Sleep And Social Relationships Essay

Take off your shoes, change into your pajamas, lie down on your bed, relax and close your eyes. Everything is dark, you see only black, you move your eyes back and forth like a pendulum. Before you know it, you are drifting away, floating on a magical boat, a boat to what you ask? You are heading towards sleep. You have earned this from the endless hours “counting sheep,” to the long nights waiting for “Mr. Sandman.” You have finally succeeded until your brain kicks into overdrive with countless questions. You find that you are tossing and turning at every minute. You almost want to cry because you simply want to go to sleep. You have not had a long and tiring day. You have not worked out or spent hours with your friends. You are wondering what exactly is sleep, and why do you wish to be asleep so badly? What is sleep

Sleep has become more than simply a normal condition, but rather a modernized necessity. Crary believes that sleep has affected social relationships. For example, Crary discusses how US authorities practiced sleep deprivation on foreign surrogates as torture. Although, this may be more of an example of sleep and social suffering, it can still be considered as an example of sleep and social relationships. By partaking in such activity, the US authorities risk losing their “humanity”, they are essentially becoming alienated. Torturing these foreign surrogates might in the long run cause some of the US authorities to struggle with interacting with others (social relationships), because a huge part of them has been taken away (alienation). Sleep also promotes social suffering within these surrogates. Crary states how the US authorities deprive them of sleep; they play loud music continuously and cover themselves completely so the surrogates have no contact with skin, and isolate them so that they have no idea of what time or day it is. Besides physical abuse, sleep deprivation is unfortunately, the most