July 20, 1989

Desperately seeking an attitude transplant but finding no donors with attitudes our psyche would not reject, we reconcile ourselves to the Dog Days.
The ancient Greeks celebrated the season by collaring all the loose dogs in the vicinity and roasting them on a communal bonfire.
We prefer slumbering. The heat, the humidity, the lack of late summer excitement are perfect ingredients for a healthy batch of sleep.
The average person in this country lives about 75 years. That same common person spends fully 25 years asleep; fully one third of the only life we have is spent with eyes and mind closed, oblivious.
Except in late summer, that seems a ridiculous waste of time. But with the thermometer at 98 degrees, the humidity at 95%, and Pete Rose 90% sure of being ousted from baseball, sleeping seems like the ideal pastime.
Some suggest life would be richer without sleep, that noble accomplishments would be common if only we were constantly conscious. Wisdom would be attained, experiences would be encountered, hopes would be realized, bills would be paid if only we didn’t while away a third of our lives in somnolence.
It seems improper, they argue, that we who teeter at the very peak of evolutionary advance should be cursed with slumber needs. Plants don’t sleep. Some animals never doze off. Why, even the lowly amoeba performs its mindless functions 24 hours a day. “Good night, don’t let the virus bite,” is not part of amoebic vernacular.
Children share the sentiments of the sleep-haters. Short people, not yet imparted with adult wisdom, think of sleep as an abomination, a vexation of the spirit. Left to their own devices, youngsters would put an end to sleep.
Scientists describe sleep as a normal condition of the body “characterized by a depression of the physiological activities with a degree of unconsciousness.” The same white-robed biological apostles have used their waking hours to determine that sleep is essential for the reconstruction of human organs after a period of activity-only in the absence of such activity can reconstruction take place. Hence, according to scientific manuals (manuals embraced by many politicians), if we wish to be conscious we must first be unconscious. With apologies to Descartes, I sleep therefore I am.
Extensive study has attempted to decipher the mechanics of sleep. One theory contends sleep results from an accumulation of acid products during the active hours which causes a numbing of the central nervous system. Another theory proposes that the body used more intramolecular oxygen during the waking hours which finally diminishes the body’s sensitivity.
We grow sleepy reading about why we are growing sleepy.
Thomas Alva Edison, the idol of every red-blooded America school boy, lived 84 years and held patents on 1,033 different inventions. During his days on earth, Edison spent little time in bed. Child-like in his enthusiasm for the world around him, in order to experience as much of is as possible he perfected the five-minute doze. While working on the light bulb he experimented unsuccessfully with thousands of filaments. During his experiments he seldom spent a night in bed, preferring momentary naps.
On the other end of the sleep scale are poets. Shakespeare recognized the essential nature of blissful rest; “We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
Samuel Coleridge thoroughly appreciated the pleasure of a pillow beneath his head; “Oh! Sleep it is a gentle thing beloved from pole to pole.”
These Dog Days it is Shakespeare rather than Edison who should be emulated.
The primary accomplishment of Edison was the creation of artificial light which gets in our eyes when we try to sleep.
So, flip that switch on your way out. And don’t bother us until September…. ~T.Stucky