Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
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There is
virtually neither tissue nor function that does not manifest regular
changes from day to night. These diverse rhythms usually maintain
distinct phase relationships to each other as well as to the entraining
zeitgebers. Together, they represent a high degree of temporal
order. J Aschoff (1979) Circadian rhythms: general features and endocrinological aspects. In: Endocrine rhythms (Ed: D T Krieger) Raven Press, New York. Pp1- 61
‘the sleep-compelling centre can be likened to a faithful watchman. From his post in the stem of the brain he perceives the giving way of the waking activity of the roof-brain [cortex]; wisely then he extinguishes the lights and draws the curtain for the good repose which shall restore his master’
Bremer quoted by C S Sherrington (1940) Man on His Nature. Penguin Books, London
Although humans consider themselves to be largely independent of the seasons, there is now a great deal of evidence for seasonal rhythms in psychological dimensions, emotional states, and physiological, neurochemical and hormonal measures. Patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) show an exaggerated seasonality: this has been defined as two or more consecutive depressive episodes in autumn or winter with remission the following spring or summer……Patients experience atypical symptoms such as hypersomnia and fatigue, and changes in eating patterns are a dominant part of the clinical picture.
K Krauchi, A Wirz-Justice (1988) The four seasons: food intake frequency in seasonal affective disorder in the course of a year. Psychiatry Research, vol 25 pp 323-338
Thomasina: When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backward, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?
Septimus: No
Thomasina: Well, I do. You cannot stir things apart.
Septimus: No more you can, time must needs run backward, and since it will not, we must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder until pink is complete, unchanging and unchangeable, and we are done with it for ever. This is known as free will or self-determination.
Tom Stoppard. Arcadia (1999) Faber and Faber
To feel the rhythm of life,
To feel the powerful beat,
To feel the tingle in your fingers,
To feel the tingle in your life
Flip your wings and fly to daddy
Take a dive and swim to daddy
Hit the floor and crawl to daddy
Cy Colman and Dorothy Fields (1966) The rhythm of life . From: Sweet Charity
As you grow older, sleep
somehow becomes thinner, as if the fabric of unconsciousness itself is
becoming stretched and febrile; you don’t go down as far or for
so long; as if the permanent period of rest in the rapidly approaching
future is already exerting its effect, in the way that one recovers
reserves of energy as soon as the end of a boring film or dinner party
finally heaves into sight. Sleep is a bank account that you put
capital in when you are young and draw on as you get older; and then
you run out of capital and die. John Lanchester (2000) Mr Phillips. Faber and Faber, London
With his marine clocks, John Harrison tested the waters of space-time. He succeeded, against all odds, in using the fourth – temporal – dimension to link points on the three-dimensional globe. He wrestled the world’s whereabouts from the stars, and locked the secret in a pocket watch.
Dava Sobel (1996) Longitude. Fourth Estate, London.