Who decided that we should all sleep 3-4 feet above the floor? One would think that a mattress on the floor is the simplest, cheapest way to sleep. Plus, you wouldn’t have to worry about the kids thinking that they have monsters under their beds.
One word: Bedbugs.
people floor sleep all over the world.
Bugs are one reason. Another is that it’s much more comfortable to lie down on and get up from a surface that’s not all the way down on the floor.
Also, it’s easier to get out of bed if you can just swing your legs to the side and stand up, rather than having to push yourself all the way up from a reclining position.
ETA: Must learn to type faster.
Space - in a big room - no problem with sleeping on the floor - but in a small room - its dead space - store stuff and sleep on top of it…
I’d imagine with all the sweating we do at night, a bed directly on the floor would get pretty mouldy.
In addition to the reasons already stated, heat rises. It’s colder on the floor, and in winter, staying warm is a priority.
A mattress directly on the floor means no bed frame so no place to put bed springs. This means you need to get the right mattress for your weight and frame and muscles, not the cheap 99$ foam mattress from around the corner.
Now, some people are of the opinion that if we all slept on bare earth, we would have less problems with our spines and so on. To which I can only reply: out camping even with a thin isopad sucks for me, all my joints ache and I can’t sleep the whole night.
Though other people agree that two dozen varieties of springs coupled with two dozen varieties of mattress materials (not only foam, but latex and horse hair and wool and …) is taking things too far, esp. since there’s little that’s been measured and a lot of bullshit from poorly trained salespeople.
Additionally, you need more thickness to cushion against the very hard concrete floor common in western world buildings than against stamped earth common in other places.
It’s easier to give a massage on an elevated bed.
Having to push yourself all the way up from the floor can be a real problem for the elderly or people with arthritis or other joint problems.
Less damage when you crash.
As several have stated, beds don’t have to be elevated, but they’re nicer to deal with when they are. It’s easier (and for some, safer) to get into and out of a bed when you can have your hips on the bed and your feet on the floor. Air circulation underneath can keep the bed drier, and being off the floor keeps the bedding cleaner.
Agree about reduction of the bedtime bug popluation, but I don’t see any mention of rodents. In a particularly sad interview, Carol Burnette said when she was a little girl, the thing she wanted most was a cage that she could sleep in - a cage that would keep the rats away.
Rodents can jump, but they are far less likely to travel to a bed that is off the floor and has no food on it. A bed on the ground is just part of the pathway and they will run back and forth over it, possibly stopping to nibble a finger or toe.
Not a problem for most of us SDMB denizens, but you asked about origins. . .
It’s not just that heat rises, it’s that dirt or stone conduct heat, drawing it out of the mattress.
The higher up, the less frequently your grandparents will trip on you, and the less frequently your rugby mates will urinate on you.
This. If I had to sleep on the floor, I could not get back up. Not with ease, anyway.
That’s a quirk of your heating system. With hypocaustic heat, the floor is warm and cozy. In Korea, most homes have hypocaustic heat and most people sleep on the floor. Bedding is folded up every morning, so space and cleanliness is not an issue. Of course, they also generally keep their homes’ floors much cleaner than most Westerners do.
And you can’t do the standing-tiger/crouching-dragon sex position with the bed on the floor.
I won’t click on that link (I’m at work), but I was reading every entry in this thread hoping that I could be the first one to post “Doggy style!”
From the very descriptive name given to that position, I think I’ve been beaten to the punch.