Sleep Over // Geraldine Pilgrim

Sleep, that final frontier. We can put man on the moon, split the atom and prove that water has memory, and yet we still do not really know why we sleep. What scientists do know is that without proper sleep our cognitive ability is impaired and the middle part of the frontal lobe in our brains is affected as a build-up of proteins occurs.

To believe the media hype we are in the midst of a sleep-loss epidemic, putting us at heightened risk of cancer, dementia, heart disease and weight gain. So as part of Normal? 2018, a sleep-over was held in the auditorium of the Quaterhouse. Not for scientific analysis, just purely to emphasise and highlight the importance of sleep to our mental wellbeing.

Geraldine Pilgrim designed the installation, which looked like a cross between a field hospital and a supersized hostel/hotel room. One of the sleepers disclosed that she dreamt that the pillows came from Premier Inn and the mattresses from Dunelm - strange that we dream of such mundane things! Fourteen sleepers and one male matron hankered down for cocoa or Horlicks, bedtime stories and a recording of the old and soporific version of the shipping news, followed by seven and a half hours of undisturbed rest in comfy beds with Egyptian cotton sheets and super soft pillows. For the insomniacs a room was kitted out with food, drinks and a video diary.

At 8am, piped birdsong filled the auditorium and bodies started to move and then rise from their cotton comfort. Why though, did those who normally wake to sunrise still manage to do so despite the darkened room? At breakfast, Tim Rittman, the in-house neurologist answered questions on sleep matters whilst a delicious breakfast was served. Everyone seemed curious to know if we had slept well but I was more interested to hear how our matron Gary felt, given he had endured the whole night in a darkened room. Coincidentally he spent the night reading about the Normandy Landings as he watched over us in our dystopian hangar style bedroom.

Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep tells me that prolonged sleep deprivation can be fatal. In our 24hr society individuals are torn between the necessity to work and battling against their circadian rhythms. What risk is this posing for tomorrow’s generations?

‘To sleep perchance to dream’

If only!

-       Sandra Elkins

Links relevant to this diagnosis:

Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker

The Sleep School

How to Cope with Sleep Problems - Mind

Sleep Tips - BBC News

A New Theory Linking Sleep and Creativity - The Atlantic

Awake // Miranda Colmans

Sleep: we all need it and most of us probably think we don’t get enough. But what is it like to get a bad night of sleep, day after day, week after week, month after month? Awake, by Miranda Colmans, explores this. Told through a series of characters who find themselves awake in the middle of the night and come together in an online chat room, Colmans highlights the difficulties experienced by people with chronic insomnia.

Around 6-10% of the adult population will meet the clinical criteria for insomnia disorder, which requires at least 3 nights a week of poor sleep, for at least 3 months, causing significant distress or impairment to daytime functioning. Colmans portrays not just the exhaustion that is experienced by successive nights of little sleep, but also the frustration and loneliness that people experience being awake while everyone else is asleep.  Starting off with the at times comical side of the often conflicting advice and strategies offered to get to sleep, like trying to relax for the third time that night. 

Colmans leads us down a path of the increasing frustration and loneliness her character’s experience to the onset of mental health problems. Insomnia is a recognised risk factor for the development of depression and commonly occurs alongside many mental health conditions.  Colmans’ portrayal of a single mum as she tries to cope with a new baby on little or no sleep, eloquently demonstrates how things can quickly unravel. The onset of insomnia is not uncommon during or shortly after pregnancy and can be linked with the development or exacerbation of post-partum depression. This is a very vulnerable time for many new mothers and fathers, especially for those with little or no support. Sleep is often low on the list of priorities but more needs to be done to ensure that we give sleep the time it deserves. Work like Colmans’ bring sleep to centre stage, recognising the importance of sleep in all of our lives. 

- Kate Porcheret

Links relevant to this diagnosis:

Awake - Miranda Colmans

Scientific Review of Chronic Insomnia - The Lancet

Why Do We Sleep? - Russell Foster (TED Talk)

Having Trouble With Your Sleep? - Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences

LAST DREAM (ON EARTH) / Kai Fischer

Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, made his pioneering solo flight on 12 April 1961. Last Dream (On Earth) uses words, imagery and live music to recreate his experiences of countdown, takeoff, weightlessness, and fiery but safe return. 

It’s a spectacular soundscape, and each audience member hears it immersively and intimately through their own individual headphones. But in painful contrast with Gagarin’s triumphant tale, a second story is also told– the desperate journey of refugees trying to reach Spain across the sea from Morocco in a child’s dinghy.

The two stories of peril, bravery, persistence and adversity intermingle and interlink creatively, and we have to ask: could I do this? What would it take to make me risk everything? And how are people changed by such experiences?

