Calling all sheep counters! Anyone who yells that in a crowd should take cover, because as many as 50 million Americans might suffer from sleep disorders. Even more surprising, many poor sleepers fail to recognize their problems. Fortunately, everyone can learn about all sorts of sleep disorders, and virtually anything else related to sleep, at SleepNet - a Web site whose subtitle is "Everything you wanted to know about sleep disorders but were too tired to ask."
As the opening page explains, "one of SleepNet's goals
is to link all the sleep information located on the Internet. As new sites
become available they will be linked here." Visitors are invited to send
suggestions for new links to a Webmaster known as Sandman. I assumed the
site would reveal Sandman's identity, but I couldn't find it. Growing
curious, I sent an email message to the Webmaster and asked who he was.
He replied, "I am the Sandman and have been in the sleep field since 1978 -
clinical work, research, and most recently a focus on education." The only
further clue I had was that (although I do not intend to be presumptuous or
sexist) I had to assume that Sandman is a he - or else the name would be
Sandwoman, right?
Although I accepted that Sandman wished to remain anonymous, I wondered why. When I asked, he replied, "When I first set up SleepNet, I noticed many Web sites with people putting their picture and resume on them. It seemed very ego-oriented to me. My mission was to help people, and I decided not to try to take any glory in the process." He went on, "If I had known in the beginning how big the site would become, I might have approached it a little differently. But as the Web site progressed, the Sandman became his own entity, with a different and much freer style than I could [have] as a real person. Sometimes I think about using my name, and it doesn't feel right."
To my mind, Sandman has earned his right to privacy
through all of his hard work on this site, which he inaugurated in March
1995. According to the site's introduction, SleepNet "was
started to help get the word about sleep disorders and sleep deprivation to
the public." Visitors get some idea of the urgency of getting out this
message when the introduction adds: "Each year sleep disorders, sleep
deprivation and sleepiness add an estimated $15.9 billion to America's
health care bill." The consequences of sleep disorders, sleep
deprivation, and sleepiness are significant and include reduced
productivity, lowered cognitive performance, increased likelihood of
accidents, higher morbidity and mortality risk and decreased quality of
life.
In case SleepNet attracts sleep-deprived, fuzzy-headed visitors, Sandman takes pains to simplify their journey. A consistent list of hyperlinks lies at the top of each page of SleepNet, which makes it extremely easy for even the blurry-eyed to navigate from place to place. For instance, you might follow the link to Sleep Disorders, which explains that "approximately 33% of the general population suffer from sleep disorders. Insomnia [is] the most prevalent followed by sleep apnea and others." For the benefit of those who often find themselves tossing and turning, as well as the merely curious, this page also provides definitions of different disorders and lists the symptoms of the most common ones.
As well as providing links to what seems like all of the information
about sleep on the Internet, Sandman also rates much of it. His rating
scale uses icons of owls - one of the night's wide-awake creatures - with
one owl meaning that a site "needs help" and five owls distinguishing
it as "wise, must see." Owl ratings and brief descriptions of sites devoted
to sleep disorders, news, tests, and more can be found at SleepNet's Sleep Links.
Even if you sleep like a baby - a happy and well-fed one,
that is - you can find intriguing spots on SleepNet. For instance, Dream Links might help you
unravel the meaning behind your latest nightmare by pointing you toward the
Dream Interpretation Services and
Resources. If interpreting your dreams strikes you as a little too
Freudian and you want a more scientific approach, try a site called The Quantitative Study of Dreams,
maintained at the University of California at Santa Cruz. It explains
research that aims to analyze and count the characteristics of dreams, and includes descriptions of
several quantitative studies and their findings - for instance, a study of
a 1939 dream diary kept by The Engine
Man, a natural scientist who dreamed frequently of trains.
Sandman also maintains a list of Research Links, with owl ratings and brief descriptions of a range of sites relating to sleep research. The Sleep Home Pages site at the University of California Los Angeles Medical School, for example, gets the top rating of five owls, and Sandman describes it as a "great resource for journal articles, abstracts, and an abundance of information on research." Another link points to the NASA Fatigue Countermeasures Program, which he calls a "great resource for fatigue and its effect on transportation."
A sizable portion of SleepNet serves the needs of
restless sleepers. For example, Support puts visitors in
touch with help groups, like The
American Sleep Apnea Association. The link to Sleep Forums
leads to public and professional discussions of sleep, and each of these
points visitors to more specialized topics. If you follow the path to the
public discussion, for example, the site offers a wide selection of other
forums, including the Children's Sleep
Forum, where you can post, read, or search through messages. Visitors
can also read background information about some disorders, such as night
terrors, which "are characterized by a sudden arousal from slow wave sleep
with a piercing scream or cry."
In the future, Sandman plans to add interactive sleep-disorder-analysis software and a glossary of sleep-related terms. Sandman also says, "There will be Web pages devoted to people telling their stories. Each person will get their own page." He adds, "There will be links throughout SleepNet to post and read the stories."
If anyone forced me to find a complaint about this site, I would say that the Webmaster's use of the handle Sandman disturbed me a little, but only because it kept triggering the "Mr. Sandman" song in my head, with a slight twist: "Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream. Make it the cutest Web site that I've ever seen." Luckily, Sandman did that and more. Sweet dreams.
Mike May is the contributing Web Resources editor of HMS Beagle.
Caleb Brown is an illustrator and biologist living in Montana. By day he drives a delivery van, and by night he draws pictures with his computer.
Endlinks
Dutch Society for Sleep-Wake Research - a meeting place for sleep researchers in the Netherlands.
Sleep, Dreams and Wakefulness - directs visitors to full-text articles, bibliographies, and more on sleep and dreams. From Claude Bernard University-Lyon, France.
Sleep Medicine Home Page - a variety of sleep-related links, including newsgroups and a wide range of Web pages.
Sleep Research Society - organization news, plus the table of contents of the society's bulletin.
Web sites mentioned in this column: