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 DOI: 10.1177/000169935900400301

1959 4: 1Acta SociologicaVilhelm Aubert and Harrison White

Sleep: A Sociological Interpretation. II  

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Sleep: A Sociological Interpretation. II*)by Vilhelm Aubert and Harrison White

Let us now return to the association between sleep and sex, and mention a secondtype of considerations which may help to explain the phenomenon. The componentof a person’s status known as residence, which identifies the person with a definitespatial 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 exceptionis 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

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 familyis 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 taskaround which the family members order themselves in interaction. From these

considerations it follows that sexual unions will tend to be restricted to the familygroup, that is to husband and wife.

The close association between sleeping arrangements and family structure tendsto support the taboo which, for different reasons, exists against extramarital sexual

Continued from vol. 4 fasc. 2.

35) The societies we took up, in 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 andWoleai; 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 originalmonographs in the footnotes to specific items used in the body of this paper; onlythose which received an evaluation of "excellent" from the File Analyst were used forreferences.

36) K. Davies, The Population of India and Pakistan. Princeton: Princeton University Press,1948.

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relations, against &dquo;sleeping with&dquo; somebody outside the family. Also in this respectthe cultural structuring of sleep tends to protect the family from sources of friction.The proverbial sexual exploits of men who sleep outside their family, like seamenand travelling salesmen, illustrates the thesis.

We have been dealing with the night as the proper time for surreptitiousactivities, whether they consist in sexual activity or cultural innovation. But night-time 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 notionis so deep-rooted, that it may appear completely trivial that the day should havepositive moral connotations and the night negative ones.38) Linked to this are,

however, more concrete and less trivial, associations both of criminal and of policeactivities with the night. In many societies the police actually developed from thepaid night-watchman. It is also apparent that night and day make for differentrelations between the citizen and the agents of the Law. For the police to accosta person in daytime a specific, explicit legitimation is required. At night the burdenof proof shifts. The usual presumption of innocence lacking overt evidence ofcrime seems often to be reversed by the police to the presumption of suspiciousintentions on the part of people up and about in the middle of the usual sleepperiod. Curfews are linked to the same institutional complex.

It has already been mentioned that the state of sleep has very often been givena religious significance. In most cultures the sleep role is conceived as one in

which interaction with the supernatural world is expected, both through dreamsand 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 Westernsociety in similar form. We can recognize two major types of interaction withan invisible world in sleep. There is communication through dreams, of whichthe sleeper is aware at the time and which he may remember specifically after

37) A. Powell Davies, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Signet N. Y. 1956, pp. 21-22.38) 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 scenepresents 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 night39) 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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awakening. Second, there is interaction of which the sleeper is not aware butwhich 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 patientcan’t sleep or bad spirits would &dquo;win back the chant&dquo;.40) Sleep may also be viewedas a medium through which interaction with other people takes place, as for examplewhen one attempts to induce sickness or nightmares through sleep spirits in anotherperson.41)

In order to assess the religious function of dreams we shall take as a given thatall known cultures (except possibly the emerging communist civilizations) reckonwith 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 messagesabout which one may feel reasonably secure that they do not originate in everydayprofane 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 alogical structure that distinguishes them clearly from profane messages: chance

devices~2) and dreams. By the very physiological nature of sleep and even moreby virtue of its social structuring, sleep experiences, dreams, appear to be experiencesof 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. Fromthis assumption derives the emphasis upon training and preparation for sleep anddreams. 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 withillness, 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 timeand place.~4) The relative success of these exertions indicate that dreams shouldproperly be viewed as a learned activity, and not only in the very indirect, hardto 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.), Akiga’s 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 Super-

natural. New York, 1956, pp. 269—79.

44) G. Devereux, "Dream learning and individual ritual differences in Mohave shamanism".American Anthropologist. Vol. 59, 1957, pp. 1036—1045.

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If the learning approach applies to specific dream contents, it should do so even

more to the formal structure of dreams. One should think that the validity andreality attributed to dreams contribute to determine the amount of detail, precisionand 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 primitivesocieties. If this is a sound way of reasoning one might also guess that moderndreams spring from even deeper, more infantile and irrational layers of the per-sonality than those of primitive men. Or, to put it differently, it seems likely thatthe dreiins of primitive men are more exposed to the ordinary processes of socialcontrol than are those of modern men. The dreams of Western man are relativelyunsocialized 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. Wehave taken a certain human state, sleep, and enumerated some of the more obviouslysocial 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 certainother roles, has been discussed. Rights and duties of the sleeping person, or theperson 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 thesocial consequences flowing from this adjustment.

