In terms of sleeplessness, Israelis have a “bad” night when Scud missiles strike after midnight.
A “good” night is one in which a missile strikes early in the evening and there are no casualties or damage.
Worst of all are the nights when no missiles are launched. The anticipation of an attack makes it difficult to fall asleep.
Those were the findings of a study conducted at the Sleep Clinic of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, where Professor Peretz Lavie and his colleagues took advantage of public tension under attack to conduct experiments into sleep and alertness patterns.
Volunteer subjects had a sophisticated microcomputer strapped to their wrists. The tiny electrodes recorded how long they slept, how well and how many times they awoke.
In continuing experiments, people in the Greater Tel Aviv and Haifa areas, the main targets of the missile attacks, were disconnected from the electrodes during the alert and reconnected after the all-clear.
Most fell asleep within minutes.
Lavie, who heads the Technion’s sleep laboratory, said that was a sign of adjustment to the situation.
He also analyzed the subject’s dreams. He said the most frequent anxiety dream was of running to catch a bus and suddenly remembering having left one’s gas mask at home.
“The siren is sounded and the person wakes up in alarm, putting an end to the dream,” Lavie said.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
