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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  

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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.