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Sleep: A Sociological Interpretation. II

Vilhelm Aubert and Harrison White Acta Sociologica 1959 4: 1 DOI: 10.1177/000169935900400301 The online version of this article can be found at: http://asj.sagepub.com/content/4/3/1.citation

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Sleep:
by

Sociological Interpretation. II*)

Vilhelm Aubert and Harrison White

us now return to the association between sleep and sex, and mention a second of type considerations which may help to explain the phenomenon. The component of a persons status known as residence, which identifies the person with a definite spatial location, is given by the normal sleeping location. A person &dquo;lives&dquo; where he sleeps. This seems to apply to Western society and to the primitive societies we have surveyed,3;:;) where adequate information was available. One exception is typified by the temporary factory laborers in large Indian cities who consider themselves as &dquo;living&dquo; in the villages from which they came, and not in their

Let

frequently changing sleep locations, sometimes in the streets.36) Now, the nuclear family is in most societies organized around the criterion of residence. An important, actually one of the most stable, functions of the family is the provision of a common sleeping group for its members. On the other hand, the communal sleeping is doubtless one of its great cohesive forces; in the modern suburban families, living in sleep-towns, it may become the single remaining task around which the family members order themselves in interaction. From these considerations it follows that sexual unions will tend to be restricted to the family
group, that is to husband and wife. The close association between sleeping arrangements and family structure tends to support the taboo which, for different reasons, exists against extramarital sexual

Continued from vol. 4 fasc. 35) The societies we took up, in

2.

the Yale Human Relations Area File, are in Asia the Khasi, Lolo, Miao and Toda; in Africa the Chagga, Mbundu, Thonga, Twi, Tiv and Azande; in the Middle East the Rwala; in North America the Navaho, Aleut. Copper Eskimo, Iroquois, Southeast Salish and Ojibwa; in Oceania the Pukapuka, Samoa, Tikopia and Woleai; in Russia the Samoyed, Yakut, Chukchee, Kamchadal, Koryak; and in South America the Siriono, the Cuna, the Jivaro and the Tupinamba. We refer to the original monographs in the footnotes to specific items used in the body of this paper; only those which received an evaluation of "excellent" from the File Analyst were used for

36)

references. K. Davies, The 1948.

Population of India and Pakistan.

Princeton: Princeton

University Press,

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the cultural

relations, against &dquo;sleeping with&dquo; somebody outside the family. Also in this respect structuring of sleep tends to protect the family from sources of friction.

The proverbial sexual exploits of men who sleep outside their family, like seamen and travelling salesmen, illustrates the thesis. We have been dealing with the night as the proper time for surreptitious activities, whether they consist in sexual activity or cultural innovation. But nighttime is even more massively defined as the time for evil and crime. From the division of forces by the Essenes in the Sons of Darkness and the Sons of Ligth37) to the tremendously popular thriller about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this notion is so deep-rooted, that it may appear completely trivial that the day should have positive moral connotations and the night negative ones.38) Linked to this are, however, more concrete and less trivial, associations both of criminal and of police activities with the night. In many societies the police actually developed from the paid night-watchman. It is also apparent that night and day make for different relations between the citizen and the agents of the Law. For the police to accost a person in daytime a specific, explicit legitimation is required. At night the burden of proof shifts. The usual presumption of innocence lacking overt evidence of crime seems often to be reversed by the police to the presumption of suspicious intentions on the part of people up and about in the middle of the usual sleep period. Curfews are linked to the same institutional complex. It has already been mentioned that the state of sleep has very often been given a religious significance. In most cultures the sleep role is conceived as one in which interaction with the supernatural world is expected, both through dreams and otherwise. There are exceptions such as the Woleaian culture of Micronesia,3V) but the anthropological reports on most of the societies we surveyed indicate a variety of such beliefs about sleep, which are also present in early Western society in similar form. We can recognize two major types of interaction with an invisible world in sleep. There is communication through dreams, of which the sleeper is aware at the time and which he may remember specifically after

37) 38)

39)

A. Powell Davies, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Signet N. Y. 1956, pp. 21-22. There are, however, strains in our culture which support the notion that the night may be the scene for enactment of what is "real" and "moral" while the day-time scene presents us with the unreal or only apparently real and with the immoral or distorted. Thus some Norwegian fairy-tales describe princes who are themselves during the night, but are doomed to appear as polar bears or other animals in the day-time. Cf. in P. C. Asbjörnsen and J. Moe, Folke og Huldreeventyr. I, Oslo. 1928, pp. 164-172, the tale "Östenfor sol og vestenfor måne". This in contrast to stories of humans who are werewolves during the night M. Spiro, Ifaluk: A South Sea Culture. Unpublished manuscript dated 1949, held by Pacific Science Board, National Research Council, p. 96.

