iv: Anthroposophical Views
Lullabies Dora Wagner The God who made us in infinite pow'r, To cheer the woes of life's uncertain hour, Has placed amongst us two of such sweet birth That never brighter dwellers were on Earth. Solace in toils, in pain and care a prop, One is sweet Slumber, and the other Hope. One, when man, weaken'd, feels his frame at length Shorn of its vigour and embracing strength, Comes with calm pace, and pours his soothing ray, And all his pains in slumber pass away. Alexander Anderson, 1873
Sleep is miraculous. No other state fascinates us as much as this journey into other worlds. But sleep poses its own mysteries— we are not aware that we are sleeping, nor do we understand the secrets of transition between sleeping and waking. What takes place during sleep? What happens to the events of our days? Why are tiredness and wakefulness not merely matters of will? Why do we spend a third of our lives in such a vulnerable and unproductive state? In Greek mythology, sleep was considered the brother of death. Hypnos, the god of sleep, and Thanatos, the god of the dead, were twins (Lochin, 1990). This kinship framed sleep in a gloomy light. "Sleep is the image of death," remarked Cicero in 45 BCE. His view was based on the ancient assumption that the human body remained as rigid during sleep as it does in death. Over later centuries, it was assumed that sleep was a recovery phase in which the brain was simply 'switched off'. Today, we know that humans go through various active phases during sleep. It is only since the discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) (Kleitman and Aserinsky, 1953) that sleep and sleep rhythm research have developed into a discrete discipline within medicine, investigating this vital function in ever greater detail. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the desire to improve performance dominated investigations into sleep. As industrialisation and urbanisation increasingly overrode the
rhythms of nature, researchers sought to identify the mechanisms of sleep, in order to adapt human internal circadian clocks to changing living and working conditions. Innovations such as the cheap light bulb, the expansion of railway connections, and the invention of telegraphy significantly changed society's time patterns, blurring the boundary between day and night (Ahlheim, 2018). Such changes disrupted our biology— from the molecular clocks that regulate our cellular activities, to the synchronisation of behavioural cycles and the solar day that optimises our physiology. Our sleep-wake rhythms are interwoven with these circadian rhythms; light and darkness are the strongest synchronisers of our inner clocks. In the morning, bright, energy-rich, blue light stimulates our brain to wake up, while the orange-red light of dusk and, later, darkness lead to the release of melatonin— a hormone produced from serotonin —to promote sleep. Melatonin is mainly synthesized in the pineal gland, but small amounts are also produced in the retina of our eyes, and in the intestines. If daylight falls on the retina, the production of melatonin is inhibited; in darkness, the release is stimulated. Melatonin can bind to certain sites, such as the blood vessels in the brain or certain cells of the immune system. It lowers the body temperature and blood pressure, boosts the immune system, influences the release of sex hormones, notifies the body that energy consumption must be reduced, 13
