Photographs Document The Science Of Sleep With Gorgeous Results (PHOTOS)

The Science Of Sleep

We spend a vast percentage of our lives sleeping, and most of us have no clue how we look or act in this altered state. Enter Ted Spagna, a photographer devoted to documenting the sleeping habits and positions of others.

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pgs 36-37: Ann ca.1980

From the 1970s until his death in 1989, Spagna snapped time-lapse photographs of others enjoying a healthy REM cycle. The dreamy series, simply titled "Sleep," is somewhere between a Eadweard Muybridge print and a sentimental snapshot you'd treasure for years.

Spagna captured the choreography of sleep for a variety of subjects including couples, children and cozy groups of friends, creating a chronological grid of their various movements. "I was surprised to see another self that existed in sleep that I didn’t know about," he told the New York Times.

A book of Spagna's hypnotic sleep cycles will be available in September. In the meantime, would you like your nightly movements translated into art? Let us know in the comments.

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pgs 34-35: Alexis 1981

2013-08-08-70_71TedSpagna_RobPatty1985.jpg
pgs 70-71: Rob & Patty ca.1985

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pgs 82-83: Chick ca.1980

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Billy & Anita (detail) 1980

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pgs 14-15: Seymour 1979

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pgs 60-61: Vincent ca.1985

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pgs 90-91: Wave of Sleep (details) ca. 1980

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pgs 64-67: Peter & Cat 1979

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pgs 68/69: The Prokops ca.1977

All images courtesy of George Eastman House and the Estate of Ted Spagna.

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