It will be noted that so far relatively little has been said about the actual (be-havioristic) stnicturing of sleep in time and space. Neither have we discussed

the question of to what extent this structuring is physiologically, respectively sociallydetermined. The time has come to approach these problems with the precedingphenomenological analysis as a background.

Sleep is a physiological function of the human organism, and before we canstate how sleep is structured by social systems we must seek to establish the biologicallimits within which sleep may vary.~5)

From the point of view both of the evolution of species which has led to manand of the evolution of individual men with age, it is not sleep that needs to beexplained but wakefulness. The normal state of lower forms of animal life and

of the human infant is sleep; wakefulness occurs when some specific physiologicalneed is aroused which requires conscious coordinated activity for its satisfaction,

45) Concerning the physiology of sleep we rely very heavily upon the standard work byNathaniel Kleitman. Sleep and Wakefulness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1939.

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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 centerin 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 orwhen for physiological reasons still not fully understood both the cortex and thewakefulness 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 thecenter, 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 trainedto conform to the accepted pattern of human sleep in their society, and graduallythey develop a physiological rhythm appropriate to this pattern. When the patternis changed, as during military duty or on shift work, the physiological rhythmshifts to conform, with a lag of some weeks or months.4 7) The patterns of humansleep can, therefore, not be explained primarily on the basis of physiology.The minimum amount of sleep physiologically necessary, and the physiological

value of additional sleep, depend on the pattern of sleep under consideration. Eventaking as a given a single period of continuous sleep during each night, these

questions cannot be positively answered. The best opinion at present is that at

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 perioddecreases with age.48)

Sleep is not a physiologically uniform period of existence. Electroencephalo-graphs, motion-recording mechanical devices, and other instruments have been

applied to the measurement of sleep intensity during entire sleeping periods. At tleast in our culture, the general pattern is a rather rapid fall to deep sleep onceconsciousness is lost, followed by a continuation of rather deep sleep for severalhours, with the remainder of the night a succession of light and moderately deepperiods 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., Chapter 13.

49) Ibid., p. 123 p. 151. 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 fifteenminutes in duration. The latter half of sleep of a conventional night’s durationis the location of the great majority of dreams. Motor activity, especially of theeyeballs, 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 withsleep in human society may be suggestive.

Most of the information on primate behavior has been obtained under zoo orlaboratory conditions in which we do not really see a separate society but rathera 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 singledefinition 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 arrange-ment of sleeping positions of different baboons in the tree with respect to oneanother. Family groups have not emerged at all clearly in the baboon troops;rather the troop constitutes a large primary group with social structure based onthe relative strengths of the adult males, who dominate the adolescents and themother-infant pairs. This social hierarchy is reflected, according to the partialobservations, 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 desirablelocations. 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 of ecology the many species of animals in, for example,

a forest constitute a community because of their many significant interrelation-

ships. 52) A given species usually has a period of simultaneous sleep spent in asheltered habitat. The habitat is usually common to a number of individuals, whoin fact carry on the same migration to the substratum of the forest floor from the

50) W. Dement and N. Kleitman, article to appear in The Journal of Experimental Psy-chology.

51 ) S. Washburn, lectures at Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stan-ford, California, 1957.

52) W. Allee, A. Emerson, O. Park, T. Park and K. Schmidt, Principles of Animal Ecology.Philadelphia: Saunders, 1950, p. 9.

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upper regions at the beginning of their sleep period. Part of the safety of thesleep habitat is usually due to the parasocial relations between individuals. Moreimportant, the social relationships between species can be analyzed fruitfully interms of their relative sleep habits as to timing and habitat. Usually the activityof the community as a whole is rather constant over time, as a result of whatcan be considered as a shift-work principle of utilization of time by the nocturnaland diurnal species. As with human societies, the twenty-four hour cycles in suchimportant environmental factors as light, temperature, and relative humidity areimportant constraints. But most species show an ability to work out a wide rangeof 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 likeother 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 biolo-gically unlike man and which have little social organization we see some parallelwith human sleep when we take an ecological perspective of the community ofthe species taken together; here too the analysis of sleep patterns and relationshipsis a valuable tool for investigation of the community. Finally, among the social

insect societies we find a development parallel to that which human society seemsto be undergoing: a complex social organization both requires and makes possiblethe elimination of sleep periodicity in the community as a whole.

