Appetite for Sleep
/Matthew Walker is Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founder and Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science. Check out his book "Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams" on Amazon.
There are so many good moments in this Interview about Sleep, listen to the whole thing. It is long, I listened to it over three days while I was preparing dinner. He uses the language construction of my Daoist teacher Liu Ming at one point, 'sleep is an appetite.' Liu Ming talked a lot about appetites, the four primary appetites are: sleep, rest, exercise, and food. Then there are things like sex, adventure, killing, and intellect. Appetites can be general or specific. Appetites are what makes us human (or not). Non-humans have different appetites. There is a daily alchemy of appetites that allows us to shift and manage them. Matthew Walker does a killer job of explaining the twenty or so things that change one's appetite for sleep, and the twenty or so things which are changed by sleep or lack of it. Enjoy!
Other Stuff
Matthew Polly has a new 656 page book coming out next month--Bruce Lee: A Life The most interesting thing about it so far is that he appears to be taking the same view of Bruce Lee that I have been taking, namely that he was an actor from an traditional acting family. Traditional acting families are trained in Kungfu from childhood, many of them to extremely advanced levels.
Cool engravings of China from the 1600s!
