– Paul Klee. – « Strong Dream »(Dreaming), 1929 © ADAGP – Christie’s Images – Bridgeman Images
Aux In the first days of autumn 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson, then aged 27, spent twelve days tramping in the Cévennes. His only traveling companion was a donkey named Modestine. Stevenson was only to publish Treasure Island and know literary fame only five years later. In the middle of his expedition, he set up camp in a small clearing surrounded by pine trees. After an invigorating supper, when the sun had just finished its course, he stretched out in his “ sleeping bag », A cap over his eyes. But, rather than sleep all at once until dawn, he awoke shortly after midnight, time to nonchalantly smoke a cigarette and enjoy an hour of contemplation. Never before had he savored « a more perfect hour » – freed, he rejoiced, from the« embellishment of civilization ». « By what suggestion formulated, by what delicate contact of nature, he wondered, are all these sleepers recalled, around the same time, to life ? ».
What Stevenson did not know was that what he experienced on that autumn night evokes a once common form of sleep. Until modern times, in fact, an hour or more awake in the middle of the night interrupted the rest of most of the inhabitants of Western Europe, and not only of the shepherds and lumberjacks renowned for taking naps. The members of each household left the bed to urinate, smoke a little tobacco or even visit their neighbors. Many people stayed in bed and made love, prayed or, more importantly, meditated on the content of the dreams that usually preceded this awakening at the end of their “ first sleep ».
Noting the indifference of historians to the question of sleep, we have gathered fragmentary information on this subject, in various languages, from sources ranging from judicial depositions to diaries and works of fiction. From these (…)
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