Let''s say that one day a scientist would turn up that succeeded in ridding us all of the need to sleep. We would gain may years in our lives that way/ Take for exaple an eighty year old man, who has spent about eight hours by sleeping each night of his life. By simple math, he would have added to his life thirty years. Until that happens - we have ''The House of Sleep'', mearly a sleeping disorders clinic. The house is a castle which was built over a century ago, located on the shore, observing the ocean. In the past, twelve years before the story begins, the castle was used as student dorms. By some coincidence some of the students from those times, the ones who suffer from sleeping disorders, meet again in the castle. Gregory, who runs the place now, was a student then and is a doctor now. His curiosity regarding sleeping disorders sprouted in that very building, by getting to know Sarah, who has Narcolepsy, and was his girlfriend at the time. Sarah was already then a target to his observations. Narcolepsy is a disorder by which a person dreams dreams that are so realistic that sometimes they cannot tell dream from reality. Dreams could also replace real events in the mind of the person suffering from this disorder. This way they can sometimes gain a peek at reality through the layer of clouds which normally hides it, like "the search for original words on an ancient parchment which has been scraped clean and had a new text written on". This situation causes confusion in a person''s life and affects everyone around them. Another former student is invited to the House, since in the past he used to sleep many hours a day. Meanwhile he has become a film critic and for several years he cannot sleep. Gregory takes great interest in him, especially since this man lives in cotradiction with the researcer''s ideas of sleeping. Later on Gregory turns out to be a mad scientist, studying his patients. The book is written in parts, devided as the phases of sleep. Phase 1 takes 5-10 minutes and is the transition from wakeness to numbness. The blood pressure is reduced, the heart beats slower and the muscles loosen up. Phase 2 also lasts several minutes, by which the sleeper looses conciousness. Phase 3 is a transition between diminished conciousness and actual sleep, Phase 4. In this phase the body hardly moves and waking the sleeper is difficult. Phase 4 is the most profound sleeping phase, the one which gives the body its greatest rest. After about 30 minutes the sleeper goes back to phases 2 or 3, and then happens intense activity in the person''s mind, accompanied by rappid eye movements (REM) under shut eyelids. In this phase, the sleepers experiences most of their dreams.
A wonderful book.
Have a good night...