Alright, so tell me if this has happened to you guys, your line in bed at night, right

before you doze off to sleep, you have this thought that right now tens of millions

of people across the country at this exact moment, same as you, are lying down on these

rectangular, shaped mattresses and are about to be unconscious for the next eight hours

while having hallucinations.

Because that's what sleep is when you think about it.

And when you think about it that way, sleep is kind of weird.

And it's kind of weird that we sleep the way we do.

I think we take it for granted that you sleep from, you know, about 10 until 8 or so if

you wake up late.

But our guest today makes the case that this hasn't always been the case and that for

most of human's history, sleep has actually been very unique to communities and to individuals.

And it wasn't until about the 19th century until the whole world basically got on this

sleep schedule where you sleep from 10 o'clock at night till about seven o'clock in the

morning, then you work during the day, no naps, and then you repeat the process.

Before then sleep was much more individualistic, it was unique to different communities.

And it's this whole radical transformation of sleep has had profound changes, effects

on the way we approach life, work and sleep.

Our guest is named Matthew Wolfmeyer, he's a professor of anthropology at the University

of California Santa Cruz.

And he's the author of a very fascinating book called The Slumbering Masses.

And it's basically a cultural study anthropological look at sleep and why we sleep the way we

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