The relationship between sleep and storytelling is an ancient one. For
centuries sleep has provided writers with a magical ingredient, a
passage of time during which great changes miraculously occur, an
Orpheus-like voyage through the subconscious daubed with the fantastic.
But over the last 10 years, our scientific understanding of sleep has
been revolutionised. No longer is sleep viewed as a time of simple rest
and recuperation. Instead it is proving to be an intensely dynamic
period of brain activity: a vital stage in the rewiring of memories, the
learning of new skills, and the processing of problems and emotions. How
will storytelling respond to this new and emerging science of sleep?
Here, 14 authors have been invited to work with key scientists to
explore various aspects of sleep research: from the possibilities of
sleep engineering and overnight therapies to future-tech ways of
harnessing sleep's problem-solving powers to the challenges posed by our
increasingly 24-hour lifestyles. Just as new hypotheses are being put
forward, old hunches are also being confirmed (there's now a scientific
basis for the time-worn advice to sleep on a problem). As these
responses show, sleep and the spinning of stories are still very much
entwined.
Featuring scientific contributions from: Prof Russell G. Foster, Isabel
Hutchison, Dr. Simon Kyle, Dr. Penny Lewis, Dr. Paul Reading, Stephanie
Romiszewski, Prof Robert Stickgold, Prof Manuel Schabus, Prof Ed
Watkins, Prof Adam Zeman and Dr. Thomas Wehr. This project was supported
by the Wellcome Trust.
