The adage that counting sheep will help you sleep has given us a lot of jokes, but not a lot of sleep. The idea is very old. In the book Disciplina Clericalis, a collection of fables from the early 12th century, a king summons his storyteller, who is sleepy and doesn't want to tell stories. He tells a tale of a shepherd with 2,000 sheep, and to get them home they must cross a river. The only available boat will only hold two sheep, so they must make 1,000 trips. The first two sheep were loaded into the boat when the storyteller fell asleep. The king woke him, but the storyteller insisted that each sheep must be taken across the river. I'm not sure where the story goes after that; the only copy of the book I could find was a 1519 translation that didn't have that particular story.
The gist of it is that this story hints that falling asleep due to counting sheep was already an established concept understood by many before the story was written. Cervantes later made it funnier in Don Quixote. But does counting sheep in your mind actually help you fall asleep? The research is mixed, but you can see an overview of it at Purple Motes. -via Boing Boing
(Image credit: amenclinicsphotos ac via Wikimedia Commons)
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