(7 minutes reading time)
A few years ago, I walked the Camino de Santiago. Before I went, I knew that most pilgrim hostels have shared dormitories. Many beds in one big room. Strangers sleeping right next to you. I imagined snoring, coughing, and people coming and going at all hours.
I wasn’t sure if I would like it. I wondered: Would I be able to sleep well? What would it feel like to have so many other people and their energies so close to me?
But then something surprising happened. Not only did I get used to it, there was something comforting about falling asleep in a room together with others. I found it energetically nourishing.
When I got home, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Why did it feel so strange at first, and then so natural? And why do most of us today expect to sleep alone, behind closed doors from childhood until old age?
I learned that the way we sleep is not normal for humans. It’s a very recent invention.
For most of human history, people slept together. Often in the same room and sometimes in the same bed. This included parents, children, and sometimes grandparents and guests. This was normal everywhere.
So what changed?
The Industrial Revolution
Around 200 years ago, factories and machines changed how people lived. Industrial capitalism wanted efficient workers who were physically rested and disciplined at work.
The separate spheres ideology emerged, dividing the world into public (masculine, work) and private (feminine, home) domains. The home was no longer a place where the whole family worked together. It became a private retreat from the working world.
Those who could afford it started building houses with separate bedrooms. Having your own room became a status symbol. The concept of the ‘nuclear family’ – consisting of just parents and their children, living alone in their own home – became the new ideal.
The Doctors’ Advice
In the late 1800s, medical experts began giving parents advice about sleep. They believed that during communal sleeping, where people shared the same ‘foul air’ (miasma) was a health risk and could cause disease.
In 1894, one particularly influential doctor, Luther Emmett Holt, wrote a popular book on raising children. His advice was to put the baby in a crib in a separate room from day one. He was one of the primary proponents of the idea that children must be ‘trained’ to sleep alone. He believed that children needed to learn independence rather than closeness. Since then, millions of babies have cried themselves to sleep, feeling lonely and abandoned.
To prevent sudden infant death, many experts now recommend keeping the baby close to the parents in their bed for at least the first six months. They also suggest breastfeeding, which works best when mother and child are near each other throughout the night. This raises a serious question. Could sudden infant death, which medicine still cannot fully explain, simply be a young soul’s decision not to live in an emotionally cold world where physical closeness is not felt at night?
John B. Watson (1878-1958) had even more extreme views than Holt. Known as the father of behaviourism, he warned parents that showing too much affection and closeness would result in ‘invincible weaknesses’ and hinder a child’s future independence. He advocated treating children like young adults by imposing strict schedules and maintaining emotional distance, including during sleep.
But was Watson right? Later research suggests that the opposite may be more accurate. Psychologists such as John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth developed the concept of attachment theory. They found that secure attachment, which develops when a parent responds warmly to their child and stays physically close to them, is actually the foundation for true independence, rather than a hindrance to it. A child who feels safe and cared for is more likely to grow up to be a confident, autonomous adult. In contrast, a child who is left alone to ‘toughen up’ may grow up to be anxious, distrustful or unable to form close relationships. What Watson called weakness is actually what children need most.
The Psychology of Fear
A little later, ideas from Sigmund Freud and other psychologists added new fears. They suggested that sleeping near a parent could cause hidden psychological damage. It might confuse a child’s sexual development. This made many parents even more worried about sharing a bed or even a room with their children.
For this reason, we have developed the cultural assumption that sex is an intensely private act, to be hidden not only from the public, but also from family and friends. Our shame became impossible to overcome. A communal sleeping space is considered incompatible with a healthy adult sexual relationship, forcing people to choose between community and intimacy.
But is that really true? Anthropologists who have studied traditional societies have found that communal sleeping does not harm adult sexuality. In many cultures, families or even whole villages slept in the same room, allowing couples to be intimate. In fact, these societies experienced less sexual anxiety and had fewer relationship problems than we do today.
The Business of Baby Products
Needless to say, all of this was good for business. Companies were able to sell cribs (we lock humans up from a young age!), baby monitors and entire nursery sets. Advertising told parents that a modern, science-based home required a separate room for each child. If you loved your child, you gave them their own space.
This architectural form of multiple bedrooms literally built the ideology of solitary sleep into the walls of the middle class. Having your ‘own room’ became a symbol of success and a prerequisite for raising a ‘well-adjusted’ child.
This Became Our ‘Normal’
Generation after generation of children grew up sleeping alone. They learned that this was simply how life worked. It was not a choice, but a cultural preference.
When these children became parents, they did the same with their own children, because it felt natural. It was all they knew.
Most people will react with surprise if you suggest sharing a bedroom with other adults today. Or discomfort. Some may even feel slightly horrified. They want privacy and a closed door.
But where does that feeling come from? Is it a deep human desire? Or could it be the result of 150 years of conditioning and growing up in isolation?
Think about it this way. Someone who has only ever eaten packaged food might think fresh vegetables are strange. Someone who has only ever watched screens might find a book boring. And someone who has only ever slept alone might find a shared sleeping room impossible.
We’ve come to believe that sharing a bedroom must somehow be wrong.
Throughout most of human history, our ancestors slept together in caves, longhouses and single-room cottages. This was not a choice. It was simply how life worked. Bodies stayed close together for warmth and comfort, for safety from wild animals and because space was limited. For thousands of years, falling asleep alone was almost unheard of. It is only in the last few generations that we have made it the rule.
We certainly need spaces where we can be alone with our feelings and thoughts. This need is real and wants to be acknowledged.
However, history also shows us that our need for connection is equally real. For most of human history, people had both. They slept close to others at night and also found moments of solitude during the day. The two needs did not cancel each other out.
Imagine a Soulfamily community where people choose to share a sleeping space. It could be a large, quiet room with beds arranged in a way that works best for everyone. Perhaps with curtains that can be closed to offer some visual privacy when you need to retreat, and with the option to spend a night alone or with a partner in a smaller, separate room when you need that.
We lost that healthy balance between solitude and togetherness when we built walls around our sleep. But with care and intention, we might now find a new balance.
