Bright Eyed: Insomnia and Its Cultures

By RM Vaughan

For forty years, RM Vaughan has been fighting, and failing, to get his forty winks each night. He's not alone, not by any stretch.

More and more studies highlight the health risks of undersleeping, yet we have never been asked to do more, and for longer. And we can't stop thinking that a lack of sleep is heroic: snoozing is a kind of laziness, after all. But why, when we know more about the value of sleep, are we obsessed with twenty­-four-­hour workdays and deliberate sleep deprivation?

Working outward from his own experience, Vaughan explores this insomnia culture we've created, predicting a cultural collision -- will we soon have to legislate rest, as France has done? -- and wondering about the cause-and-­effect model of our shorter attention spans. Does the fact that we are almost universally underslept change how our world works? We know it's an issue with, say, pilots and truck drivers, but what about artists-- does an insomnia culture change creativity? And what are the long­term cultural consequences of this increasing sacriï¬ *ce for the ever­elusive goal of 'total productivity'?

‘With his usual caustic wit and gut-churning insight, Vaughan guides us through pills, sleep clinics (where even the therapists don’t sleep) and the nightly nightmare of Restless Leg Syndrome. Interviewing long-term insomniacs, neuroscientists and Douglas Coupland, Vaughan battles an always-on culture – taking us right to the core of a dreamless empire.’
– Redfern Jon Barrett, author of The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights 

‘RM Vaughan has taken his lifelong  affliction with insomnia and (dare I say it) made it funny and sexy.’ – Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC Radio’s White Coat, Black Art and author of The Secret Language of Doctors

• Language: English
• Publisher: Coach House Books
• Release date: Jun 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781770564084

RM Vaughan

RM Vaughan was a writer and video artist. He was the author of many plays and books, including Bright Eyed: Insomnia and its Cultures, Troubled, The Monster Trilogy, and A Selection of Dazzling Scarves, and contributed articles on culture to a wide variety of publications including being a Contributing Editor for Momus.ca and an art critic for the Globe and Mail. Vaughan’s short videos have played in festivals and galleries across Canada and around the world.

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