“Sleep is the cousin of death.” So says Nas on the hip-hop classic, “New York State of Mind.” Many stories have exploited how vulnerable we are when we sleep. A Nightmare on Elm Street is probably the most famous example, but there are a host of others, some also employing a supernatural element, others taking a more practical route by showing how easy it is for a killer to do their evil while the victim isn’t awake.
In the first episode of Healthy Fears, I look at these examples, then settle on the often adapted novel Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which falling asleep can be a death sentence, for the person you used to be, if nothing else.
