To sleep or not to sleep? is a Marionet project in partnership with the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of the University of Coimbra (CNC) and the Portuguese Sleep Association, which started in September 2018, with the main goal of raising awareness among the public and health professionals about the importance of sleep and, in particular, about Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS). This is a disease characterised by the occurrence of breathing interruptions during sleep and is still little known, partly due to the difficulty of diagnosis. It is estimated that there are 80-90% of undiagnosed cases of OSAS in Portugal.

This project aims to continue and expand the work of interdisciplinary reflection on OSAS that started in September 2018 in the context of an initiative of Marionet in partnership with the CNC called Unknownness Lab. In this framework, a team of scientific researchers and artists have been discussing and artistically exploring the theme of OSAS. This reflection already had three public moments of the theme in Coimbra, at the European Researchers’ Night (28 September 2018), on World Sleep Day (15 March 2019), and at the Paulo Quintela Theatre, at FLUC (27 October 2020) and again on World Sleep Day (18 March 2022), at the São Francisco Convent, with the presentation of the show Morpheus and Apnea — whose goal was to increase the public visibility of the theme through the creation and presentation of this show. It was created based on clinical and scientific data, as well as testimonies of patients, family members, doctors and health professionals who regularly deal with sleep disorders and with OSAS in particular.

While science-based theatre is a practice about two decades old in other countries, theatre is still not a widely used medium for communicating health issues in Portugal. However, as revealed by a number of studies, the impact of such projects using theatrical expression is high and very effective, especially in the field of Health Sciences (Gray 2009) and has a high potential to complement formal scientific publications, opening new interpretations for data (Schneider 2014). Theatre has a unique potential to interpret, translate and disseminate scientific research findings and medical knowledge in the field of health, often related to complex issues of the human condition, and which often fail to reach those outside the academic environment (Rossiter 2008).

Therefore, the starting points for the project are the reflection already developed under the Unknownness Lab initiative and the ongoing scientific research at the CNC under the project “Obstructive Sleep Apnea Early Diagnosis as a New Strategy to Delay Ageing”.

The final stage of this project is the creation of a documentary film about obstructive sleep apnea, based on the interviews conducted at the Sleep Medicine Centre of the Coimbra Hospital and University Centre (CHUC). The premiere will take place on World Sleep Day, at the Casa do Cinema in Coimbra. After the screening of the documentary, the audience and the scientific and artistic teams will join together to discuss the documentary and the disease.