Of disordered sleep and disordered lives: what sleep can tell us about the state of the world

Abstract This article explores the profound entanglement of disordered sleep with disordered lifeworlds. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a German sleep lab and a review of social science literature, the author analyzes how sleep disturbances are not merely biomedical malfunctions but also symptoms of broader social, existential, and ecological processes, ruptures, and anxieties. Rather than viewing sleep as a purely biological process to be measured and corrected, the article advocates for a biosocial perspective—one that recognizes sleep as a dynamic, culturally shaped practice embedded in power relations, social hierarchies, and historical transformations. By examining sleep through the lens of medical anthropology, the article challenges the dominance of biomedical paradigms in sleep medicine, which sometimes reduce complex human experiences to quantifiable data while marginalizing the social, emotional, and political dimensions of sleep. The article highlights how sleep functions as both a site of vulnerability and a powerful force of repair—physically, mentally, and socially—yet resists mastery, thereby demanding humility, patience, and trust. In this sense, sleep becomes a radical practice of hope: a daily surrender to the unknown and a quiet resistance to the relentless demands of modern life. Ultimately, the article calls for sleep medicine that embraces interdisciplinary collaboration, listens to lived experience, and acknowledges that healing is not a mechanical fix but rather a relational, embodied, and often uncertain process.