人类为什么会睡觉？ | 经济学人文化
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英文部分选自经济学人20231014期文化板块
Culture | Sleepy heads
文化 | 睡蒙了
Why do people sleep? And other unanswered questions
睡"意"朦胧：人类为什么会睡觉？为什么。。。
A new book, “Mapping the Darkness”, explores the active world of sleep research
新书《绘制黑暗》对睡眠研究这一活跃领域展开了探讨
Birds do it. Bees do it. People do it, though oftenless 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.
鸟儿会睡觉，蜜蜂会睡觉，人类也会睡觉（虽然经常睡眠不足）。猫头鹰在白天睡觉，就连秀丽隐杆线虫这种仅由几千个细胞构成的原始生物，也会有类似于睡眠的活动。可以说，万物皆睡，亘古如斯。
But partly because it is so commonplace, for a long timesleep 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.
但也许正是因为睡眠太过常见，很长一段时间内科学家在这个研究上好像一直处于“冬眠”状态。直到近半个世纪，研究人员才开始专注于睡眠研究。科学记者肯尼斯·米勒（Kenneth Miller）在他的新书《绘制黑暗》中按时间顺序回顾了睡眠研究的历史——时间虽短，却引人入胜。
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.
全书围绕四位科学家的生平及以及他们辛勤的科研工作展开，其中影响力最大的科学家当属睡眠研究之父纳撒尼尔·克莱特曼（Nathaniel Kleitman）。克莱特曼是一名犹太人，出生于如今的摩尔多瓦共和国，1915年移民美国以躲避俄国的反犹大骚乱，随后在芝加哥大学开创性地设立了睡眠研究项目。
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, ofdreams.
本书开头部分没什么干货，作者浓墨重彩地描绘了人物生平细节和克莱特曼当时所处世界的样子，但后面很快就回归正题—作者花了大量篇幅来讲述成熟的科学知识：先提到科学家如何发现快速眼动（REM）睡眠和昼夜节律（保持人体和外界日夜同步的生物钟），再谈到睡眠剥夺的影响（睡眠剥夺可能致命，至少对实验室动物如此）。此外，书中还探索了“如果做梦有目的，那做梦目的是什么”等问题。
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.
睡眠研究的进步离不开心理学逐渐发展为成熟科学的影响。脑电图可以监测大脑的电活动，诸如此类的新技术让研究人员得以直接研究大脑，而无需通过观察研究对象的行为来推断大脑活动。
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.
本书作者对伟大的科学故事独具慧眼。克莱特曼最广为人知的实验之一要数在黑暗山洞度过32天，以弄清人类身体内置生物钟的极限。米勒乐于展示研究的真实情况，包括研究人员所有的狼狈囧样。
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.
书中有一章描述了一项更为现代化的昼夜节律定量研究，研究地点是位于巴伐利亚州的一座小镇上为实验特别建造的设施。实验室分两间房，没有窗户，也没有钟表，受试者无法了解房子外面的实时情况。受试者要在房里居住数周，想睡就睡，想起就起，但必须用通过长电线插在墙上插座的直肠温度计测量体温。
There is a serious side, too. Shift work interferes with the body’s internal clocks andraises 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).
书中也不乏严肃的内容。轮班工作会扰乱人体生物钟，并增加人类罹患心脏病、糖尿病等疾病的风险。米勒解释道，医学届对睡眠呼吸暂停综合征这一常见疾病的认识过程相当缓慢，但实际上这种病对人体的潜在危害巨大。造成睡眠呼吸暂停的原因是睡眠期间气道频繁塌陷，患者每晚可能经历数百次缺氧。身体反射迫使人在睡眠期间努力呼吸，由此产生典型的喘不过来气、打呼噜等现象。
注释：
1.睡眠呼吸暂停（sleep apnea）：在睡眠期间反复发作的呼吸暂停，尤其是由于气道阻塞或大脑呼吸中枢的干扰所引起的。
2.collapse: If something with air inside collapses, it falls inwards and becomes smaller or flatter. 萎陷;内陷;瘪掉
3.affliction: something which causes physical or mental suffering. 病痛；苦恼；折磨
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.
如果不作治疗，睡眠呼吸暂停会令人极度疲惫，甚至造成更加严重的伤害。米勒举了一对兄妹的例子。哥哥通过在喉咙上切了个小口而痊愈，但妹妹却因常年半夜缺氧，大脑经受了不可逆的损伤。
注释：
1.condition疾病;健康问题
If someone has a particular condition, they have an illness or other medical problem.
oxygen deprivation
2.crippling: 有严重危害的
If you say that an action, policy, or situation has a crippling effect on something, you mean it has a very serious, harmful effect.
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.
新发现往往引发新问题，因此科普书籍很难有完美结局，本书也不例外。睡眠研究在过去50年已取得长足进步，但科学家仍然无法确定睡眠的目的是什么。人人都需要睡眠，因此睡眠的重要性不言而喻。但为何大自然会进化出很长一段时间都对外界毫无知觉、无法对威胁作出反应的动物？研究人员仍在试图解决这一谜团。不过，如果您希望问对问题，那么米勒的这本书是一个很好的起点。
注释：
1.insensate:
①lacking sense or understanding
②lacking animate awareness or sensation
③lacking humane feeling
2.If you see fit to do something, you think it is good or necessary to do it.
翻译组：
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观点|评论|思考
休息一下......
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愿景
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