Even before their sea journey starts, the refugees in this story have already travelled thousands of miles, been subjected to indignities and uncertainties, and had to bargain, plead and pay.

Little wonder that in Britain, studies show higher rates of depression and anxiety among refugees compared to the national population, with those at highest risk being children, and women who have experienced abuse on their journey.

Figures show that of all people who migrate, asylum-seekers are the most likely to have multiple traumas. Experts have called for more support for those in the asylum system, but the intense politicisation of the issue continues to dog decision-making.

Astronauts, by contrast with refugees, are pampered travellers, rigorously trained for their journeys into such a risky environment. But the psychological impact of living in space is a very topical issue. While Yuri Gagarin spent just 108 minutes on the first spaceflight, a journey to Mars at current speeds would take nine months, one way.

A critical factor in maintaining mental health en route will be discovering how to improve astronauts’ sleep, while light and dark cycles disrupt their natural circadian rhythms.

And could there be genetic impacts on the human body from spaceflight? NASA hopes to answer that question through studying Scott Kelly, a veteran of a year-long space mission, and his identical twin brother, Mark. (RM)

Last Dream (On Earth) ran at Assembly Hall until August 28th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/last-dream-on-earth 

First Orbit, a film featuring audio and imagery of Yuri Gagarin and his mission: http://www.firstorbit.org/watch-the-film

Refugee and asylum seeker health issues: http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/health-of-migrants-in-the-uk-what-do-we-know/

Psychological wellbeing of refugees and asylum seekers: http://isp.sagepub.com/content/57/2/107.abstract

Refugee council facts on asylum: http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/policy_research/the_truth_about_asylum/facts_about_asylum_-_page_5

Medical monitoring on the International Space Station: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1025.html

Articles about Scott Kelly and his year-long space mission: http://www.nasa.gov/1ym/articles

DREAMCATCHER // Dreamcatcher

From Shakespeare to Emily Bronte and beyond, many authors have given dreams the power to direct, challenge and reveal. In Dreamcatcher, young Indian playwright Kashyap Raja explores whether dreams may hold the key to unlocking your subconscious mind and your destiny.

The significance of sleep is a hot topic in modern science. Researchers have recently uncovered evidence that our brain has a plumbing network called the glymphatic system, which they believe may be responsible for clearing out dementia-causing toxins while we doze.

But dream analysis is still on the borderline with pseudoscience. Sigmund Freud’s idea that we act out our desires in dreams is undermined by a study showing that paralysed people dreamt about walking less than average, even though they all expressed a desire to regain that ability.

Carl Jung also taught that dreams are highly significant, containing truths and visions that emerge from different levels of our unconscious mind. This is the scenario that Dreamcatcher explores, with a machine that can look inside living people’s dreams, where, it’s revealed, you can always find your heart’s desire.

So does science support the notion that dreams can reveal the workings of the subconscious mind? Unfortunately neurobiological theory suggests that dreams emerge as we try to make sense of sporadic firings of nerves in our brain stem, which randomly activate memories. 

But scientists continue to explore what’s going on in the brain’s unconscious. The latest experiments show we can do complicated maths, as well as making rapid-fire judgements that guide our behaviour, without even knowing we are doing it. Is this how our destiny asserts itself?

The more that experts probe how our brains work, the more we realise how much processing is going on in our unconscious without our awareness. Currently, though, the suggestion that dreams carry great significance seems like wishful thinking. (RM)

Dreamcatcher ran at theSpace @ Surgeon’s Hall until August 27th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/dreamcatcher 

The discovery of the brain’s glymphatic system: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/3584/scientists-discover-previously-unknown-cleansing-system-in-brain.aspx

Significance of sleep to brain cleansing: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-flush-out-toxins-during-sleep

Neurobiological reasons for dreams: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2010/04/07/why-do-we-dream/#.V9m5A_krKUk

The power of our unconscious mind: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160315-the-enormous-power-of-the-unconscious-brain

STORIES TO TELL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT // Francesca Millican-Slater

Francesca Millican-Slater's work tends to be autobiographical: Me, Myself and Miss Gibbs traced her journey across the UK in search of the recipient of an enigmatic postcard, while Forensics of a Flat unfolded the history of her peculiar home in Birmingham, a former office above a shop. The same is sort-of true of this show, but only in its starting point: as documented on the accompanying blog, she experiences chronic insomnia, and the stories she tells over the course of the hour are a reflection of the fantastical thoughts that plague her through the night.

