep and wakefulness, night and day, may be perceived differently from the outside as scenes for the unfolding of time as a historical process. Daytime is in some sense cumulative. The perception of self and others as growing, developing or, at least, aging, seems to refer to day-time, or time spent awake, and ignores, by and large, time spent in sleep. Sleep-time is predominantly non-cumulative, almost withdrawn from the process of growth and aging. It is, we surmise, perceived in static terms, as a scene of life to which one returns &dquo;in the same place&dquo; over and over again. Comparing the two images of time, the irreversibly vanishing stream and the monotonously recurring pointer enclosed by the circle of the clock,24) the former image appears more associated with daythe wasted time. By this cultural time, the latter image more with sleep-time definition, sleep-time becomes a redeemer from the fears associated with the inevitable passing of time and the definitive loss of the past, &dquo;le temps perdu&dquo;. In more than one sense sleep represents an encounter with the past, a recurrent regression,25) whereas daytime impresses upon actors the necessity to decide on what to leave behind as parts of an incontrovertible past. The qualitative break in time-concepts between night and day places a formidable social barrier between two successive days and the social activities they encompass. The proper way to approach this cyclical aspect of social systems, may be in terms of Parsons &dquo;latency phase&dquo;.26) We need a notion of this kind to explain that social relationships are different after a period of no interaction from what they would have been without this passed time, apparently void of social content. Phenomenologically this is expressed in most cultures in the idea that to awaken from sleep is to begin afresh, to start a new segment of activity with the past partially cancelled. Since sleep is in a different kind of time, each days events tend to have their own origin and significance, something more than merely filling in a section in an endless stream of events.
the

ambiguity in the perception of time from night may appear like an eternity, but it

point

24) Cf. Alfred Schuetz, ,,On Multiple Realities". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Vol. V, 1944-45, pp. 533—376 esp. p. 540; Hubert Griggs Alexander, Time as Drmension and History. The University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 1945, pp. 6-7; Pierre Auger, "Two Times, Three Movements", Drogenes, No 19, 1957, pp 1—17. 25) Cf. Freuds theory of sleep as a narcissistic regression to the mothers womb. B. D Lewin, "Sleep, Narcissistic Neurosis, and the Analytic Situation". Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 23, 1954, pp. 487—510. 26) T. Parsons, R. Bales, and E. Shils, Working Papers in the Theory of Action. Glencoe: The Free Press, 1953, p. 185. 52

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We may possibly view sleep as a communion rite in which minor sins and washed away. Among the Aleuts there is sometimes ceremonial bathing upon awakening.27) There are an abundance of adages pointing in a similar direction: &dquo;To-morrow is another day&dquo;; &dquo;He got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.&dquo; The social function of this cultural theme is probably to introduce greater flexibility into behavior, and providing a mechanism for reducing both guilt and need of self-defence. Without a loss of status, an actor may start on a new sequence of behavior, even if it violates the norms which he seemed to support on the previous day when interaction went into the latency phase. He &dquo;has slept on it&dquo; and started &dquo;a new day&dquo;. With sleep goes irresponsibility for perception and action, in our culture. This gives sleep and night-time a specific function in relation to innovation and creativity. Many artists, and some scientists, claim to have made important creative strides during sleep or in the peripheral zones of sleep.2~) No doubt this is related to the physiological process of relaxation. However, cultural definitions play their
cares are

appears, namely, that creative workers have shown an unusually high for night as the proper time for work, that is, for activities in full preference consciousness. If we assume that the relationship between this choice and the creative productions is more than incidental, it may be by virtue of a definition of night-time, bestowing upon it a social atmosphere in which demands for conformity and protection of status are greatly lowered. Sleep is, also in a different sense, defined as the proper time for creativity, namely with respect to sex. The association of sexual life with night-time, although deeply rooted in our culture, is not a universal one. Ford and Beach have discovered, on the basis af cross-cultural material, great variations between different societies in this respect.2?) The material suggests that practical considerations, connected with conditions of privacy, determine in part the preference for night or day as the proper time for love-making. We doubt, however, that narrow practical considerations alone can account for the fairly univ ersal association, in our culture, between sex, the bed, sleep and night-time. We shall approach this cultural link from two sides. Let us start with a consideration of the surreptitious, &dquo;deviant&dquo; nature of sexual life. By this, we mean something more than that sexual life to so many people, under a variety of &dquo;illicit&dquo; circumstances has come to be defined as a sin. We make the wider claim that, for

part,

too. It

1. Venamionov, Notes on the Islands of the Unalaska District St. Petersburg: RussianAmerican Company, 1840, pp. 109—110 28) B. Ghiselin (ed.), The Creative Process. New York: Mentor, 1955, pp 36, 44, 64, 82, 85, 124; J. Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry. New York: Meridian, 1955, pp. 88—89. 29) C. S. Ford and F. A. Beach, Patterns of Sexual Behavior. New York: Harper, 1951.

27)

53

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general and profound reasons, sexual union is surreptitious in the sense that it is surrounded by an unusual amount of secrecy, in the form of modesty, and circumlocutions in references, etc. The secret aspect of sex tends to associate it with the night, for some people to the extent that they depend upon darkness as a condition of performing intercourse.30) More generally, the night with its rigid and predictable patterns of contact and isolation (a point to which we shall return later) provides the proper social structure for the performance of any activity to which norms of secrecy are attached. Another concept, of sleep-time as an institutionally protected time-reservoir, gives additional weight to the established association. For most adult persons the day is crowded with expected activities. Any expenditure of time that would interfere with work, household chores, expected sociability or participation in public affairs, demands explicit legitimation. Now, although love is a central value in our culture, love-making is still too private, too secret, even in marriage, to furnish ready-made legitimation. The very private nature of sexual contacts makes them poor competitors with the more robustly social activities of modern man. Here, the association with sleep-time affords a legitimation, since sleep is an activity which is readily legitimated even under conditions far from physical exhaustion, and a state which is highly
even more

protected.
The latter point needs some elaboration. Evidence from many cultures suggests that sleep is institutionalized as a state or a role with high priority, given fulfilment of the proper conditions of time and place. The form of interaction with those in sleep is defined as avoidant31) and takes high precedence over other social relationships. It means that usually the sleeper is not awakened in order to assume a different role in interaction. The Navaho believ e that evil is brought by even stepping over a sleeting person.3- ) Among the Bedouin Rwala &dquo;a culprit while asleep cannot be killed by an avenger since this would bring vengeance on the lattersown head.&dquo;33) Parents usually have tender feelings toward their sleeping children while also respecting the inviolability of the sleep state.31)
-_

10

be

~rnrlrd

In

rnl -1

farc.

30) Cf. A. C. Kinsey,

664-65.

et.

al, Sexual Behavior

in

the Human Male.

Philadelphia,

1948. pp.

31) Avoidant relationships "de-emphasize direct contacts and conduct such as exist on a relatively formal basis". M. Levy, The Structure of Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952, p. 353 32) C. Kluckhohn and D Leighton, The Nataho. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1946, p. 47.

33) A. Musil, op cit., p 496. 34) Cf. Ibsens play "Korrgsemneine",

where the duke, Skule, watching alone the cradle of his daughters son, the prince, who is an obstacle to his own royal ambitions, exclaims: "There is protection in sleep" (Det er vern i sovnen)
_ _

54

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