Q: Why is the bed the most dangerous place in the world?
A: Most people die in bed. (p. 81)
* What, to our modern eyes, appears to be a logical fallacy — mistaking correlation for causality — is, in fact, a harrowing peek inside the deplorable sleep-chamber conditions of fin-de-siecle America. These days, we are used to padded mattresses, sturdy frames, and box springs wholly free from ice monsters and giant, harlequin-harvested mushrooms, but such was not the case at the end of the 19th Century, when the possibility of a painful death attended every trip to dreamland. If not from being murdered by one of the phantasmagorical horrors that dwelt in and around the bed itself, then the sleeper would surely succumb to a fall from deadly heights as the bed took flight, or grew outrageously long legs.
Fig. 68 – A child narrowly avoids death
To steel oneself for the dangers of sleep, many prepared for bed with strong narcotics, which had a tendency to produce intense hallucinations in children.
