Dreaming of a Good Night's Sleep

Be glad you have a fluffy pillow and soft mattress to snooze on. Think of all the tired folks who tossed and turned on these uncomfortable beds.

The earliest-known beds were made by the ancient Egyptians. Linen sheets, carved wooden bedframes-what's so uncomfortable about that? The "pillow," for one. It was made of wood, too.

In Europe during the Middle Ages, most people were too poor to have bedframes, so they slept on piles of straw. The straw was infested with biting bedbugs, and there were no fancy canopies to catch things that might fall from the roof.

In northern China, the family slept all together on a raised platform called a kang, which was warmed from below by a small heater. Sounds cozy, except the kang also doubled as the family's kitchen table.

Even if you were rich enough to have a bed, it didn't mean you slept alone. The Great Bed of Ware, which was made for an inn in England, slept 12 people. Just not comfortably.

Eventually, beds were built for one, but some people were too scared to sleep alone. Servants sometimes slept on trundle beds, wheeled mattresses that slid under their master's bedframe.

Just when beds were getting more comfortable, with iron frames and coiled-spring mattresses, along came "disappearing" beds. People obsessed with saving space created beds that could be folded into bathtubs, pianos, bookshelves-even fireplaces. (Now that's a bad idea.)

In Central and South America, people slept tight in hammocks, which were open to the breeze but away from creepy-crawlies. Sailors, who stole the idea, slept even tighter. Because of the limited space aboard ship, they hung their hammocks just a foot or so apart, like bunk beds that rocked and rolled with the waves.

In outer space, it's especially hard to get some shuteye. Because there's no gravity, astronauts snooze in zipped-up sleeping bags with their arms strapped in tight.

Copyright Carus Publishing Company Oct 2004
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