文章來源：《經(jīng)濟學(xué)人》Oct 14th 2023 期 Culture 欄目 Sleepy heads 瞌睡蟲

文章主題：我們?yōu)槭裁匆X？以及其他未解之謎！

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Birds?do it. Bees do it. People do it, though often less than they would like to. Owls do it in the daytime.?Even Caenorhabditis?elegans, a primitive roundworm made up of a few thousand cells, does something that looks an awful lot like it.?Sleep is an ancient, universal experience.

鳥類要睡覺。蜜蜂要睡覺。人們要睡覺，盡管睡眠往往不如他們所愿。貓頭鷹在白天要睡覺。就連由幾千個細胞組成的原始蛔蟲--秀麗隱桿線蟲，也會有類似的睡眠活動。睡眠是一種古老而普遍的體驗。

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But partly because it is so commonplace, for a long time sleep was a subject that scientists had not woken up to.?It is only in the past half-century or so that it has attracted the attention of?dedicated?researchers.?A new book from Kenneth Miller, a science journalist, sets out to?chronicle?the field’s short but fascinating history.

然而，部分原因是由于睡眠如此普遍，在很長一段時間里，科學(xué)家們并未對睡眠這個課題產(chǎn)生興趣。直到最近半個多世紀，它才引起了專門研究者的注意?？破沼浾呖夏崴肌っ桌盏倪@本新書詳細記錄了睡眠領(lǐng)域短暫但迷人的歷史。

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The book is organised around the life and hard work of four scientists.?The?patriarch?of the field is Nathaniel Kleitman, whose presence?looms?largest.?A Jewish man born in what is now Moldova, he emigrated to America in 1915, escaping Russian?pogroms?before setting up a pioneering sleep-research programme at the University of Chicago.

這本書圍繞4位科學(xué)家的生活和辛勤工作展開。睡眠領(lǐng)域的元老人物是納撒尼爾·克萊特曼，他的影響力最為顯著。他是一位出生在今摩爾多瓦的猶太人，1915 年為躲避俄國戰(zhàn)亂移居美國，之后在芝加哥大學(xué)建立了一個開創(chuàng)性的睡眠研究項目。

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The early pages of the book, before there is much in the way of established science to describe, are the weakest.?A good deal of time is spent on biographical details and pen portraits of the world through which Kleitman moved. But the story soon picks up.?It roams from the discovery of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep and?circadian rhythms—the biological clocks that govern humanity’s days—to the effects of sleep deprivation (which can be fatal, at least in lab animals). It also?probes?the purpose, if any, of dreams.

本書的開頭幾頁，在描述已確立的科學(xué)內(nèi)容之前，是關(guān)聯(lián)性最弱的部分。大量篇幅用在描寫傳記細節(jié)和克萊特曼所行走的世界。但故事很快回歸主題了。本書涵蓋了快速眼動 (REM) 睡眠、晝夜節(jié)律（這是控制人類一天生活的生物鐘）的發(fā)現(xiàn)、以及睡眠剝奪的影響（這可能是致命的，至少對實驗室動物來說是致命的）。本書還探討了夢境的目的（如果有夢境存在的話）。

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Underlying it all is a sense of psychology’s slow maturing as a science.?New technologies such as?electroencephalographs, which monitor electrical activity in the brain, have offered practitioners the ability to study brains directly, rather than trying to infer what they are doing from the behaviour of their owners.

睡眠研究的背后，也有心理學(xué)的的影響。心理學(xué)在逐漸成為一門成熟的科學(xué)。腦電圖儀等新技術(shù)可以監(jiān)測大腦中的電活動，使從業(yè)者能夠直接研究大腦，而不是從大腦主人的行為中推斷大腦發(fā)生了什么變化。

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Mr Miller has a good eye for a great scientific story.?One of Kleitman’s best-known experiments involved spending 32 days in a dark cave as he worked to shed light on the limits of the body’s inbuilt circadian clock.?The author is happy to show research as it is really done,?indignities?and all.

