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. Sleeping alone wasn't the standard during the Middle Ages. In the home as well as at inns and other roadside accommodations, the individual rooms we enjoy today were much less common and complete strangers were often strange bedfellows for the night — a habit that certainly came with its downsides.

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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.