ANNALS OF INQUIRY: CHASING A DREAM

What insomniacs know.

- BY ADAM GOPNIK

Sleep is not a neat off-and-on switch but a fiendishly manifold activity.

“Are you awake?” So runs the perpetual 3 A.M. question of the sleepless to the seemingly slumbering partner. “No!” the partner replies, turning over and away, indicating both the fact of being awake and the state of being still asleep, unavailable for conscious activities. The insistent insomniac, desperate for a chat, usually sighs, accepts the verdict, and slumps back into sleeplessness. (Carrying on with the conversation is a path toward divorce, not the desired diversion.) The exchange, muttered by countless couples in countless beds, reminds us that sleep is not a neat off-and-on switch but a fully human and fiendishly manifold activity: social, complex, and governed by as many psychological intricacies as any other natural act. We can be asleep and still sense that something is stirring around us, or be awake and still say “No!” and mean it.