米勒對于偉大的科學(xué)故事有著敏銳的洞察力?？巳R特曼最著名的實驗之一是他在黑暗的洞穴中生活了32天，以揭示人體內(nèi)置生物鐘的極限。作者樂于展示研究的真實過程，包括其中的尷尬和不體面之處。

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One section describes a more modern, quantitative sort of circadian-rhythm research that took place in a purpose-built facility in a Bavarian village.?The lab sported two apartments, with no window or clocks to clue their occupants into what was happening outside.?Test subjects lived there for weeks, free to wake and?doze?whenever they liked—but never free from the?rectal?thermometers that were attached to wall sockets by long cables.

其中一章描述了一種更現(xiàn)代、更量化的晝夜節(jié)律研究，該研究是在巴伐利亞村莊的一個專門建造的實驗設(shè)施中進行的。實驗室有兩間公寓，沒有窗戶，也沒有鐘表，因此居住者無法了解外面發(fā)生的情況。受試者在那里住了幾個星期，他們想睡就睡，想醒就醒--但他們必須用墻壁插座上的直腸溫度計量體溫。

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There is a serious side, too. Shift work interferes with the body’s internal clocks and raises the risk of illness, including heart disease and diabetes.?Mr Miller explains medicine’s slow recognition of sleep?apnea, a common affliction, and the damage it can inflict.?It is caused by the airway repeatedly collapsing during sleep. Sufferers endure hundreds of episodes of oxygen deprivation every night (the characteristic?gasping?and?snorting?comes when a bodily reflex forces sleepers to take a desperate breath of air).

睡眠也有嚴肅的一面。輪班工作會干擾人體的生物鐘，增加患心臟病和糖尿病等疾病的風(fēng)險。米勒解釋說，醫(yī)學(xué)界對睡眠呼吸暫停這種常見疾病的認識非常緩慢，而且這種疾病會造成嚴重損害。睡眠呼吸暫停是由于睡眠過程中氣道反復(fù)塌陷造成的?；颊呙客矶家淌軘?shù)百次的缺氧（當(dāng)身體反射迫使睡眠者拼命呼吸空氣時，就會出現(xiàn)特有的喘息聲和呼嚕聲）。

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If left untreated, sleep apnea can lead to?crippling?exhaustion or worse.?Mr Miller relates the case of a brother and sister who both suffered from the condition.?The brother was eventually cured by having a small hole cut in his throat, but years of oxygen deprivation at night had caused irreversible brain damage in his sister.

如果不及時治療，睡眠呼吸暫停可能會導(dǎo)致嚴重疲勞，甚至更糟的后果。米勒提到了一對兄妹都罹患這種病的案例。哥哥最終通過在喉嚨上開一個小孔而痊愈，但多年的夜間缺氧給妹妹造成了不可逆轉(zhuǎn)的腦損傷。

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Discoveries often lead to new questions in turn. That is why neat, tidy endings are hard to achieve in science books; this one is no different.?Despite all the progress of the past 50 years, scientists are still unsure what sleep is for.?The fact it is so widespread suggests it is vital.?But why evolution would see fit to produce animals that must spend large amounts of their time?insensate?and unable to respond to threats is still a mystery researchers are trying to solve.?For anyone curious about asking the right questions, however, Mr Miller’s book is a good place to start.

新研究往往又會引發(fā)新的問題。這就是為什么科普書籍很難有完美的結(jié)尾；這本書也不例外。盡管過去 50 年取得了諸多進步，但科學(xué)家們?nèi)匀徊磺宄叩降子惺裁从谩Ｋ呷绱藦V泛存在的事實表明它至關(guān)重要。但是，為什么進化過程中會產(chǎn)生這樣的動物，他們必須花費大量的時間昏睡，無法對威脅做出反應(yīng)，這仍然是研究人員試圖解開的一個謎。不過，對于任何想提出正確問題的人來說，米勒的書是一個很好的起點。