This from an interview in the New Review section of last Sunday's Observer. "I like to posit a ridiculous theory, which is: perhaps sleep did not evolve. Perhaps it was the thing from which wakefulness emerged." The speaker is "sleep scientist" Matthew Walker, who has a book coming out on 3rd October. "I would still like to know where we go, psychologically and physiologically, when we dream," says Walker.
I have a suspicion that more progress is made by scientists prepared to posit "ridiculous" theories, than by scientists loyal to the straight and narrow. Aren't all the best science stories about rebels against an orthodoxy? It's what scientists are supposed to do.
And sleep is such an interesting place, twinned with imagination. The book is Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams (Allen Lane), and yes, that is me ahead of you in the queue outside the booksh- no, let's make it the Falmouth Bookseller, with a red carpet outside.
Carry on dreaming; it's just like being awake, isn't it? Except for those elephants.
I have a suspicion that more progress is made by scientists prepared to posit "ridiculous" theories, than by scientists loyal to the straight and narrow. Aren't all the best science stories about rebels against an orthodoxy? It's what scientists are supposed to do.
And sleep is such an interesting place, twinned with imagination. The book is Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams (Allen Lane), and yes, that is me ahead of you in the queue outside the booksh- no, let's make it the Falmouth Bookseller, with a red carpet outside.
Carry on dreaming; it's just like being awake, isn't it? Except for those elephants.
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