SLEEP

The best things in life are ZZZZZZs

NOTHING arouses America’s dormant fears like the subject of sleep. Sleep is intimately connected with the things we refuse to talk about, as well as the things we talk about constantly. Our contradictory attitudes toward sleep are the litmus paper for all of our contradictions as a people. There is nothing about sleep that does not remind us of something else about sleep that triggers anxiety.

Sleep is simultaneously American and un-American. Consider:

—“I don’t need much sleep." The Tom Edison complex.

—“Napping in the daytime only makes you feel worse.” The Gringo complex.

—“Don’t those people ever sleep?’ ’ The Wasp complex.

—“Secretary of State Darius MacTavish went forty-eight hours without sleep. ’ ’ The Awesome Responsibilities complex.

—“Despite having gone without sleep for forty-eight hours, MacTavish appeared rested and refreshed." The Omnipotence complex.

—“MacTavish dozed for an hour on the plane.” The Common Touch complex.

—“He’s burning the midnight oil.” The Work Your Way Through College complex. —“My candle bums at both

ends.” The Party Your Way Through College complex.

—“A woman needs her beauty sleep. ’ ’ The Vogue complex. —“I don’t have time to sleep!” The Cosmopolitan complex.

—“He just rolls over and goes to sleep.” The Ladies’ Home Journal complex.

—“What your sleep tells about you.” The Reader’s Digest complex.

-450-LB. WOMAN SLEEPS THROUGH STARVATION DIET! The National Enquirer complex.

—“Help someone you love to fall asleep. ’ ’ The Supportiveness complex.

—“Makes you drowsy so you can fall asleep.” The SelfHelp complex.

—“Do you take your job to bed?” The Workaholic complex.

—“Don’t lose any sleep over it.” The Nine-to-Five complex.

—“If the world blew up while you were asleep, you’d want David Trueheart of Turn Over, America to tell you about it.” The Unthreatening Personality complex.

—“The early bird gets the worm.” The Diane Sawyer complex.

—“Sleep on it.” The Decisive complex.

—“Sleep on it.” The Indecisive complex.

—“I slept through it.” The Anti-Intellectual complex.

—“It kept me awake.” The Thoughtful complex,

—“I slept like a log.” The Clear Conscience complex.

—“I slept like a log.” The Affectless complex.

—“I slept like a log.” The Sexually Satisfied complex.

—“I slept like a log.” The Phlegmatic Peasant complex.

—“Shall we wake the president?’ ’ The Leader complex.

—“There was no need to wake the president. ’ ’ The Team Play complex.

—“We spend one-third of our lives asleep. ’ ’ The Thanatosis complex.

—“Secretary of State Darius MacTavish died in his sleep last night.” The Euthanasia complex.

Our ambivalence about sleep is a “beloved symptom,” the problem we do not want to get rid of, the trouble we do not want to get out of, the subject we dare not submit to analysis for fear of finding out how silly we are. It is all too perfectly balanced to risk tampering with; remove one brick from the wall of neurosis we have thrown up around sleep and all would be lost. We would be forced to admit that sleep is not only our Achilles’ heel and King Charles’s head but the Occam’s razor with which’ we daily slit our throats.

Florence King