Let us now specify the basic characteristics of the timing and ecologicaldistribution 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 severalsocieties, among them modern industrial society, the holders of certain occupationsmay for very long periods show an entirely different sleep pattern. Naps may occurregularly among adults outside the central sleep period. Children and young peoplesleep longer than older people. At least in modern industrial society, the sleepperiods are somewhat differently located for different social strata. Sleep patternsvary 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

53) Ibid., pp. 544—560.

54) O. Park, Ecology, Vol. 22, 1941, p. 165.

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if physical locations shift it is normal for a person to have his place of sleeprigidly defined in relation to groups of others. It is a fairly universal arrangementfor the nuclear family to sleep &dquo;under the same roof&dquo;. Significant exceptionsexist, however, e.g. for students of boarding schools or college dormitories andmembers of a Kibbutz. Within the nuclear family there usually exist rigid arran-gements 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 sleeparrangements. 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 biologicalfactors 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 physiologicalneeds 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 man’s poor ability to see in darkness makes work, both gathering,hunting, fishing and agriculture inconvenient. We shall not deny that these factorsmay 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 don’t is not without significance. For we haveseen 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 constraintsfor 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 sleeppatterns.55) We may put the question of what the consequences will be for socialsystems where a growing percentage of the population will deviate from the habitof sleeping during the night.

Even if we should find, however, that the normal sleep-timing is entirelydetermined by the interplay between physiological needs and physical constraints,this regularity may be of fundamental significance to sociology. The interplaybetween nutritional needs and environmental opportunities is generally consideredas 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 verymuch. To us it seems blatantly obvious, but still far from trivial, that the necessity

55) Cf. J. B. Knox, The Sociology of Industrial Relations. New York, 1955, pp. 216-17.

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of providing for satisfactory sleep for its members, has presented all existing socialstructures with a formidable problem. The problem is such that it cannot be solved

except by a very widely defined ordering af social arrangements. In order to sleepone 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. Theone has won the total stock of gold from his comrade, and hatred has sprung upbetween the who. They are armed. Fatigue is becoming unbearable. What arethey to do, however? Agreement to go to sleep at the same time appears to be theonly conscious solution which would serve the minimal interests of both; in otherwords, to be defenseless at the same time. Whatever the motives are, most com-munities operate on the same principle, and thus solve the problem inherent inthe enormous difference in power between people awake and asleep.

’

To withdraw to one’s own domicile at any time of the day affords protectionagainst climate and animals. In this sense, reasons of security do not demand aspecific sleep-timing, only a specific sleep location. If we consider the possibilityof 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 societieswhere incumbency of privileged roles were often closely linked to the possessionof movable physical objects, to adornments or concrete spatial location (e.g., on athrone, in a men’s house). In modern society there are few opportunities for a

competitor to &dquo;steal&dquo; incumbency of the waking status of a sleeping person. Modernlaw provides fairly adequate protection on this point. Most status criteria are thusdefined that they cannot be invalidated by simple physical manipulations of thekind which the power differential between awake and sleeping persons permits.There are exceptions, howeB’er. The night editor may influence a newspaper in away which ricochetes upon the status of the responsible editor. By inadequatemaneuvering the mate may seriously damage the status of his captain. The shipoffers a clear-cut differentiation between positions with a 24 hour responsibility forrole-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 forthe study of social status. It should be mentioned here that the withdrawal from

authority positions in periods of sleep, offers a training ground for aspiringincumbents.

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 willdeviate heavily from the expectations that apply to him in his awake role. To sleep

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may constitute a challenge to his right to occupy the roles appertaining to the

daytime personae. Now, this possible conflict with its threatening discontinuity,is settled by various mechanisms. Simultaniety of sleep is one of them, excluding,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 wakingroles. This is, of course, associated with the irresponsibility of the sleeper. Anothernorm of timing which may serve the same function, is the habit of older peopleto 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 oflower rank. Finally the location of sleep within the family implies that only individ-uals whose relationships depend heavily upon immutable biological criteria, observeeach 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 exemptfrom some of these reasons and give adequate status protection also to peoplewhose sleep follow different patterns. There exist social reasons, also of a differentkind, springing from the general need for coordinated timing of activities withincollaborating 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 therailroader has been described by Cottrell.56) On the other hand, the positiveconsequences 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 beyondthe 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 withinthe family, or in other intimate groups, may in itself be a token of solidarity andtrust, 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, spas-modic chatting, smoking and other intermittent behavior considered part of thecultural pattern of sleep. Thus even though peoples like the Siriono and the Ituri

56) F. Cottrell, The Railroader. Stanford: University Press, 1940.

