It saddened me to hear people say that they used reading as narcotic. They do not read to gain knowledge, to live a vicarious life, or even to read to be taken as an erudite. They read to welcome boredom and tiredness so that sleep comes easy.
Of course there are people who also can not go to sleep without reading first, but their reasons are different. These people read before going to sleep because their obsessive-compulsive brains tell them to; it reminds them that it has not learned anything new however trivial it may turned out to be.
Featured in the BBC a few weeks ago is a hotel that offers a read-me-to-sleep services to its patrons. Judging from the advert shown, the reader does not stop reading until the client falls asleep. If I were to become one of their lucky customers, the reader would read himself/herself to hoarseness or she may read herself to sleep first before I would in the silence of the dawn.
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An old joke says, "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend, and inside of a dog its too dark to read." :))
ReplyDeleteI like the way you have labelled reading being narcotic. At this I would say that it actually depends on the content being read by the person. I'm saying this because I'm a student of engineering and can narrate to you instances when I could start and finish Archer's novels within a night but would doze off in minutes after reading a couple of pages from my syllabus.
The theory of relativity is verified here, I guess.
Who hasn't fallen asleep while reading? It's the intent that counts. Reading with the intent of falling into sleep should not even come into the equation. (pun intended)
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment though. You have my eternal and everlasting gratitude. Someone is actually reading my blog.