
For more than a year, I slept on a Swedish-made Tempur-Pedic mattress. I’m absolutely positive that you’ve encountered their relentless marketing campaign: The only mattress recognized by NASA and certified by the Space Foundation, Tempur-Pedic features heat sensitive memory foam designed to conform to the contours of the human body, relieve pressure points, and promote deep, uninterrupted sleep. How could anyone resist?

Actually, it’s like sleeping in a giant bowl of reheated oatmeal. The memory foam envelops your body, and you become entangled in a mess of wrinkled, sweaty sheets. With every move that you make, you sink deeper and deeper into the void. The Tempur-pedic is, in words of John Milton, “a dark illimitable ocean, without bound, without dimension: where time and place are lost.”

And, no, it's not good for you back.