57) S. M. Lipset, M. Trow, and J Coleman, Union Democracy. Glencoe: Free Press, 1956,

p. 135.

58) Cf. P. and F. Pigors, Human Aspects of Multiple Shift Operations: Cambridge: M.I.TDepartment of Economics and Social Science, Series 2, No. 13.

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Pygmies are reported to engage in a good deal of such activity throughout thenight we consider them as sleeping simultaneously. 50) As for the physical causesof 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 verysimilar conditions rise at dawn. Also, arctic cities in the permanent daylight ofthe summer follow fairly conventional sleep patterns.62) In crisis situations, suchas the presence of deep sea fish at Tikopia, sleep may be foregone by some peoplefor any days.63) Similar deviations from the regular sleep patterns are knownfrom many culures, but give us little significant information except to emphasizethe 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 thanrequired by biological needs. Kleitman tends to explain this by boredom.64) Sleepserves as a way of doing nothing, of passing time. Considering the importance ofthis need for the prisoner, it is in good accordance with this claim when prisonsallocate 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-reservoirwhich can be drawn upon both for emergency actions, ceremonies and for the

completion of unfulfilled tasks. The significance and dramatic value of New Year’seve, 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 quiescentperiod 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 factshift 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 anyday many individuals do not fulfil their tasks because of the impossibility of

59) C. Coon, A Reader in General Anthropology. New York: Holt, 1947, p. 334.

60) A. Holmberg, Nomads of the Long Bow. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Instituteof Social Anthropology Publication No. 10, 1950, p. 40.

61) R. Karsten, The Head-Hunters of Western Amazonas. Helsingfors: Centraltryckeriet.1935, p. 243.

62) N. Kleitman and H. Kleitman, "The Sleep-Wakefulness Pattern in the Arctic". ScientificMonthly, Vol. 76, 1953.

63) R. Firth, Primitize Polynesian Economy. London: Routledge, 1939, p. 156.

64) Kleitman and Kleitman, op. cit.

65) Cf. Johan Galtung, Fengselssamfunnet (The Prison Community), Oslo University Press,1959.

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perfect co-ordination and planning. With a common and, in part biologicallysuperfluous sleep phase, these chronic gaps can be met through the omission ofsleep without further disrupting the co-ordination of activities; in a shift-worksocial or economic structure the new shift is disrupted by any late activity of theold. An important advantage of the sleep phase when it comes to holding ceremoniesand to emergency action of either kind can be the lack of interaction among

sleepers, since awake organizations have their own ends and patterns of activityoften 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 prestigein Middletown is associated with later retiring and awakening times.66) Thesame pattern is reported in the fiction of the last few centuries and for the Romanand Greek states. Available studies of people’s time budgets indicate similar dif-ferences 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 highfrequency 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 takenon normative character to the extent that late hours are &dquo;normal&dquo; even for high-status people with long working-hours. It may be that staying up late at nightis associated with a notion of conspicuous waste of working time, and of timeassumed to be needed for recuperation in sleep before next day’s labor. On the otherhand, Weber pointed out that Calvinist ethics frowned upon sleep beyond whatappeared 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 olderones, 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 significantrewards in this career-line, is the promotion to a later sleep-time. This is, of course,

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 RadioListening. 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 of the main reasons why parents’ decisions on what is the proper bed-

time, often are so hotly contested by the children, usually with references to play-mates, enjoying a more privileged position in this respect. These conflicts may,by the way, serve to impress upon children the scarcity and value of time, almostlike 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 basiccycle of social activity. We would expect that a shift in the sleeping period of agiven day would correspond to the latency phase of a calendar period. The mostobvious example is the custom of late sleep on Sunday in Western society.69) Thismay be regarded as the latency phase marking the weekly cycle of activity, precededby an integrative phase on Saturday and followed by the instrumental phase onMonday. 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 nightsand, in rural areas at least, extended sleep periods. Spring is proverbially the newawakening, 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 yearlycycle.70)

