The Art of Lying Down (3 page)

Hard fact: Horizontal stiffening under hypnosis

Another form of floating may look like lying down to outside observers but is the result of a more mysterious process. Under hypnosis, people can take on a stiff horizontal posture. In this state, the subject appears to lie comfortably like a board across the backs of two chairs. The sight of someone in such an unusual position raises many questions: Why doesn’t the body bend without a solid
surface beneath it to hold it up? What does the reclining subject feel? Does he sense a force supporting him, or are his thoughts somewhere else entirely? The situation is analogous to astronauts drifting horizontally in space: while it looks as if they are reclining, the absence of any resistance to their bodies means that lying down is technically impossible. Once again, we encounter the paradox where splaying out in a horizontal position does not automatically equal lying down.

Certain outdoor spots practically cry out for us to lie down on them: a lawn, a beach, or a warm rock, especially when it’s been warmed by the sun. Outside, no ceiling limits our gaze, which can lose itself in the azure sky or in the movements and shifting forms of the clouds. Our view seems infinite, though depends on the positions of our bodies, whether we are lying on our backs, our sides, or our stomachs. If it’s the latter, we look just over the tips of the grass and can only imagine the sky.

It’s not just the lack of a boundary above us that makes lying down outside completely different from lying down in an interior space. Outside, we are subject to a wealth of sensory impressions: bright light, wind, the chirping of birds, the scent of flowers, the rushing of water, the sometimes pleasant and sometimes disturbing sounds of people and machines, approaching footsteps, a distant call suddenly breaking the silence. On the beach, we can hear how the rhythm of the waves breaks time into small, regular intervals. Even if no one else is nearby, we aren’t alone. Everything, alive or inanimate, reaches us and may even speak to us if we are willing to listen. When we lie down in a landscape, it becomes as much a part of us as we become a part of it.

Sky gazing expands the soul

Lounging outdoors can have a private or public character depending on whether we are on a property shielded from others’ view or a beach accessible to anyone. A legendary German beer commercial shows a man in the dunes who lets himself fall into the sand and then stretches out his arms and legs—the ultimate expression of relaxation and freedom. Those without their own yards or nearby coasts have to make do with parks. Alternatively, a field can offer a good spot to enjoy nature from a horizontal perspective, as well as protection from prying eyes.

On a hot summer night, when the air seems to hang motionless in the bedroom, the temptation to flee outside with a mattress and sheet can be overwhelming. The reward would be a fresh breeze, a chance to see the stars, and perhaps a concert of birds as a wake-up call the next morning. Such an experience can be idyllic, but we should refrain from infusing the scene with an overly romantic glow. If you have ever tried to sleep outside, you know how irritating the unfamiliar sounds can be. The background noises are too different from the familiar acoustic backdrops in our bedroom. And something startling is always bound to happen outside. Once we enter shallow sleep, a relatively loud noise is sure to wake us up, even in the middle of the night. Some people claim that we hear better in the darkness, perhaps because humans harbor a faculty from an earlier phase of development, though our improved hearing in the darkness also reminds us of our vulnerability to danger when we are outside. In fact, we never seem to get used to this danger. Spending nights outdoors has been shown to produce heightened alertness in the homeless who sleep on city streets. It not only disturbs their sleep but also negatively affects their health.

Even if you don’t have your own yard, you can still sleep outdoors

Caution is especially called for in forests. There, blossoms may send out intense or even upsetting scents; creatures large and small may flutter around us or peer at us out of the darkness; and the ground may be damp and spongy. Nothing about it encourages a good night’s sleep, despite the fact that our forests today are hardly the haunts of ghosts, witches, and dangerous beasts they were believed to be in the past. And although these dangerous spaces have been largely tamed, those who spend the night in a forest—or even just a wooded park—are viewed with suspicion. In the 1860s, those found spending the night in Berlin’s famous Tiergarten park were automatically classified as “vagabonds” and “criminals,” even if they had broken no other law.

Clouds offer the most comfortable repose

In short, we might want to think twice before lying down or sleeping in the great outdoors.

