As trainees, we learn a lot about how to do sleep research, yet the question of why is too often ignored. I recently asked a group of trainees to explore the root of what compels them to devote so much of their lives to studying this odd state of existence.
Many trainees enter the sleep field on a personal endeavor to answer questions.
Certainly, those of us who have had mononucleosis have deepened our respect for sleep. Other trainees had witnessed the havoc disordered sleep wrecks on lives, through clinical work experience or knowing someone who fell asleep at the wheel. They urge that sleep must be better understood. We need to understand why we feel the powerful drive to sleep, so that the sleep deficit is not paid for with human lives. Other trainees cultivated their interest in sleep during college classes, from formal courses on sleep neurobiology to informal snoozefests in dark lecture halls too early in the morning.