Why Can’t We Sleep?

A short, accessible analysis of how and why humans sleep - weaving together cultural, social, economic and psychoanalytic influences in pursuit of the truth about insomnia

One in four adults sleeps badly. Sleeping pill prescriptions have increased dramatically over the last three decades and our bookshelves and browser histories are littered with experts promising to ‘fix’ our insomnia.

But is this so-called sleep crisis anything new? Our relationship to sleep has always been irregular and changeable, variously shaped by social conventions, commercial imperatives and personal psychologies. Look beneath the headlines and it seems that there is no such thing as a perfect night’s sleep.

Here Darian Leader reveals the history and pathology of sleeplessness - from the industrial revolution to Freudian dream analysis to the fears around blue light on our phones. Along the way, he dispels the pervasive myths and anxieties around this most universal human experience.