The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shews in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven: and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed. Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
I went to the doctor last week. I said: ‘Can I have some sleeping pills for the wife?’ He said: ‘Why?’ I said: ‘She’s woke up.’ Les Dawson
My bed was shaking – I can’t get to sleep. Exorcist 1973 starring Ellen Burstyn & Max von Sydow & Jason Miller & Linda Blair & Lee J Cobb & Mercedes McCambridge & Kitty Winn & Jack MacGowran & Father William O'Malley & Robert Symonds & Barton Heyman & Arthur Storch & Titos Vandis & Eileen Dietz et al, director William Friedkin
Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance. Ralph Waldo Emerson
In 2010 a group of children across the UK began to develop the same set of disturbing symptoms. And the diagnosis when it came was devastating. Doctors were also alarmed. It wasn’t just in the UK. The Kids Who Can’t Stay Awake, Channel 4 2015
Over 800 cases through the world ... Pandemnix [Flu vaccine] triggered narcolepsy. ibid.
One in three of us struggles with a sleep disorder. Keeping Britain Alive: The NHS in a Day VII, BBC 2013
It was the time when first sleep begins for weary mortals and by the gift of the gods creeps over them most welcomely. Virgil, Aeneid
I don’t see any reason to want to sleep. I think it’s a frightful waste of time. Old lady, interview cited Night on Film: An A-Z of the Dark, BBC 2011
The subject was frozen in 1973 which means he’s been under for two hundred years. Sleeper 1973 starring Woody Allen & Diane Keaton & John Beck & Marya Small & Susan Miller & Mary Gregory & Don Keefer & Peter Hobbs & John McLiam & Bartlett Robinson & Chris Forbes et al, director Woody Allen, scientist opening scene
Sleep is sweet to the labouring man. John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
There is nowhere in the world where sleep is so deep as in the libraries of the House of Commons. Henry Chips Channon, 1897-1958
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born. Samuel Daniel, Delia, 1592
Come, sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe. Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella, 1591
And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,
In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d. John Keats
O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes. John Keats, Sonnet to Sleep, 1819
Turn the key defly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul. ibid.
O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,
That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind
Till it is hush’d and smooth! O unconfined
Restraint! imprisoned liberty! great key
To golden palaces. John Keats, Endymion I:452
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The House of Life, 1881
Dead meat. But at least you’ve attained your goal: the summit of your day is the end. And you proceed to divest yourself of your garments and you get into bed. Unbelievable luxury. Ah. And you’re closing your eyes and you’re going to sleep. And suddenly everything is wonderful and comfortable. It’s positively poetry. Chekhov: Comedy Shorts: A Reluctant Tragic Hero starring Johnny Vegas & Mackenzie Crook, Vegas, Sky Arts 2010
Goddamned mosquitoes! ... Suddenly the tenth plague of Egypt strikes. ibid.
Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep! Edward Young, Night Thoughts, 1742-5
Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day. Friedrich Nietzsche
Let sleep expunge
The day’s monotonous vistas from their sight;
And let them plunge
Deep down the dusky firmament of reverie
And drowse of dreams with me. Wilfred Owen, Nocturne
Gerald Allgood was a talented football player during his waking hours but was a habitual sleepwalker at night ... When Gerald went to college his sleepwalking continued ... He ran more than a mile barefoot on the icy pavement ... Then in mid-stride – tragedy . Gerald Allgood died instantly. Unsolved Mysteries
Once upon a time there was a girl who slept and slept and slept. But this is not a fairytale. Louisa Ball has been diagnosed with a rare medical condition which recently caused her to hit the headlines worldwide. The condition is called Kleine-Levin Syndrome. And there is no known cure. Only an estimated one in a million people suffer from the disease. The Real Sleeping Beauty, BBC 2011
When in mode Louisa sleeps for up to twenty-two hours a day; when she is awake her behaviour is radically altered. ibid.
Virtually everything sold to help you get a good night’s rest is bullshit. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s6e5: Sleep, Showtime 2008
A number of dangers associated with sleeping pills have been uncovered. ibid.
She sleeps up in the attic there
Alone, poor maid. ’Tis but a stair
Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down,
The soft young down of her, the brown,
The brown of her – her eyes, her hair, her hair! Charlotte Mew, The Farmer’s Bride, 1916
This is me since midnight. Eyes like frizbies. Head like a badly tuned radio, wee slivers scratching in and out like junk adverts. I mean, it’s bad enough that I’m deranged. Rab C Nesbitt s8e5: Bug, Rab’s insomnia, BBC 1999
There’s a lot of it about. And it has no name. ibid. doctor
Who sleeps these days? ibid. Jamesie
Death is the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years. ibid. Andra
If I don’t get at least sixteen hours, I’m a basket-case. Manhattan 1979 starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton & Michael Murphy & Mariel Hemingway & Meryl Streep & Anne Byrne & Michael O’Donoghue & Wallace Shawn & Karen Ludwig et al, director Woody Allen
It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep. Psalms 127:2
How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. Proverbs 6:9&10
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread. Proverbs 20:13
The sleep of a labouring man is sweet. Ecclesiastes 7:6
I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know? Ernest Hemingway
I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning. Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
People say, ‘I’m going to sleep now,’ as if it were nothing. But it’s really a bizarre activity. ‘For the next several hours, while the sun is gone, I’m going to become unconscious, temporarily losing command over everything I know and understand. When the sun returns, I will resume my life.’
If you didn’t know what sleep was, and you had only seen it in a science fiction movie, you would think it was weird and tell all your friends about the movie you’d seen.
They had these people, you know? And they would walk around all day and be OK? And then, once a day, usually after dark, they would lie down on these special platforms and become unconscious. They would stop functioning almost completely, except deep in their minds they would have adventures and experiences that were completely impossible in real life. As they lay there, completely vulnerable to their enemies, their only movements were to occasionally shift from one position to another; or, if one of the ‘mind adventures’ got too real, they would sit up and scream and be glad they weren’t unconscious any more. Then they would drink a lot of coffee.'
So, next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you’re in a science fiction movie. And whisper, ‘The creature is regenerating itself.’ George Carlin, Brain Droppings