Question

Why do 'fancy' beds (e.g. hotels, those in catalogs, those in fancy guest rooms) have more pillows than one needs to sleep?  I always end up piling the extra pillows on a chair or the floor in order to sleep.  When I do this, I feel vaguely bewildered and guilty.  Am I supposed to be using these pillows for my enjoyment?  Am I doing something wrong when I sleep, to use only one pillow? 

Why are more pillows better? 

Comments

My husband and I have nine pillows on our bed of various sizes, covered with pillow shams. We use them to prop ourselves up while reading in bed. At night, we usually use one or two each.

[misspixie]

I think that they're pretty.

[l.]

I sleep with four pillows. It just feels more luxuriant. I prop myself up when I read, cuddle one to support my back while I sleep and sort of prop them up to block the light sometimes. I don't know, maybe liking a crowded bed is some sort of evolutionary throwback to when we were pack animals. Or whatever we were (I learned science in a red state), but obviously we have some things in common with dog culture...

[Notorious BLT]

Casino's No likes many pillows, but I'm baffled by the practice.

They are firm pillows with wool covers that have cool designs on them. Not really something to lean against while reading unless you put your sleeping pillow against them.

I think they're called throw pillows for a reason... You have to throw them on the floor in order to have any room to sleep.

Even if they were soft I wouldn't think that they made the bed feel more luxurious. But then again, I don't read in bed either, and the only pillow I care about is the single almost flat ancient down pillow under my head.

[Dan]

Well, generally I use two pillows, one under my head and one under my knees to help my back out... I used to sleep with four pillows, since Gee would steal at least two of them... but haven't done that since she's been gone.

[katherine]

Hospital beds: not just for sleeping!!! :) they serve as kitchen table, couch, sexual aid, trampoline, etc. We love hotel beds! Especially when we can bring our own sheets and blankets! :)

[ijk]

You need to read more in bed. Our excessive pillows are all about reading comfortably. When actually ready for sleep...I like the wafer thin pillow I have had since I was about 10....I am pretty certain there is no stuffing at all anymore, just the carcasses of hundreds of millions of dead mites/bedbugs...but I love my thirty year old pillow *shudder*.

[turboglacier]

I think it is some form of (primarily female) conspicuous consumption, similar to having curtains which contain enough fabric to shield their corresponding windows five times over.

I once dated someone who kept so many pillows that they occupied fully half of the bed. It was a real chore to keep moving them, and I frequently asked about their necessity. She believed, however, that they were "romantic" and "luxurious".

Personally, I prefer just one pillow at the start of the night, usually reduced to zero by morning.

[giniki]

There's a scene in the movie "Along Came Polly" where Ruben (Ben Stiller) is carefully taking about a dozen pillows off his bed and putting them away in a drawer/chest. When he tells Polly that he does this every night and puts them back every morning because his ex-wife set it up that way, Polly gets a knife and starts ripping the pillows to shreds until there are feathers flying everywhere. She frees him from this pillow madness! I like the looks of a lot of pillows on a bed, but they get in my way, too.

[ms]

Several pillows can be luxurious, but all those little bogus shams and frilly decorative pillows are just fussy. I think hotels build up with a lot of pillows because it looks fancy, rather than a plain old stark single pillow on each side of the bed.

One hotel I stayed at last year had a pillow MENU! With 10 different pillows you could order delivered to your room:

http://www.thebenjamin.com/6_4_ben_services_amen.cfm

Now *that's* luxurious!!

My husband uses two under the head and one between the knees; I use two when reading and then toss one off when it's time to sleep. Between the 4-5 pillows, two adults, and 2 or 3 stuffed animals, the bed gets pretty crowded. I like l's throwback theory!

[PG]

Excess cushions bother me more on couches than extra pillows on beds, partly because people put stupider things on couch cushions -- itchy, scrapey embroidery and beads and such. On the other hand, when my little sister moved and was tossing lots of stuff, I took one bronze-colored cushion that had little beads on it. It looks nice on the dark blue futon along with a red cushion and a bronze throw, but it's the first to hit the floor when someone wants to get really comfortable.

[long lasting erection]

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