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I can’t sleep. We’ve all been there - some more than others. The term insomnia
came about in the 1700s and is used to describe a state of sleeplessness,
but more so today describes a broad set of sleeping disorders. With one third of all
adults having reported insomnia symptoms at some time in their lives, it’s a widespread issue.
For most insomnia is only a temporary issue induced by illness or stress, but six to ten
percent of all adults in first world countries have symptoms severe enough to diagnose them
with insomnia disorder; the inability to sleep healthily, but suffering tiredness all the same.
Insomnia is unsurprisingly linked to lower quality of life, depression, and anxiety.
Many might consider insomnia just one of a plethora of biologically based mental illnesses,
and while for a few that is the case, I’m here to make the argument that for most insomniacs
our sleeplessness is induced by our culture. Now I’m not saying it’s an Australian thing to
not sleep, but instead I’m describing a broader culture found in all developed nations in the
world. In the few remaining non-industrialised societies, chronic insomnia is only found in 1-2%
of adults, and if we dig into our own histories we can find that the way we slept pre-industrial
and post-industrial are quite different. The preferred modern treatment of insomnia is
the practice of good sleep hygiene - however these treatments are only sought after insomnia has
already become ingrained. In our pre-industrial past, before the invention of artificial lighting
and central heating, humans were strongly tied to a circadian rhythm. When we woke up and when
we fell asleep was dictated by our need to take advantage of the sunlight and heat of the daytime.
Our ancestors cultivated a series of cultural, sensory, and environmental cues, including
familiar sounds, visions, and smells that would induce drowsiness. Many western cultures included
evening rituals of spiritual contemplation and the use of sedative herbal remedies such as henbane,
lavender, and mandrake root. Communities slept at night and woke during
the morning with little deviation. Sleep was a celebrated phenomenon - quoting Shakespeare’s
Scottish play, sleep was the “Balm of hurt minds” and the “Chief nourisher in life’s feast.”
Though it must be said, some did practice vaguely nocturnal habits in the past. In
diaries and literature of the early modern period there are references of biphasic sleep, where
individuals would sleep in two segments, some practicers even being awake after midnight...ooh.
Their cultures would generally view this as a form of “watchfulness” and it wasn’t seen as a good
thing or a bad thing. In fact, biphasic sleep is still a well-practiced tradition in many cultures,
see siestas in Spain or taaseela in Egypt. It is not however a marker of insomnia.
Sleeplessness is likely to have been more temporary in pre-industrial society where
the sleep environment was so regularised. It stands in contrast to the 21st century’s
internet and technology, where our online identities subsist 24/7 sleeplessly and
continuously - and yes I’m talking to all you Americans that message me at 3 am.
So how has this transition exactly happened? How has our society changed to view sleeplessness over
time? Well thankfully, due to actual historians doing actual research, we can find observations
on sleeplessness as early as the classical period. Plato believed that long sleep was inconsistent
with sophistication, dictating that a citizen should sleep less than their slaves.
He viewed sleep as dead time obstructing the conduction of business.
This same view persisted in later works. Shakespeare expressed in his work that a
full night’s rest was a luxury a king could not afford given his political responsibility;
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Long nights and little sleep was not viewed
as the symptoms of a disorder, but instead the marker of an individual’s
importance and unique responsibilities. The romanticisation of sleeplessness extended
into the industrial period. Poets associated being awake at night with intellectual creativity,
a freedom of imagination, and the refusal of industrial society.
For William Blake walking restlessly at night; while ordinary people were fast asleep,
became a symbolic means of challenging the diurnal world of industrial production that he abhorred.
There’s a delicious irony in that however, as it was the very same industrial world
that made artificial light possible, allowing for extended work hours and the
abuse of the working class long into the night. It is most likely for that reason that a couple
centuries on there is much less counter-cultural prestige in involuntary sleeplessness.
The modern world’s working class is very familiar with the struggles of insomnia, and
as my source in the Lancet puts it; “Uneasy lies the head forced to devise excuses for the bank.”
The shift in perspective from sleeplessness being a trait of important persons to that of a neurotic
worker is best exemplified in the emergence of the term insomniac - as a noun, as a person.
It emerged in the late 19th century, as articles and stories began to tell of the hopeless
insomniac. It became the understanding that our sleep and wakefulness, well defined from birth,
could be affected deeply by the lifestyles we’re subjected to. As society increased its
development and production, it underestimated our need for sleep and unfortunately it still does.
I was not born an insomniac, but through my life in education, work and my struggles with mental
illness I’ve yet to have a normal unmedicated sleep since primary school. Insomnia is still an
issue that both I and society has yet to rectify - I apologise for months of silence and waiting,
but as a society we must make our health and our quality of lives a priority over our production.
Sleep and sleeplessness cannot be fully understood outside of the historical and cultural contexts
in which they are experienced. We could maybe even stand to learn something from
our pre-industrial past, with its sleep-embracing rituals and acceptance of transient sleeplessness,
to combat the modern day’s pandemic of insomnia. Goodnight…
If you’re still awake though any chance you’d be interested in some more content,
well over on Nebula you can right now go over and watch my exclusive 16 minute video going into the
history of Assassin’s Creed 2, y’know, the good one. Me and other creators such as Hbomberguy,
Wendover, Lindsey Ellis, Tier Zoo, and a whole lot of other people I wish liked me - are all
creating content that we couldn’t do on Youtube. Such as featuring our video libraries ad-free and
creating exclusive originals for the service. I plan on doing a whole lot more videos going
over history in video games for the platform, and this has all been made possible thanks
to Curiositystream’s Smart Bundle. The Smart Bundle is a new subscription service featuring
6 streaming platforms; Curiositystream, Nebula, SOMM TV, Tastemade, Topic, and One Day
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One suggestion from Curiositystream is the doco Science of Sleep - it’s called Curious Minds:
the Science of Sleep, cus it covers the science of sleep, did I say that yet?
You can support your favourite independent creators, get tons of new content to watch
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those platforms, and to support more content coming out on here consider going to the link
smartbundle.com/featurehistorysb. It’s a really cool thing to do, coming from me, ol cool guy man.
A huge thank you to everyone, to my patreons, to the sponsor,
to my subscribers, for all your patience and all your support in the huge time
it took to finally get back into it and create some hopefully pretty good stuff.
Y’know it’s not always that a content creator can just take a breather and work on themselves, but
you guys have supported me through all of it so a big thank you. And of course I have to say a great
deal of this video is based on an article written by Kimberley Whitehead and Matthew Beaumont in
the Lancet; Insomnia: a cultural history. It was completely integral to being able to see what the
research was and was a really enlightening read so if you like what I had to say, go read the source.
And once again, goodnight, sleep tight, enjoy that shit, it’s really important.