Zzzzz in Flight

A highly insightful op-ed from the NYT...

The lucky ones will sleep, undrugged. I watch the sleepers. I make a study of them. These are seeming mortals who, though in coach, conk out. With the closed-mouth solemnity of a dignitary lying in state, airplane sleepers seem to me shamanistic. They’re at one with the Virgin Atlantic or JetBlue heavens. In the passenger murmur, overhead beeps and engine hum they hear a lullaby.

Sometimes airplane sleepers use props: that neck donut, earplugs, sleep masks. Surely Lunesta or Ambien sparkles in many veins. But I like to believe that the best of them — and oh how I’ve studied you, sleepers, though I have nothing to teach you in return — use nothing but their own evolved brains, which, as far as I can tell, they trick with small feints at horizontality and internal conjurings of Platonic dark and silence. Maybe this is what’s called meditation.

They evolve in some way — that’s it. That’s why the sleep I’m describing looks so easy, and not a little smug. The sleepers visit a higher plane than the plane. Their utter placidity suggests enlightenment and also efficiency. And this is what I most aspire to, right now: to be able to sleep, perfectly, on a plane.

Fortunately, I'm often counting sheep before the plane hits the runway and will sleep through the takeoff. At around 100K miles a year, it's the best antidote for United's dismal service.