I used to moan about my ten-minute walk to lectures down Silver Street, dodging tourists, getting – accidentally, I like to think – hit by tour guides pointing at buildings, and listening to punters weave tales along the lines of  ‘this was Newton’s toilet but now it serves as a student room for the son of the King of France’. After a month in Tokyo, I realise how naïve I was to think that Cambridge pavements were overcrowded, how innocent I was to judge the atmosphere in Life as sweaty and intimate: my life has been revolutionised by my daily commute on the infamous Tokyo trains. In situations where the London Tube would be deemed full and people would wait for the next one, there’s always room for one (or two, or 20) more on the Tokyo underground. Let’s just say my mornings have reached new levels of intimacy, and I’ve been getting very, um, hands-on and closely acquainted with Japanese culture. But what is really amazing is not playing the  ‘how many people can you fit into a train’ game but the way in which Tokyoites go about their commutes: asleep.

There is admittedly something cozy about essentially spooning your fellow passengers because of how jam-packed the trains are (I’m not a foreign creep using commutes for pervy ends, I promise!), but the efficiency and style that Tokyoites go to sleep with is something truly impressive that goes beyond cozy. They can do it with equal ease, whether seated or standing (to be fair, a lot of the time there is no room to fall over), for the whole journey or just for one stop, elegantly poised in a Sleeping Beauty-esque pose or going for the full-on drool with their mouth open. I’ve never seen anyone miss their stop, with commuters waking up as the train draws into their station and not batting an eyelid for any other stops, nor does anyone do the oh-so-awkward thing of slumping onto their poor neighbour’s shoulder. The other day I was sat between two commuters nodding off, their heads bopping to the lulling movement of the train, but neither of them infringed upon my shoulder space – gone are my days of functioning as a human cushion for strangers on public transport.

Japan is a nation of sleepers beyond just trains. Parents are encouraged to share beds with their children until at least school age, and in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake, sharing a sleeping space with strangers brought comfort to emergency shelters. But the Japanese fascination with sleep is not restricted to situations where sleeping is accepted and even expected: it is much more acceptable than in the West to sleep in meetings or in lectures. This is where sociology kicks in and sleeping is no longer sleep but something else completely: I bring to you inemuri.

Inemuri has attracted a whole PhD dedicated to understanding it from Dr Brigitte Steger of the University of Cambridge. She captures inemuri as roughly meaning 'sleeping while being present in a situation that is not sleep': an inemuri-taker must be able to return to the surrounding social situation when so required and fit in in terms of body posture, outfit, and so on. So, no, bringing your Pikachu onesie and cuddling up in a meeting chair is not acceptable – and, unfortunately, I don’t think exam term library sleeping counts as exploring the concept of inemuri. Sleeping in meetings or lectures can still be a sign of lethargy, yes, but perhaps paradoxically, it’s also an indicator of diligence. Falling into inemuri serves as a sign of work-related exhaustion and therefore of being a hard worker, putting your work before a good night’s sleep. And because in Japan you cannot go about trumpeting your own diligence, you need to find ways of doing so indirectly: what better way of coming across as employee of the month than feigning a bit of inemuri?

I’ve always been told that adapting to new cultures and broadening my horizons is important. If I ever appear asleep in lectures, please don’t interrupt me and please don’t call it a mundane ‘nap’ or ‘sleep’. That’s just me having my inemuri time because of my diligent student ways, and definitely not because I spent the night before googling kitten memes or, heaven forbid, partying in Spoons.