Crawling out of bed one morning recently, I fumbled for the mobile phone - placed deliberately out of reach the night before - and choked the alarm savagely. Bleary-eyed, I stared from the window at the inky blackness of late November and checked the phone again, thinking it must have been set for 4am instead of 7, by mistake. No such luck. An hour later, my heartbeat restored by strong coffee, I read a fascinating article on the New York Timeswebsite by a man named Graham Robb, writes Frank McNally.
Robb has just written a book called The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War. And in the NYT piece, he was contrasting Nicolas Sarkozy's ambition to scrap the 35-hour week with the struggle of his distant predecessors to end a situation in which large sections of the French population underwent de facto hibernation for half of every year.
"Economists and bureaucrats who ventured out into the countryside after the Revolution were horrified to find that the workforce disappeared between fall and spring. The fields were deserted from Flanders to Provence. Villages and even small towns were silent, with barely a column of smoke to reveal a human presence. As soon as the weather turned cold, people all over France shut themselves away and practised the [ now] forgotten art of doing nothing at all for months on end." Robb notes that elsewhere in Europe, in very harsh climates, human hibernation could sometimes be an economic expedient. He cites a British Medical Journal report, circa 1900, about peasants in the Pskov region of northwest Russia: "At the first fall of snow the whole family gathers round the stove, lies down, ceases to wrestle with the problems of human existence, and quietly goes to sleep. Once a day everyone wakes up to eat a piece of hard bread. [ They] take it in turn to watch and keep the fire alight. After six months of this reposeful existence the family wakes up, shakes itself [ and] goes out to see if the grass is growing." But the French didn't need the excuse of a harsh climate, Robb says. "They 'hibernated' even in temperate zones. In Burgundy, after the wine harvest, the workers burned the vine stocks, repaired their tools and left the land to the wolves. A civil servant who investigated the region's economic activity in 1844 found that he was almost the only living presence in the landscape: 'These vigorous men will now spend their days in bed, packing their bodies tightly together in order to stay warm and eat less food. They weaken themselves deliberately.' " The concern of those 19th century economists and bureaucrats was that while France slept, Britain boomed. There, people were packed into cities and worked all year-round in the dark Satanic mills, making their country - if not themselves - rich. By contrast, income was a disincentive to work in France, where the peasantry's aim during summer was to earn just enough to take the rest of the year off.
The question that struck me, reading Robb's article, was whether the Irish peasantry ever hibernated. I certainly don't recall FSL Lyons or Roy Foster mentioning it; and although many histories do stress their love of down-time, our peasant forebears are usually depicted in high-energy leisure pursuits, such as dancing, playing music, having fights, and plotting against the English.
Even so, it's an attractive notion that they might have spent entire winters in bed, if only because it would help explain why some of their descendants find it so hard to get up these mornings.
It is unlikely, to be strict about it, that even people in Pskov hibernated in the sense that animals do: slowing their metabolisms to near standstill for several months. Full-scale human hibernation is still in the realm of fantasy: most memorably imagined in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the unhinged computer switches off the life support of the scientists who have been placed in suspended animation for the long trip.
But the reality is getting closer. Real scientists have already successfully induced short-term reversible hibernation in mice and pigs, with no ill effects; and human trials are close. The implications are not confined to space travel. There would also be big benefits in medical treatment if patients' need for oxygen could be dramatically reduced. Mere aversion to winter is not a priority of the research, yet. But like plastic surgery, the technology may be available on demand eventually.
Large-scale voluntary hibernation would have disastrous effects on GNP, of course. But that's the old economic model, pre-global warming. Now we're beginning to count the high cost of keeping humans awake and functioning throughout the winter months: the bright lights, the heating, the coffee - shipped half-way round the world - the endless Christmas parties, the weekend luxury spa treatments.
Soon it may be clear that, by just staying in bed, we can help save the planet. Perhaps in future, as a committed environmentalist, you will retire for the year around November 1st, with a hot-water bottle and a copy of War and Peace.
You will turn the radio on, down low: tuned to the BBC World Service, to wake you in case something big happens. After that you'll take your hibernation tablets. And finally, just before sleep descends, you will set your alarm for April: placing it deliberately out of reach of the bed, so you have to get up then.