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On a closed-circuit television I watch Marie settle into her room, unpacking her toiletries in the bathroom and arranging her clothes for the next day. Her digs at the University of Chicago sleep lab look like an ordinary hotel room, with a bed, TV, desk, nightstand. Ordinary, except for the camera keeping watch from across the bed and the small metal door in the wall next to the headboard. The door, about one foot square, is used when researchers want to sample the study participants’ blood during the night without disturbing them; an IV line passes from the person’s arm through the door and into the master control room where I’m watching Marie on the screen.
She’s come to the lab on a weekday evening ...