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there is interaction of which the sleeper is not aware but which he is taught to infer from general knowledge and the course of events. For example, among the Navaho during the long magic rite for illness the patient cant sleep or bad spirits would &dquo;win back the chant&dquo;.40) Sleep may also be viewed as a medium through which interaction with other people takes place, as for example when one attempts to induce sickness or nightmares through sleep spirits in another

awakening. Second,

person.41)
In order to assess the religious function of dreams we shall take as a given that all known cultures (except possibly the emerging communist civilizations) reckon with a supernatural world as a vital sphere of existence. It raises serious &dquo;technical&dquo;

problems, however,

to commumcate with this world, especially to receive messages about which one may feel reasonably secure that they do not originate in everyday profane existence. All intermediaries, priests, medicine men, shamans, magicians, are under suspicion of polluting messages with profane motives or interpretation. It appears to us that there are only two means of communication which have a logical structure that distinguishes them clearly from profane messages: chance devices~2) and dreams. By the very physiological nature of sleep and even more by virtue of its social structuring, sleep experiences, dreams, appear to be experiences of a different order from daytime secular life. Dreams give, at is were, the raw material for construction of elaborate theories of supernatural communication, culminating in dream books or dream codes43) which determine how dream messages are to be translated as guidance to secular activities. Dreams as a kind of divination or contact with gods and spirits of the ancestors, is doubtless the most important factor bestowing positive value upon sleep. From this assumption derives the emphasis upon training and preparation for sleep and dreams. From anthropological reports it is known that people in many cultures go through elaborate preparations in order to secure dreams of a prescribed content, as a requirement for an initiation rite or as a means of divination connected with illness, crimes or witchcraft. Especially the candidate for the role of shaman may &dquo;work&dquo; very hard in order to induce the proper dreams at the appropriate time and place.~4) The relative success of these exertions indicate that dreams should properly be viewed as a learned activity, and not only in the very indirect, hard to trace, fashion suggested by orthodox Freudian dream theory.

40) L. Wyman, in American Anthropologist. Vol. 38, 1936, p. 650. 41) E.g., see R. East (ed.), Akigas Story. London: Oxford University Press, 1939, p. 118. 42) Cf. V. Aubert, "Change in Social Affairs". Inqurry, Vol. II, 1959, pp. 1-24. 43) For an example cf. T. A. Sebeok and F. J. Ingeman, Studier in Cheremis: The Supernatural. New York, 1956, pp. 269—79. 44) G. Devereux, "Dream learning and individual ritual differences
American
in Mohave shamanism".

Anthropologist.

Vol. 59, 1957, pp. 1036—1045.

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to specific dream contents, it should do so even the formal structure of dreams. One should think that the validity and reality attributed to dreams contribute to determine the amount of detail, precision and orderliness experienced in dreams. It seems possible that the blurred, distorted, illogical nature of the dreams of Western man is linked to the social uselessness of his dreams, in contrast to the practical usefulness of dreams in most primitive societies. If this is a sound way of reasoning one might also guess that modern dreams spring from even deeper, more infantile and irrational layers of the personality than those of primitive men. Or, to put it differently, it seems likely that the dreiins of primitive men are more exposed to the ordinary processes of social control than are those of modern men. The dreams of Western man are relatively unsocialized events in contrast to the heavy socialization of primitive man in his role as sleeper. It is time to indicate in more general sociological terms what we have been doing in the, admittedly highly impressionistic, considerations advanced above. We have taken a certain human state, sleep, and enumerated some of the more obviously social meanings associated with it. Cerlain conditions that regularly have to be fulfilled in order to enter the state (over and above fatigue) have been indicated. The compatibility and incompatibility of the sleep state or night-time with certain other roles, has been discussed. Rights and duties of the sleeping person, or the person close to sleep, have been analyzed. In general we have treated sleep as an object of perception, and attempted to describe phenomenologically its properties, the conditions required for proper learning of adjustment to the object, and the social consequences flowing from this adjustment. It will be noted that so far relatively little has been said about the actual (behavioristic) stnicturing of sleep in time and space. Neither have we discussed the question of to what extent this structuring is physiologically, respectively socially determined. The time has come to approach these problems with the preceding

If the
to

learning approach applies

more

phenomenological analysis as a background. Sleep is a physiological function of the human organism, and before we can state how sleep is structured by social systems we must seek to establish the biological limits within which sleep may vary.~5) From the point of view both of the evolution of species which has led to man and of the evolution of individual men with age, it is not sleep that needs to be explained but wakefulness. The normal state of lower forms of animal life and of the human infant is sleep; wakefulness occurs when some specific physiological need is aroused which requires conscious coordinated activity for its satisfaction,
45) Concerning
1939.
the physiology of sleep we rely very heavily upon the standard work by Nathaniel Kleitman. Sleep and Wakefulness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

4.