Insomnia is a common problem – the NHS estimates that one in three people in the UK experience it regularly – and on the surface Millican-Slater's stories evoke the banal: one features a couple in a supermarket; another, a couple disturbed by the insistent loud music played by their neighbours after hours. A man in one story attempts to find friendship among his colleagues in a pork-pie factory; a man in another strikes up conversation with a cafe owner and a newspaper vendor on his early morning walks. However, each vignette quickly takes a Tales of the Unexpected detour towards the weird. The factory worker is demoted when he constructs a pastry penis; the street blares with noise as neighbours compete to play their own favoured style of music at the highest volume. The tone is more often kind than sinister, particularly in the tale of a mysterious matchmaker, a man who stalks people he knows to be single, then attempts to pair them up, functioning as an “analogue Tinder”.

Sleeplessness is a lonely and often furious place, and many of the characters in these stories are lonely and furious, too – particularly those already in couples. The overlap between insomnia and depression is suggested in an undercurrent hum of desire for meaning, or purpose, or connection, most audible in the story about the man who begins each day walking his neighbourhood, convinced that the world would fall apart if he didn't. The blue light that bathes Millican-Slater's face speaks of the computer screens that promise connection but only in isolation. Listening to her, the audience sit in isolation, too: joined together by her velveteen voice, spinning a web of strangeness.

(MC)

Stories To Tell in the Middle of the Night is on at 10.15 at Summerhall until August 28. See venue for accessibility information - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/stories-to-tell-in-the-middle-of-the-night

Basic insomnia facts: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Insomnia/Pages/Introduction.aspx

On the relationship between insomnia, anxiety and depression: https://sleepfoundation.org/insomnia/content/what-causes-insomnia

On the cultural rise of lack of sleep: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/10304984/Is-there-any-way-to-cure-insomnia.html

On mindfulness as a cure for insomnia: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/09/sleep-how-to-beat-insomnia

The blog accompanying the show: http://www.storiestotellinthemiddleofthenight.com/

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GHOSTS AND HAUNTINGS // Chris French

Nearly 40 per cent of the UK population claim to have experienced a ghost, according to a MORI poll from the late 1990s, while a smaller but significant percentage – around a third – claim to have had some kind of paranormal experience. In this talk for the Edinburgh Skeptics on the Fringe, professor of anomalistic psychology (basically ‘weird stuff’) at Goldsmith’s University, Chris French, explains what might be going on from a rational, science-based perspective.
 
What follows is a straightforward explanation of several normal physical and psychological phenomena that cause people to believe they’ve witnessed some kind of paranormal activity. For example, many reports of poltergeists turn out to be straightforward hoaxes, notably including the founders of the modern spiritualist church, Maggie and Kate Fox, and the Amityville Horror which was popularised in a novel and films. Both have since been roundly debunked but still persist in popular culture as real.
 
One major cause of haunting stories is the poorly-understood condition of sleep paralysis, where a person partially wakes up during REM (dreaming) sleep. It’s remarkably common, and somewhere between eight and 40 per cent of the population are thought to experience it. Normally, the body is paralysed during REM sleep to prevent us acting out the physical motions of our dreams, so unexpectedly waking up in this state can be terrifying and disorientating. Even more distressing is the accompaniment of ‘dream hangovers’, such as visual, auditory and physical hallucinations. Given the similarities of these reported experiences across cultures, variously attributed to everything from sex demons (incubi and succubi) in Europe to the souls of unbaptised children on St Lucia, it’s likely that sleep paralysis is a much more common cause of ghost stories than previously realised.
 
We’re also hugely prone to creating things that simply aren’t there, such as seeing the face of the Virgin Mary in a cheese sandwich or inferring a ghostly whisper in crackling static. Alternatively, we fail to notice the blindingly obvious explanations for seemingly strange things right in front of our faces, as shown by the clever ‘Gorillas in our Midst’ study.
 
As French explains, the most important requirements for seeing ghosts are context and belief. You’re much more likely to spot a spectre if you’re a strong believer creeping around a reputed haunted house than a skeptic strolling through Sainsbury’s. But if ghosts are real, why should there be a difference? Like Fox Mulder in the X Files, some people just want to believe, and all too often their brain tricks them into thinking that they do. There is no cure, but approaching all paranormal claims with a broad, evidence-based and skeptical mindset will undoubtedly help.

- KA

 
Edinburgh Skeptics in the Pub is hosting Skeptics on the Fringe, Undiluted Brilliance, with a different speaker every night until August 28th, at 19:45 in the Banshee Labyrinth on Niddry Street - http://www.edinburghskeptics.co.uk/events-calendar/
 
Goldsmiths Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit: http://www.gold.ac.uk/apru/

The Fox sisters and the rap on spiritualism: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-fox-sisters-and-the-rap-on-spiritualism-99663697/?no-ist

The Amityville Horror hoax: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/amityville.asp

Information about sleep paralysis – NHS Choices: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Sleep-paralysis/Pages/Introduction.aspx

The invisible gorilla experiment – an example of inattentional blindness: http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html