Cases of non-simultaneous and irregular sleep occur frequently although usuallyin limited quantities. In addition to the physiological needs they serve, they mayalso 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 downon a couch justifies refusal to participate in interaction with close alters at certaintimes of the day. The &dquo;afternoon nap&dquo; is an institution which may serve such

functions. Assuming sleep-like postures, closing one’s eyes, justifies abstention frominteraction with passengers in a public carrier, even if there is no physiologicalsleep.The component of status known as residence, which identifies a person with

a 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. Viewedfrom 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

69) G. 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,

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lead to extensive control measures. These are intimately related to other norms,

against sexual activities and against gang delinquency. But whatever the motivesbehind the invoked sanctions are, they function so as to emphasize the strict

normative rules governing sleep location. They may be viewed as a countermeasureagainst 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 identityproblem 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 experienceof self is often blurred and uncertain. It seems reasonable that such inner uncer-

tainty should call forth rigid external frames. It is no accident that the greatDanish-Norwegian playwright Holberg let his peasant Jeppe wake up in the baron’sbed, and there, in the bed, was exposed to a playfully vicious scheme to confusehis 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 stablelocation in a barrack is their bunk... - , ’

Also the social identity - that is, relative to the agents of society - is in manyways 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., shouldknow where a person is located at a time when he is immune to more generallyaimed messages. Or one could put it this way, that &dquo;society&dquo; must know, from itsregisters, 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 theirown and society’s interests, is transferred to others. Watchmen and guards who stayawake when others sleep symbolize this transfer of protective functions.

It has been pointed out earlier that the night is the time for police activitiespar excellence, for raids, arrests and mere patrolling. The rigidity of public con-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 societyis laid bare, stripped of the complex system of informal social controls that arethe meat and blood around the skeleton of law in daytime. Above all, rigidlydefined spatial positions seem to take the place of explicit interaction in continuousconfirmation of the relative statuses in the group.

Simultaniety and propinquity of sleep is a major cause, consequence and re-

cognized criterion of the interaction of a small number of people in certain typesof groups, of which the family is the outstanding example. But if our reasoningis sound concerning the function of sleep in the family, it should also throw

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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 familyand placed in a peer group, the most private, family-like scene of which was thedormitory. It can harly be doubted that this, quite apart from more personalrepercussions, must have lowered the degree of identification with the nuclear

family and the geographical home community, while intensifying peer-group ident-ification. Is the relationship between this educational system, of which peer-groupsleep is only one particularly salient trait, and the highly efficient &dquo;aristocratic

democracy&dquo; in Britain, a purely incidental one? Many prominent British politicianshave thought not. When Baldwin became a premier one of his first thoughts wasreportedly 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 poli-tics, compared with American politics,72) seems related both to the identificationwith contemporaries, crossing family, party and geographical - but not class -lmes, and to the relative absence of parental control. Since sleep in peer-groups hasbeen a social privilege, it gives to the upper classes (and to males) an advantage inorganizational adjustment, and may thus have served not only effective politicalleadership, but also the preservation of a class-society. The existence of reformatoriesand children’s homes, is in this context a mark of degradation for the pupils, andserves to uphold a quasi-community of the alienated at the bottom of the socialladder.

Location of sleep within or outside the nuclear family is indicative of more

pervasive traits of society at large. Even more marked, however, the ecologicaldistribution of sleepers within the family, is indicative of the family structure.

In almost every society surveyed for which relevant information was availablethere is a definite mutual arrangement of the sleeping locations of the familymembers, possibly different for various major groupings within the society. Anextreme example is the Yakut of Siberia: there is a uniform assignment of differentroles 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 definitepattern of responsibility for taking care of various contingencies arising during sleepfor the group: This pattern is correlated with both the relative accessibility of thedifferent locations of sleep, and with the waking pattern of responsibility in thefamily group. Such a pattern is reported in detail, for example, for the CopperEskimo of North Canada.7~)71) W. L. 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.

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In recent unpublished work John M. VUhiting7~) has found a strong correlationbetween sleeping arrangements of mother, father, and infant and the structure ofauthority 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 bedarrangement, possibly because forceful action is required to move a son from

a mother-centered to an agnatic system of solidarity and authority. A number ofother 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 importantcharacteristics of kinship structure, and this is a fruitful field for empirical studyin 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 changeof parent-child relations with age, and to the status of different children in a

given family. One convenient and objective tool for investigating the troublesomequestion 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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