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The wakefulness of choice found in adult man is a new biological development, which however, is apparently still governed by the specific wakefulness center in the central nervous system. This wakefulness center under cortical stimulation prolongs the wakefulness of necessity after the physiological needs have been met. Sleep results either when neuromuscular fatigue cuts down cortical excitation or when for physiological reasons still not fully understood both the cortex and the wakefulness center become inactive after a period of two days or more. It is known that interest in the environment can for some time maintain the activity of the center, but continuous physical activity is the only stimulant effective with the

wakefulness center as long as a few days.4 6) There is no specific physiological mechanism connecting human sleep with darkness or the astronomical cycle of day and night. Apparently there is no inherited cyclical aspect of the physiological nature of sleep. Infants are trained to conform to the accepted pattern of human sleep in their society, and gradually

physiological rhythm appropriate to this pattern. When the pattern changed, during military duty or on shift work, the physiological rhythm shifts to conform, with a lag of some weeks or months.4 7) The patterns of human sleep can, therefore, not be explained primarily on the basis of physiology. The minimum amount of sleep physiologically necessary, and the physiological
they develop
is

as

value of additional
as a

sleep, depend on the pattern of sleep under consideration. Even taking given single period of continuous sleep during each night, these cannot be positively answered. The best opinion at present is that at questions least seven hours sleep on the average (with a variation of at least two hours between different individuals) is the necessary period for adult human beings, over a long period of time. If broken down by age, this average minimum period
a

decreases with
is not

age.48)

a Sleep physiologically uniform period of existence. Electroencephalographs, motion-recording mechanical devices, and other instruments have been applied to the measurement of sleep intensity during entire sleeping periods. Att least in our culture, the general pattern is a rather rapid fall to deep sleep once consciousness is lost, followed by a continuation of rather deep sleep for several hours, with the remainder of the night a succession of light and moderately deep periods of sleep, and a rather lingering process of returning to consciousness in the morning.49)
.

..

46) Ibid, Chapter 36. 47) Ibid., p. 269; N. Kleitman and D. Jackson, Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol. 3, 1950, p. 309; N. Kleitman and T. Engelmann, Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol 6. 1953,
p. 269.

48) Kleitman, op.

cit.,

49) Ibid.,

p. 123 p. 151.

Chapter 13. Depth of sleep actually

has too many facets to be

so

simply

treated.

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Recent work by Kleitman and Dement has led to a better identification of the duration and timing of dreams. Dreams seem rarely to last longer than fifteen minutes in duration. The latter half of sleep of a conventional nights duration is the location of the great majority of dreams. Motor activity, especially of the eyeballs, seems to occur frequently and to be associated with the content of the

dreams.50)
The conclusion of central importance to us is that a very wide range of sleep behavior is physiologically possible. Let us now for a moment consider sleep among animals in relation to their social systems, in the hope that the admittedly crude analogies we may draw with sleep in human society may be suggestive. Most of the information on primate behavior has been obtained under zoo or laboratory conditions in which we do not really see a separate society but rather a meld of human and animal societies. However, recent unpublished work by Wash. burn on troops of baboons rather free of interaction with human society gives us preliminary data.51) Two basic points are made about sleep: a) The best single definition of membership in a troop of baboons is given by sleeping location in the tree(s) occupied at night by the group; b) there is a rather definite arrangement of sleeping positions of different baboons in the tree with respect to one another. Family groups have not emerged at all clearly in the baboon troops; rather the troop constitutes a large primary group with social structure based on the relative strengths of the adult males, who dominate the adolescents and the mother-infant pairs. This social hierarchy is reflected, according to the partial observations, in the gradient of positions in the tree. The most dominant males sleep in the lower branches, where they are in a position to (and will in fact) fight attackers, and generally baboons of higher status have the more desirable locations. Moreover, there is a connection between the arrangement in the tree and the manner of getting down from the tree with the dawn and forming a

functioning group. From the point of view

a

ecology the many species of animals in, for example, community because of their many significant interrelationA ships. 52) given species usually has a period of simultaneous sleep spent in a sheltered habitat. The habitat is usually common to a number of individuals, who in fact carry on the same migration to the substratum of the forest floor from the
of

forest constitute

50)
51 )

W. Dement and N.

Kleitman, article

to appear

in The

Journal of Experimental Psy-

chology.
Washburn, lectures at Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California, 1957. 52) W. Allee, A. Emerson, O. Park, T. Park and K. Schmidt, Principles of Animal Ecology. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1950, p. 9.
S.

