Communal sleep was the norm in the Middle Ages.

World History

I f you miss sleepovers, you may have been born in the wrong century. Communal sleep was commonplace during the Middle Ages, with entire families sharing the same bed. There was even a standard arrangement in some families, though it wasn't always adhered to: In many Irish households, for instance, it was typical for mom and dad to be in the middle, daughters on the side of the bed closest to the wall, and sons on the other side. The youngest would be closest to the parent they were nestled next to. Visitors, servants, and friends might join in as well — there wasn't exactly a surplus of memory-foam mattresses at the time, so sleeping under the same roof tended to mean sleeping in the same bed.

The practice extended to inns and other roadside accommodations, where the individual rooms we enjoy today were much less common and complete strangers were often strange bedfellows for the night. This certainly came with its downsides — you never know how hygienic a fellow traveler might be, to say nothing of whether or not they snore — but "social sleeping" also led to many a late-night conversation that even nobles who could afford their own beds actively sought out.

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By the Numbers

Dimensions (in inches) of an Alaskan king bed

108 x 108

Recommended hours of sleep per night for adults

7-9

Did you know?

Some people dream in black and white.

It wasn't just broadcast quality that changed when color television became commonplace in the middle of the 20th century. Dreams changed, too. Three-quarters of Americans rarely or never saw color in their dreams as recently as the 1940s, a number that shrunk to just 12% by a 2008 study. It's believed that color TV is the reason. Perhaps tellingly, the majority of respondents who said they sometimes dreamt in black and white were 55 or older, and grew up with limited access to a technology that has since become ubiquitous.