Sleep Demons by Bill Hayes review – an insomniac’s memoir

Reissued with a new preface, this intimate and beautifully written book brings scientific research alive in a heartfelt and deeply personal narrative

Bill Hayes has struggled with insomnia since childhood. At eight he began to sleep walk, which he ascribes to the realisation that he was gay. Racked by self-doubt, his young mind was trying to flee “toward a dreamed-up boy, with a new story, a different version of myself”.

As an adult, he sought answers to his troubled relationship with sleep in the life and work of pioneering sleep scientist Nathaniel Kleitman. Like Hayes, Kleitman was “a man obsessed” with it.