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regions at the beginning of their sleep period. Part of the safety of the habitat is usually due to the parasocial relations between individuals. More sleep the social relationships between species can be analyzed fruitfully in important, terms of their relative sleep habits as to timing and habitat. Usually the activity of the community as a whole is rather constant over time, as a result of what can be considered as a shift-work principle of utilization of time by the nocturnal and diurnal species. As with human societies, the twenty-four hour cycles in such important environmental factors as light, temperature, and relative humidity are important constraints. But most species show an ability to work out a wide range of adjustment to these constraints, and in any case the community as a whole functions relatively independently of these constraints.53) Nothing seems to be known about the need of individual insects for the equivalent of our sleep. Some of the insect societies seem to be diurnal or nocturnal like other species of animals, with no activity during the quiescent period. It is well established, however, that in a number of insect societies activity goes on at a constant rate throughout the twenty-four hours; this apparently is the case with the more highly evolved societies, e.g., the ants.5-1) In the case of the primates we see direct and clear analogies with the organization and significance of human sleep. Even when we turn to species which are biologically unlike man and which have little social organization we see some parallel with human sleep when we take an ecological perspective of the community of the species taken together; here too the analysis of sleep patterns and relationships is a valuable tool for investigation of the community. Finally, among the social insect societies we find a development parallel to that which human society seems to be undergoing: a complex social organization both requires and makes possible the elimination of sleep periodicity in the community as a whole. Let us now specify the basic characteristics of the timing and ecological distribution of human sleep: Most adult humans sleep uninterruptedly for about 7-8 hours every night. A few societies show significant deviations from this periodic pattern. In several societies, among them modern industrial society, the holders of certain occupations may for very long periods show an entirely different sleep pattern. Naps may occur regularly among adults outside the central sleep period. Children and young people sleep longer than older people. At least in modern industrial society, the sleep periods are somewhat differently located for different social strata. Sleep patterns vary somewhat with larger calendar cycles, weekly and yearly. Most humans sleep regularly in the same physical location, although deviations exist in certain nomadic peoples, and in certain types of modern occupations. Even
upper
53) Ibid.,
pp. 544—560.

54) O. Park, Ecology, Vol. 22, 1941,

p. 165.

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locations shift it is normal for a person to have his place of sleep defined in relation to groups of others. It is a fairly universal arrangement for the nuclear family to sleep &dquo;under the same roof&dquo;. Significant exceptions exist, however, e.g. for students of boarding schools or college dormitories and members of a Kibbutz. Within the nuclear family there usually exist rigid arrangements of sleep places, dependent upon family roles. These arrangements do ;. vary a great deal between different cultures. Above are mentioned both some universals and some variables in human sleep arrangements. The variations indicate very directly that some of the aspects of sleep normally taken for granted as physiological necessities, are socially determined. But what about the universals, or near universals? Do they spring from biological factors alone, or are they co-determined by social requirements, the functional prerequisites of any society? The habit to sleep regularly for long periods every night in total societies appears to be the only &dquo;natural&dquo; response to the interplay between physiological needs and environmental constraints. Night is the time when visual isolation and &dquo;quiet&dquo; is easily obtainable, and when temperature induces a need to be indoors and under the same kind of protection from climate which sleep demands anyway. During the night mans poor ability to see in darkness makes work, both gathering, hunting, fishing and agriculture inconvenient. We shall not deny that these factors may be sufficient to account for the basic fact in the timing of sleep. This, however, does not preclude the possibility that social functions may work in the same direction. And whether they do or dont is not without significance. For we have seen lately that the technical development has changed the inhabited surface of the world, especially in cities, so much as to do away with the physical constraints for a great deal. This has for instance led to a great expansion in shift-work operations and a concomitant and widespread deviation from the normal sleep patterns.55) We may put the question of what the consequences will be for social systems where a growing percentage of the population will deviate from the habit of sleeping during the night. Even if we should find, however, that the normal sleep-timing is entirely determined by the interplay between physiological needs and physical constraints, this regularity may be of fundamental significance to sociology. The interplay between nutritional needs and environmental opportunities is generally considered as a basic non-sociological fact accounting for social structures. Similarly with sex. That the need for sleep should have had wide repercussions on social structure, e.g. on family organization, does not seem to have impressed social scientists very much. To us it seems blatantly obvious, but still far from trivial, that the necessity

if

physical

rigidly

55) Cf. J.

