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Sleeping On The Floor
The Sufis have a saying, about how if you sleep on the floor, you won’t fall out of bed. What they don’t mention is that it may make your back and shoulders hurt if you have grown accustomed to a regular mattress.
I gave up on mattresses after moving back out East in the beginning of October. I’m not planning on staying here, spent a good deal of time crashing at a friend’s, and wanted to give myself the on-going challenge of adapting to sleeping on the floor.
I am not just sleeping directly on the floor though. I have a couple of blankets under me. And I recently bought two sheep skins which I have underneath that (and under that is a carpet). I have to say, that the sheep skins made all the difference in the world. Sheep skins, I’m willing to say, pretty much rule.
In any case, I’m curious to find if there are any fellow floor-sleepers out there, and what their arrangements are like. I think, technically, my sleeping arrangement could be described as a “pallet”, since it’s a makeshift temporary bed. I fold it all up and put it in my closet as soon as I wake up.
How the hell did people the world over sleep before mattresses? Obviously there must be tons of other options which we just don’t hear about. What are some of them, along with their benefits and drawbacks?
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November 15th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
I slept on the floor of my room for a year at least, at still do occasionally. Something about the austerity and not needing a mattress or bedframe appealed to me. Plus, as a not-as-frequent-as-I’d-like traveler, I figured it would be beneficial to be able to sleep in many different situations (although I still can’t sleep on a goddamned plane). Anyway, sleeping on the floor was early practice, I suppose, preparing myself (my spine) for whatever situation came my way.
I slept with a couple blankets beneath me and could fold it up and put it in the corner when I wasn’t sleeping. I dunno, I just really like the idea of being mobile, being able to move fast and easy if I need to.
November 15th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Yeah, I feel creepy and dead if I can’t live like that.
November 16th, 2007 at 4:32 am
Nothing beats it after a kegload of beer: sleeping on the floor and then waking up to the bright silence of a clear frosty morning… puts you back in touch with a heck of a lot of things.
November 16th, 2007 at 6:01 am
Lovesacs
November 16th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Tim,
I think if you really want to go for it, get the most out of this experience that you possibly can, you should live in a tent squatting illegally somewhere. It will wake up your senses, you will feel like a wild animal. You will become crafty and illusive. You will totally lose all fear of the dark if you ever had any. Darkness will become your friend.
I never got around to writing about this experience I had doing this. I was going to write a three part serries. This would be the best part.
But after i got this out of my system, I was ready to have nice things when I got an apartment I got a nice bed.
The homeless thing was by choice. I could have continued to live in a bad area with a horrible room mate or with my Mom, but i chose freedom. But It was just like a little boost to my self esteem in learning i can be resourceful, after that I moved on.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
The tent thing sounds cool. Have you heard of Eustace Conway? I just got my elk hide in the mail which I slept on as part of my pallet for the first time last night. One elk hide as base, two sheep skins, a quick and two blankets. Way more comfortable!
November 16th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
No, I never heard of her.
The cool thing about living in the tent is that I was pretty close to passers by and no one knew I was there. I would come into my camp at night and take a different route each time. That way I wouldn’t create a path to my camp. I would get up at dawn when no one was around. The advantage of living in a college town is everyone walks around with backpacks. So I blended right in.
No rent, not utilities. My yard was a park. I could hear a lot of animal sounds at night but also cars. But it was cool finding my camp at night in total darkness by feel. Wakes up senses you don’t normally use. I kept all my stuff in my car though, besides just my sleeping bag in case some one found my tent.
November 16th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main....;xml=/earth/2007/11/14/scisurf114.xml
Apparently this homeless surfer decoded the universe.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
a couple questions:
where did your idea to sleep on skins originate?
do you have a favored source for them, having purchased three (or more?) by this point?
I’ve been sleeping on the floor semi-regularly recently, just on some blankets, and while I really dig the intention, I’d like the action to be a bit more pleasant.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
I’m not sure how the skins thing originated. Ancestral memory maybe? Wanting to pretend like I’m some kind of tribal nomad? Wanting a natural alternative to things which we now take for granted as being modern necessities? Some combination of the above.
I buy my skins on eBay. I don’t know anything about the subject, really, but have learned a lot just by looking around on eBay and seeing what I actually like, and then tracking things over time for regular pricing, etc.
I’ve also been experimenting with different configurations of the three skins on the ground to see what is the most comfortable and also the warmest.
November 19th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Sheepskins can get bugs just like sheep so check below the fibers. If you smell too much of a chemical smell don’t use them, it could be formaldehyde. That shouldn’t happen from a modern, reputable dealer. Wash them with plain soap and water. Buy a bottle of Lanolin and a cat/dog brush to restore the nap and luster. (My Dad worked with skins long before I was born.) I don’t know what to advise on the Elk though. The Lanolin should work just as well on the Elk as on the Sheepskin.
November 19th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Interesting and worthwhile information. Thanks! There is definitely a small amount of elk hair all across my room now!