The Dream of Sleep

Sleep is under pressure: in view of the increasing flexibility of working hours and softening boundaries between day and night, the omnipresence of sleepless machines and the development of synthetic sleeping pills, sleep has long since lost its innocence. Instead of being allowed to simply doze off when tiredness sets in, being able to sleep now requires everyday organisation, we have to literally take it. As a phase of rest, unproductivity, inactivity and the unconscious, sleep appears to be a recalcitrant phenomenon in a society trimmed to efficiency, rationality and scientific understanding.

In her research, the historian Hannah Ahlheim deals with the history of sleep and "sleep knowledge" since the late 19th century, especially in Germany and the USA, and shows that with the development of industrialised society, sleep had to be newly fitted into the rhythm of life. In doing so, she connects the history of a science with the history of modern society.

In her lecture, Hannah Ahlheim provides insights into the history of sleep, drawing connections to the role and places of sleep in the Ruhr region as a former mining area.