Sleep stories

The positioning of storytelling research within the health humanities is becoming increasingly important and prevalent. In this chapter, Paul Crawford, professor of health humanities, builds on work in narrative across the health humanities, not least in the use of stories for therapeutic purposes, to examine the way that boring, soporific stories, as part of “creative public health”, may counter the deleterious impact of sleep disruption to physical and mental health. Sleep stories can appear in printed and spoken/audio form and are characterised by either a reader/listener engaging with a sleep-inducing, labyrinthine or boring narrative to induce the sleep of others or themselves. The Sleep Charity (2020) highlight around 40% of adults and 50% of children (80% of those with a SEND diagnosis) have sleep issues. Fatigue is also a contributory factor in up to 20 per cent of road collisions, with a quarter of these fatal or serious. Thus, we can quickly sense just how serious and pressing an issue securing regular sleep becomes and that bedtime reading and sleep stories may be part of the solution.