NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

a recent morning, he tried to guess what stage of
sleep the nappers onboard were in. He said that to
reach Stage 1 sleep, the least restorative of the
five stages, riders must be able to slow down the
ir eye movements. To get Stage 2 sleep, riders mus
t relax their muscles and stop moving their eyes e
ntirely.
As Dr. Bazil watched the riders sitting across fro
m him, the nappers’ eyelids fluttered when train d
oors opened. The riders also seemed to clench thei
r messenger bags and backpacks with death grips.
“I suspect all you get is Stage 1 sleep; it’s not
going to be restorative,” he said. “It’s kind of w
asted sleep.”
At a reporter’s request, Dr. Bazil wired up a slee
py subway rider to study his brain waves as he tri
ed to nap. He enlisted Dr. Brandon Foreman, a 30-y
ear-old neurology fellow, whose 2-year-old son, Ju
de, still does not sleep through the night. Neithe
r does Dr. Foreman.
But he has observed how the subway lulls his son t
o sleep, so he tries to replicate the train’s stop
s and jerks when he puts his son to bed. Dr. Forem
an is no stranger to subway napping: He began doin
g so when commuting from Brooklyn during his resid
ency, and said he coveted any sleep he could get.
“Lectures, classes, I can pretty much sleep anywhe
re,” Dr. Foreman said. “But it’s not usually a gre
at sleep. It’s more the nodding off.”
Both doctors met at the end of a long workweek aft
er Dr. Foreman had been up every night dealing wit
h his son’s cold. As Dr. Foreman yawned, Dr. Bazil
had a technician attach 25 multicolored plastic w
ires to Dr. Foreman’s head, connecting them to a m
onitor slightly larger than an iPod to track his b
rain waves. Then Dr. Foreman covered the wires wit