Part of life in Tokyo is that it's a crime to sleep more than five or six hours. A truly good citizen of Tokyo only sleeps four or five. So... how to stay alive and not keel over from lack of sleep? Sleep on the trains! Standing up? No problem! If you start to fall, you'll just bump into the person standing next to you (not even that in the morning, when you're firmly wedged between six or seven fellow sardines) - there's no danger of actually hitting the floor. There's hardly space for your feet down there as it is - a whole body? No - not unless you've just come from a too-fun night drinking and literally end up on the floor of a train of low enough people density that you can take that much floor space. (Not common, but I've seen it a few times - most recently about three weeks ago. The idea of being down there on the floor horrified me, but everyone was being careful to not step on the guy, so I suppose he got home without any boot marks on his back.)
Anyway - the top three photos on this page (at the link below) are of a fellow train sleeper on the Yamanote Line (one of the most difficult lines to sleep on incidentally):
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/CityDreams01.html
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
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