What strange creatures we are, we yawners, a category that extends across species to include, I am told, mammals of many shapes, colours and stripes. How incomprehensible it is to us that we are sometimes taken, possessed even, by a fit of our physiologies, to extend our jaws and exhale with an intensity that animates only the orgasm and laughter.
I am not an insectist, nor a plantist, but I am not certain that the ant and the mosquito yawn, and I have never witnessed a plant expressing this desire to sleep. Of course, some might argue that the plant is in a permanent semi-sleep, inhabiting a space between life and death, dreaming of everlasting growth or suffering nightmares of drought, decay and, horrors, ecological extinction. But the mosquito, it is possible, will laze away into tranqullity after it has sucked its vampiric fill, inducing in its victim an agitated movement to extinguish that itch, a yawn-killer of note. The mozzie, as some compatriots refer to this noble species, might well yawn before it sleeps (do they ever?) and again feels the itch to suck; and the ant, well, it probably isn’t allowed to yawn as it incessantly goes about its communistic labour for the greater good of the colony.
But the mammals, at least, all have a profound relation to sleep, and to that paroxysm that precedes it. The animals other than us are free of the social graces that oppress us, and have no need to stifle this luxurious interruption of waking life. The Animal Channel is replete with lions magnificently boasting dangerous dentures; and who has not seen a cat or dog betray its utter disinterest in human attention? But we humans, poor slaves to convention, must cover our mouths to avert offence, lest our friends perceive this most involuntary of acts as a slight, an expression of boredom and a yearning to be elsewhere.
Researchers, those Columbus-like ”discoverers” of the obvious, now tell us that the yawn is a rush of adrenalin. In a spectacular reversal of their normally mundane dabbling, psychology lecturer Catriona Morrison’s position paper is forcing us to overturn common sense. We have always imagined that the yawn is the very opposite of a call to action, the traditional understanding of the adrenalin surge.
The same learned academic from the University of Leeds, not particularly renowned for groggy pastimes, has furthermore concocted evidence that cannot but lead to the deduction that human yawning is an opportunity for empathy, that cohesive factor that must diminish if we are to complete our devolution into a globalised hierarchy of grasping slaves. When one individual yawns, others yawn in sympathy, and females, Catriona asserts, are more likely to yield to this expression of solidarity.
Earlier, in July to be precise, another Columbus found — or manufactured — evidence that yawning is a mechanism to cool an overheated mind, since the stretching of facial muscles sends oxygenated blood to the brain, that most precious of human organs according to ascetics. Gordon Gallup of the University of Albany says yawning is not an expression of boredom but a sign that the tired listener is taking the trouble to replenish her brain the better to listen more attentively.
All this, some would say, might simply point to the conclusion that women yawn more than men, especially when they are not themselves doing the talking. But I would never subscribe to such an outlandish, unscientific and macho interpretation.
Meanwhile, the Mayans, researchers of note, believed — like certain Europeans (real researchers this lot) — that one should cover one’s mouth when one yawns to stop the soul from escaping to a higher realm. Firm believers in the superiority of lower regions, they also believed that the yawn is an expression of sexual interest, an interpretation I find encouraging, especially since females seem to yawn quite a lot in my presence. This latter theory, Wikipedia fails to notice, goes hand in hand with the theory that yawning cools the overheated brain. But regarding their former theory, a colleague insists that this was simply a cover-up for the appalling state of Mayan dental care. Which leaves us to explain the European angle: might they also have suffered from bad teeth? Of course, my colleague has absolutely no credentials as a researcher. A fact which inclines me to his point of view.