ABSTRACT
It is now time, set against the backdrop of the preceding two chapters on changing theories and ideas, patterns and practices of sleep through the centuries, to examine more closely and intimately the relationship between sleep, embodiment and the lifeworld. The aim, in doing so, is to put further flesh on the bones of the arguments developed thus far, starting with a phenomenological investigation of the ‘dormant’ or ‘sleeping’ body, and moving outwards, so to speak, to other embodied themes and sociological issues concerning the ‘doing’ of sleeping across the life course, co-sleeping practices, and finally the literal and metaphorical links between sleep, death and dying. The chapter, in this respect, adds further phenomenological and sociological insights into sleep, which themselves provide a crucial bridge or stepping stone to broader sociological themes and issues taken up and addressed in the remaining two chapters: the ‘missing link’ one might say between the micro and macro domains.