B. Knox, The

Sociology of

Industrial Relations. New York, 1955, pp. 216-17.

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of

satisfactory sleep for its members, has presented all existing social formidable problem. The problem is such that it cannot be solved except by a very widely defined ordering af social arrangements. In order to sleep one must not only be near a gratifying goal; one must find oneself in a certain &dquo;place&dquo; within a total social structure. Sleep is, for physiological reasons, an insecure and exposed state. Consider two gold-diggers playing poker, isolated in deep snow in the interior of Yukon. The one has won the total stock of gold from his comrade, and hatred has sprung up between the who. They are armed. Fatigue is becoming unbearable. What are they to do, however? Agreement to go to sleep at the same time appears to be the only conscious solution which would serve the minimal interests of both; in other

providing

for
a

structures

with

to be defenseless at the same time. Whatever the motives are, most communities operate on the same principle, and thus solve the problem inherent in the enormous difference in power between people awake and asleep. To withdraw to ones own domicile at any time of the day affords protection against climate and animals. In this sense, reasons of security do not demand a specific sleep-timing, only a specific sleep location. If we consider the possibility of social enemies and competitors, however, it seems that adherence to the social norm of nightly sleep must be enforced in order to ensure mutually protected rest. It is easy to visualize the need for a mutual &dquo;agreement&dquo; of this kind in societies where incumbency of privileged roles were often closely linked to the possession of movable physical objects, to adornments or concrete spatial location (e.g., on a throne, in a mens house). In modern society there are few opportunities for a competitor to &dquo;steal&dquo; incumbency of the waking status of a sleeping person. Modern law provides fairly adequate protection on this point. Most status criteria are thus defined that they cannot be invalidated by simple physical manipulations of the kind which the power differential between awake and sleeping persons permits. There are exceptions, howeBer. The night editor may influence a newspaper in a way which ricochetes upon the status of the responsible editor. By inadequate maneuvering the mate may seriously damage the status of his captain. The ship offers a clear-cut differentiation between positions with a 24 hour responsibility for role-performance (captain and chief engineer) and positions with definite time limitations of responsibility, omitting normal sleep periods from possible blame. We believe this to be a generalizable phenomenon, of considerable significance for the study of social status. It should be mentioned here that the withdrawal from authority positions in periods of sleep, offers a training ground for aspiring incumbents. There is a different sense, also, in which a person needs protection during his sleep. Considering the behavioral facts of the sleep state, a sleeping person will deviate heavily from the expectations that apply to him in his awake role. To sleep

words,

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may constitute

challenge

to

his

right

to

occupy the roles

appertaining

to

the

personae. Now, this possible conflict with its threatening discontinuity, is settled by various mechanisms. Simultaniety of sleep is one of them, excluding,

daytime by

and large, social control and observation of sleeping persons. Secondly it is settled by the lower status of the sleep-role, thus permitting abandoning of waking roles. This is, of course, associated with the irresponsibility of the sleeper. Another norm of timing which may serve the same function, is the habit of older people to sleep less than young people, especially of parents to go to bed after their children, and in general, for people of higher rank to sleep later than people of lower rank. Finally the location of sleep within the family implies that only individuals whose relationships depend heavily upon immutable biological criteria, observe each other asleep. We have given some social reasons why sleep specifically must be coordinated on a regular basis of simultaniety and why modern industrial societies are exempt from some of these reasons and give adequate status protection also to people whose sleep follow different patterns. There exist social reasons, also of a different kind, springing from the general need for coordinated timing of activities within collaborating groups. Even from this general viewpoint, however, it seems that a deviation from sleep simultaniety is the one possibility with the widest ram-

ifications.

The stress on family solidarity induced by the irregular sleep pattern of the railroader has been described by Cottrell.56) On the other hand, the positive consequences for union democracy of deviant sleep-timing among printers, has been claimed by Lipset et.al.57) When shift-work makes interaction between status equals difficult, however, it may have a disruptive tendency also beyond the family group and possibly create alienation from society. 5 8) Simultaniety of sleep prevents conflicts and certain kinds of competition. It is closely related to simultaniety of other activities, eating, leisure-time activities, etc., and therefore, significant for solidarity in groups. But simultaniety of sleep within the family, or in other intimate groups, may in itself be a token of solidarity and trust, thereby strengthening the bonds within the sleep group. All societies surveyed showed regular and continuous sleep during the night. This holds, however, only if &dquo;sleep&dquo; includes activities such as urinating, spasmodic chatting, smoking and other intermittent behavior considered part of the cultural pattern of sleep. Thus even though peoples like the Siriono and the Ituri

56) 57) 58)

F. Cottrell, The Railroader. Stanford: University Press, 1940. S. M. Lipset, M. Trow, and J Coleman, Union Democracy. Glencoe: Free Press, 1956, p. 135. Cf. P. and F. Pigors, Human Aspects of Multiple Shift Operations: Cambridge: M.I.T Department of Economics and Social Science, Series 2, No. 13.