From a historical and cultural perspective, the present-day habit of lying out in the sun is quirky, to say the least. For centuries, a tan was a mark of poverty, the curse of those damned to work in the fields day after day. In the eyes of the more refined, sun-browned skin indicated a lack of cultivation. Many developments had to come together before a tan became a sign of beauty. A sun cult evolved slowly, arguing that enjoyment of the sun of went hand in hand with an appreciation of outdoor movement and exercise. The German author and mathematician Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), known for his aphorisms, declared that sunshine was “the primary means to promote health and vitality.” He recommended sunbathing naked and once recorded his own experience of turning “nearly black” in the ocean air. Another early fan of tanning was Arnold Rikli (1823–1906). A Swiss proponent of natural medicine, he had the habit—horrifying to
many of his contemporaries—of lying naked in the sun. Rikli opened the first therapeutic sunbathing facility in Slovenia in 1854. He showed that sunbathing could influence one’s sense of well-being, and he increased the awareness and popularity of this practice like no one before him. History knows him as the sun doctor. In an age before anyone guessed that spending long periods in the sun could lead to skin cancer, tanning was an innocent pleasure.

“The resting place should neither be completely horizontal nor excessively sloped,” writes Isidor Poeche in his 1901 book
Sleep and the Bedroom
, which bears the unwieldy subtitle
A Hygienic-Dietetic Handbook as a Guide to Achieving Natural and Regenerating Sleep
. According to Poeche, a full horizontal position brings the risk of stroke, “especially for those with a short neck and a head that sits low, wedged between the shoulders.” The reason, he argues, is that “lying completely flat facilitates the flow of blood to the brain, which is already stronger in sleep than during our waking hours.” On the other hand, if the bed is too slanted, “the inconvenience easily arises that the body, which makes no intentional movements during sleep, follows the physical laws of gravity like any other lifeless mass; in other words, it tends to fall toward the center of the earth so that, instead of sleeping on the straw, one can awaken on the naked ground.”

As if unaware that we cannot control our movements during sleep, Poeche warns that “neither sleeping on the back nor on the stomach is healthy, but rather damaging.” He also connects sleeping in
a supine position with unpleasant dreams. The upshot is that “one should sleep on one’s side, specifically the right.” The ideal posture is

Actually, none of the typical sleeping positions can be considered unhealthy; even sleeping on the stomach impedes breathing only minimally. However, it is true that slightly raising the upper body can help those who suffer from respiratory problems, such as sleep apnea, to breathe more freely. In more severe cases, sufferers must turn to technical devices that support their breathing.

Today, research has provided us with a far more detailed understanding of sleep than Isidor Poeche could boast. Just the study of the movements people make while sleeping constitutes a field of research. We now know that changes in position usually occur during phases of shallow sleep and directly influence
how refreshing we find a bout of slumber to be. If our motor functions are affected during sleep or we lie in the “wrong” position, we can wake up feeling exhausted. In any case, it’s normal to move about while sleeping; a healthy sleeper with full motor abilities changes position up to one hundred times a night. These movements follow an individual rhythm—a unique nocturnal choreography, if you will.

No consensus exists among doctors about which is better: a certain amount of activity during sleep beyond the normal level or the greatest possible relaxation. One factor in favor of relaxation is that it leads to less tension-related pain.

If sleep researchers are correct, more than half of us sleep primarily on our sides. Older people tend to sleep in this position. However, lying on the left side can be uncomfortable for those with heart conditions. As we age, sleeping on our backs leads to an increase in snoring. If a snorer consistently wakes up in flagrante delicto to turn on his or her side, the response can eventually become unconscious.

Sleeping on the stomach requires a high level of flexibility in the neck, a flexibility that tends to diminish with age. “In a prone position, the head must be turned to the side, leading to problems for those with limited mobility,” says Thomas Laser, a noted German orthopedist. “One wakes up due to neck pain and, as a result, tries to avoid lying on
one’s stomach.” Moreover, eating too much right before bedtime presents issues for prone sleepers because, as Dr. Laser explains, “pressure on the abdominal area can cause heartburn and belching if we sleep facing downward.”