Snoring

What was quiet during the day becomes loud at night. The throat vibrates, the palate flutters, the air forces its way through a space that has narrowed. You usually don't hear it yourself — but the people beside you hear it, and sometimes you wake up because your own noise has pulled you out of sleep. Medically, snoring occurs when the musculature of the throat relaxes during sleep and the airflow sets the relaxed tissue vibrating. A simple mechanism.

But every simple mechanism has a layer beneath it. And the question is: why does something in you become loud at night — precisely when your mind falls silent? Why does your body need a valve at the very moment you should be coming to rest?

Snoring is rarely a defect. More often, it's a sound that wants to say something.