10

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Pygmies are reported to engage in a good deal of such activity throughout the night we consider them as sleeping simultaneously. 50) As for the physical causes of the details of sleep-timing we can mention that while the Jivaro6O) and Siriono6l) retire before nine and arise far before dawn, other societies in very similar conditions rise at dawn. Also, arctic cities in the permanent daylight of the summer follow fairly conventional sleep patterns.62) In crisis situations, such as the presence of deep sea fish at Tikopia, sleep may be foregone by some people for any days.63) Similar deviations from the regular sleep patterns are known from many culures, but give us little significant information except to emphasize the plasticity of the physiological need for sleep. The length of the period usually set aside for sleep by most social structures, seems according to the best physiological estimates to be somewhat longer than required by biological needs. Kleitman tends to explain this by boredom.64) Sleep serves as a way of doing nothing, of passing time. Considering the importance of this need for the prisoner, it is in good accordance with this claim when prisons allocate such long time periods for sleep or activities in a room with no other significant furniture than a bed.65) If socially instituted sleep periods are longer than physiological needs require, it provides a constant supply of surplus time. The night contains a time-reservoir
be drawn upon both for emergency actions, ceremonies and for the of completion unfulfilled tasks. The significance and dramatic value of New Years eve, e.g., in the United States, and the yearly festival among the Navahos both rest in large part on their taking place in a period which usually is a quiescent period both in fact and in normative belief. Nor could the celebrants of the ceremonial be numerous enough to convey a sense of universal solidarity if in fact shift work in factory or with animal herds systematically kept large blocs busy. Similarly the efficiency of collective emergency actions may depend upon the availability of people simultaneously though not always immediately. There is .1 further kind of latent community emergency in a complex social system: on any day many individuals do not fulfil their tasks because of the impossibility of
which
can

59) C. Coon, A Reader 60)

61)
62) 63) 64) 65)

in General Anthropology. New York: Holt, 1947, p. 334. A. Holmberg, Nomads of the Long Bow. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Institute of Social Anthropology Publication No. 10, 1950, p. 40. R. Karsten, The Head-Hunters of Western Amazonas. Helsingfors: Centraltryckeriet.

1935, p. 243. N. Kleitman and H. Kleitman, "The Sleep-Wakefulness Pattern in the Arctic". Scientific Monthly, Vol. 76, 1953. R. Firth, Primitize Polynesian Economy. London: Routledge, 1939, p. 156. Kleitman and Kleitman, op. cit. Cf. Johan Galtung, Fengselssamfunnet (The Prison Community), Oslo University Press,
1959.

11

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perfect co-ordination and planning. With a common and, in part biologically superfluous sleep phase, these chronic gaps can be met through the omission of sleep without further disrupting the co-ordination of activities; in a shift-work social or economic structure the new shift is disrupted by any late activity of the old. An important advantage of the sleep phase when it comes to holding ceremonies
emergency action of either kind can be the lack of interaction among sleepers, since awake organizations have their own ends and patterns of activity often in conflict with the needs in an emergency or ceremony. chile gross simultaniety of sleep seems to be a characteristic of all societies, minor differentiations appear with regularity, a regularity associated with status differentials. They seem to symbolize, and probably support, social stratification along a prestige dimension. The Lynds, for example, report that higher prestige in Middletown is associated with later retiring and awakening times.66) The same pattern is reported in the fiction of the last few centuries and for the Roman and Greek states. Available studies of peoples time budgets indicate similar differences when statistics are broken down by occupational groups.67) Now, this is probably related to a privileged position in work, permitting shorter hours for higher status groups. Traffic statistics for Oslo indicate three waves of high frequency traffic in the morning, one when manuel workers go to their jobs, a later one when white-collar workers fill the streetcars, and a third even later one, when the bosses go. Still, it seems that the differences in sleep-timing have taken on normative character to the extent that late hours are &dquo;normal&dquo; even for highstatus people with long working-hours. It may be that staying up late at night is associated with a notion of conspicuous waste of working time, and of time assumed to be needed for recuperation in sleep before next days labor. On the other hand, Weber pointed out that Calvinist ethics frowned upon sleep beyond what appeared to be necessary, as a waste of the supremely scarce commodity: tillie.68) Differences in sleep-timing, especially within the family, differentiate between roles in terms of rank or authority. The young must go to bed before the older ones, thereby eliminating members of a solidary group according to a definite ranking system. The permission to stay up longer and longer with increasing age, and also as rewards for meritorous behavior, links bed-timing to prestige. For children there is a &dquo;career-line&dquo; within the family; and one of the most significant rewards in this career-line, is the promotion to a later sleep-time. This is, of course,
to

