Not poppy nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep . . .
—Othello
The man who now carries to bed with him the world's heaviest burden of responsibilities, Lyndon Baines Johnson, needs no drowsy syrups to help him get to sleep—and he often gets only five hours a night. Adman David Ogilvy takes a nightly dose of "a little yellow sleeping pill" which, his doctor assures him, is not habit-forming, and he falls asleep easily on his right side. Actress Julie Harris finds that a long run in an exacting role makes it progressively harder to sleep, sometimes reads aloud to herself for half an hour or more, then falls fast asleep with the lights on. World's Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston sleeps as single mindedly as he fights, but in a different posture: usually on his back, says his wife. "I leave him there unless he starts snoring. Then I make him turn over on his side."
No Wolf or Owl. Though it has always been as natural and universal as eating and drinking, in recent years sleeping has become one of the most talked-of and sought-after boons of life. For many people it seems to be one of the most elusive. From breakfast to bedtime, modern man echoes a recurrent complaint: "It's so much harder to get to sleep, and to stay asleep, than it was in the old days." There is indeed much more to stay awake for. Electricity makes it possible to read through half the night without straining the eyes and without getting up to trim a wick. The same electricity brings in round-the-clock radio programs, while TV competes to make the late show later.
When he finally does go to bed and tries to sleep, the city dweller has to contend with the incessant noises. Sub urbanites are not much better off, and the remotest home on the range may lie under the path of roaring jet airliners —the same swift giants that carry a man halfway around the world in half a day, and throw his built-in waking-and-sleeping clock out of kilter.
No such noises shattered the sleep of the pioneers a century or more ago. But the tire screech of a hard-braked auto mobile is probably no more disturbing than the howl of a timber wolf rallying the pack. And no American today need lie awake worrying whether the soft fluting of a small owl is really the signal that a band of Indians is closing in for a scalping spree.
If the enemies of sleep have changed more in kind than in quantity, it still seems fairly certain that modern man sleeps less than his ancestors did. Some reasons are clear: generations ago, men did a great deal more physical work; they got plain tired, or downright bone-weary. And before Mr. Edison's electric bulb turned night into a gaudy imitation of day, it was hard on the eyes to read, write or sew after dark.