and

66) R. Lynd and S. Lynd, Middletown. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1929, p. 53. 67) As shown for example in the time budgets emerging from Norwegian surveys of Radio Listening. Cf., also Robert Macnish, The Philosophy of Sleep. Glasgow, 1854, pp.
316—17.

68)

Max

Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York and London,

1930, pp. 157—158.

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also

one

time, often
mates,

the like ice-cream. Just as there is a determinate succession of phases of activity in the 24 hour period, there will be phases in other periods of time which constitute the units of a basic cycle of social activity. We would expect that a shift in the sleeping period of a given day would correspond to the latency phase of a calendar period. The most obvious example is the custom of late sleep on Sunday in Western society.69) This may be regarded as the latency phase marking the weekly cycle of activity, preceded by an integrative phase on Saturday and followed by the instrumental phase on Monday. Prolonged sleep during yearly vacations may be another example. In a country with the geographical position of Norway, it is possible to view the winter (the &dquo;Winter night&dquo;) as one extended latency phase, marked by long nights and, in rural areas at least, extended sleep periods. Spring is proverbially the new awakening, an experience hard to imagine for those located closer to the Equator. The diurnal cycle is very clearly perceived as a miniature model of the yearly

by

why parents decisions on what is the proper bedby the children, usually with references to playenjoying a more privileged position in this respect. These conflicts may, way, serve to impress upon children the scarcity and value of time, almost
reasons
are so

of the main

hotly

contested

cycle.70)
Cases of non-simultaneous and irregular sleep occur frequently although usually in limited quantities. In addition to the physiological needs they serve, they may also achieve social ends. It is above all a way to legitimize withdrawal and isolation. Even if physiological sleep does not take place, retiring to a bedroom or lying down on a couch justifies refusal to participate in interaction with close alters at certain times of the day. The &dquo;afternoon nap&dquo; is an institution which may serve such functions. Assuming sleep-like postures, closing ones eyes, justifies abstention from interaction with passengers in a public carrier, even if there is no physiological

sleep.
The component of status known as residence, which identifies a person with definite spatial location and hence a community is usually given by the normal sleeping location. Some concomitants of this phenomenon, affecting the family, have been mentioned above. What needs to be emphasized here is that a very rigid system of social control operates to enforce the norms of sleep location. It is dramatically demonstrated when the question of &dquo;alibi&dquo; is being put, and the suspect fails to show that he slept at the proper time at the proper place. Viewed from an entirely different angle: for a youngster to stay out overnight without parental approval of alternative sleeping place, is a kind of deviance which may
a

69)

Lundberg, M. Komarovsky, and M. McInerny, Leisme. New York: Columbia Uni. versity Press, 1934, p. 94 footnote. 70) J Storaker, Tiden i den norske folketro (Time in Norwegian folklore); Kristiania, 1921,
G.

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extensive control measures. These are intimately related to other norms, sexual activities and against gang delinquency. But whatever the motives behind the invoked sanctions are, they function so as to emphasize the strict normative rules governing sleep location. They may be viewed as a countermeasure against a threat to family solidarity, an attempt to eliminate a disturbance of its most sacred ritual. The rigid identification of a person with &dquo;his own good bed&dquo;, may have an important psychological function. During sleep and its peripheral zones the identity problem becomes more acute than is otherwise the case. In a very literal sense the person does not know who he is when asleep; even in dreams the experience of self is often blurred and uncertain. It seems reasonable that such inner uncertainty should call forth rigid external frames. It is no accident that the great Danish-Norwegian playwright Holberg let his peasant Jeppe wake up in the barons bed, and there, in the bed, was exposed to a playfully vicious scheme to confuse his idenity so as to make him believe he was the baron. It may be related to the subjective identity problem as well as to the social one, when soldiers one stable location in a barrack is their bunk... to

lead

against

Also the social identity that is, relative to the agents of society - is in many ways dubious during sleep. The person will not on his own respond actively to external stimuli unless they aim directly at him in his bed. To meet emergencies, especially, it is of great importance that others, police, watchmen, guards etc., should know where a person is located at a time when he is immune to more generally aimed messages. Or one could put it this way, that &dquo;society&dquo; must know, from its registers, who and where a person is, when he is incapable of knowing it himself. When people sleep, some of the responsibility they have for taking care of their own and societys interests, is transferred to others. Watchmen and guards who stay awake when others sleep symbolize this transfer of protective functions.
-

out earlier that the night is the time for police activities for raids, arrests and mere patrolling. The rigidity of public conpar excellence, trols during the sleep period is probably related to the break-down of informal controls. When interaction ceases, there are no other sanctions left than official threats or physical manipulation. During the night the legal structure of society is laid bare, stripped of the complex system of informal social controls that are the meat and blood around the skeleton of law in daytime. Above all, rigidly defined spatial positions seem to take the place of explicit interaction in continuous confirmation of the relative statuses in the group. Simultaniety and propinquity of sleep is a major cause, consequence and recognized criterion of the interaction of a small number of people in certain types of groups, of which the family is the outstanding example. But if our reasoning is sound concerning the function of sleep in the family, it should also throw

It has been

pointed

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important light upon other sleep groups. One interesting type is the British public schools. Under this educational system the boy was torn out of his family and placed in a peer group, the most private, family-like scene of which was the dormitory. It can harly be doubted that this, quite apart from more personal repercussions, must have lowered the degree of identification with the nuclear family and the geographical home community, while intensifying peer-group identification. Is the relationship between this educational system, of which peer-group sleep is only one particularly salient trait, and the highly efficient &dquo;aristocratic democracy&dquo; in Britain, a purely incidental one? Many prominent British politicians have thought not. When Baldwin became a premier one of his first thoughts was reportedly that his should be a Cabinet of which Harrow would not be ashamed.71 ) And the extensive reliance upon informal social contacts and control in British politics, compared with American politics,72) seems related both to the identification with contemporaries, crossing family, party and geographical but not class lmes, and to the relative absence of parental control. Since sleep in peer-groups has been a social privilege, it gives to the upper classes (and to males) an advantage in organizational adjustment, and may thus have served not only effective political leadership, but also the preservation of a class-society. The existence of reformatories and childrens homes, is in this context a mark of degradation for the pupils, and serves to uphold a quasi-community of the alienated at the bottom of the social
-

ladder.
Location of sleep within or outside the nuclear family is indicative of more pervasive traits of society at large. Even more marked, however, the ecological distribution of sleepers within the family, is indicative of the family structure. In almost every society surveyed for which relevant information was available there is a definite mutual arrangement of the sleeping locations of the family members, possibly different for various major groupings within the society. An extreme example is the Yakut of Siberia: there is a uniform assignment of different roles in the family to the eight sleeping alcoves of the standard hut, with a recognized prestige value for each alcove.73) Moreover there is usually a definite pattern of responsibility for taking care of various contingencies arising during sleep for the group: This pattern is correlated with both the relative accessibility of the different locations of sleep, and with the waking pattern of responsibility in the family group. Such a pattern is reported in detail, for example, for the Copper Eskimo of North Canada.7~)

Guttsman, "Aristocracy and the Middle Class in the British Political Elite 1886— 1916". The British Journal of Sociology. Vol. 5, 1954, p. 17. 72) Cf. E. Shils, The Torment of Secrecy. Glencoe: Free Press, 1957. 73) W. Jochelson, The Yakut. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1933, pp. 135—136. 74) D. Jennes, The Life of the Copper Eskimos. Ottawa: Acland, 1922, p. 85. 71)
W. L.

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In recent unpublished work John M. VUhiting7~) has found a strong correlation between sleeping arrangements of mother, father, and infant and the structure of authority and affection in the family: for example, where the mother sleeps in a single bed with the infant and thus the father is not near the infant, formal initiation rites for boys are found significantly more often than for a double bed arrangement, possibly because forceful action is required to move a son from a mother-centered to an agnatic system of solidarity and authority. A number of other variables such as post-paritum sex taboos and residence patterns are also ;orrelated with initiation, and so the pattern is a complex one. Our point here is that the sleeping arrangements reflect and determine numerous other important characteristics of kinship structure, and this is a fruitful field for empirical study in primitive societies. In our own society the rights of children under various conditions to sleep with their parents is a clue to the general pattern of change of parent-child relations with age, and to the status of different children in a given family. One convenient and objective tool for investigating the troublesome question of the exact nature, development, and strength of incest taboos is the determination of the sleeping rights of the parties with respect to one another.

75) J.

M. Whiting, R. Kluckhohn, and A Anthony, "The Function of Male Initiation Ceremonies at Puberty", unpublished manuscript, p. 17.

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