Space Age Miracle Fiber Mattress
Posted on January 17, 2006 Posted by John Scalzi 37 Comments
Our new mattress arrived today, and as advertised, it is filled with some sort of space age miracle material that conforms to your body when you lie down on it — it’s so form-fitting, in fact, that the effect of lying on it is just a little disconcerting, particularly when one tries to move out of the space age miracle cavity the mattress has created to cradle to your body. You have to work up a little momentum to get out of it. Likewise, we’ve warned Athena that her days of bouncing on the bed are over, but as it turns out the warning isn’t necessary because it’s pretty much impossible to bounce on the bed because bed just sucks up all the kinetic energy into its space age miracle surface. I let myself fall hard onto its surface, and just stopped and sank (slightly). It was like falling into a king-sized square of whipped modeling clay. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this, but since the bed is in fact almost disturbingly comfortable, I don’t suspect it will be a real issue.
One of the nice things about the mattress is that it comes with a removable top, so if the cover gets grape juice spilled on it, or the cat takes unfortunate liberties upon it, we can unzip the mattress and clean it off. This makes so much sense that one wonders why all mattresses don’t do this, and not just the ones with space age miracle marketing. Perhaps it will catch on. In the meantime, I expect to enjoy the new mattress, which will hopefully allow me to reach new levels of space age miracle sleep. We’ll have to see.
We have a similar bed – may or may not be the same company. They’re very nice – others beds will seem lumpy after you’re used to it.
The cover is very handy- the underside of our cover is waterproof. Our daughter has thrown up in our bed twice in the last few years. Unpleasant but the cover meant that the smell wasn’t permanent.
My wife and I got a space-age miracle mattress toppper about a year ago, and now I don’t think we can ever go back to life without one. When we buy a new mattress, it’ll definitely be one like yours.
Not to pander to the purient, but if it soaks up all the Kinetic energy, is it a deal-breaker for the other activity people do on a mattress?
Not if someone is on top.
Well, our mattress didn’t come with a removable cover, but its surface is impregnated with Teflon, which is even more convenient; fluids just kind of slide right off, no washing machine required. :)
Our sofas and armchair have been similarly treated, and it seems to work out pretty well; even our dog’s corkscrew-like hair has been unable to work into the surface.
Actually I read somewhere that the space age miracle fibers contain nanobots that are absorbed into your body as you sleep, taking readings of your DNA and transmitting them back to a secret underground lab rumored to be in the Mojave Desert. Ultimately what will happen is that your entire body and mind will be sucked into the bed, and a clone of you will emerge from the space age miracle fibers themselves. It will look like you in every way, but be oddly emotionless and completely under the thrall of the government, who will transmit commands to it directly from the lab (the usual thing — “Conform,” “Obey,” “Alito will protect my rights,” “Shop at Wal-Mart,” “There was a Saddam/9-11 connection,” “Buy the American Idol CD.”). A friend of my brother’s roommate’s cousin tells me there’s a hack you can download to bypass the nanobots and fool them into thinking you’re not in the bed when you are or something. But he disappeared one night while going out to get beer and pretzels at the 7-11 and no one has seen him since.
So, you know, be careful.
The material in the mattress/cover is likely TempurFoam. One of the uses of this material is in light aircraft seats, designed to absorb energy in a crash. So as long as you wear your seat belt in bed, you’ll be fine when the big one hits.
We have the 2″ thick mattress topper as well. Getting up in the morning is hard, because a. it’s really warm and cozy, and b. I’m in a big me-shaped dent. We’ll see how the apparent warmth it adds works out in the summer, but for now, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Except maybe a thicker one.
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Martin, you’re mixing people’s metaphors… that’s not Space Age Miracle Fiber, that’s clearly nano-age fibers that you’re thinking about.
Good thing you posted that anonymously. They’d come after you if they knew you knew.
Was that a noise outside…?
Any ol’ mattress can be made spillproof if you buy a mattress cover.
this is probably a strange request, but could i see a photo of the mattress after you’ve slept in it, just to see the miracle cavity?
Well, now that the mattress is covered by non-space age miracle sheets, the cavity is a whole lot less noticable.
Hmmm. I’d love a pillow out of something like that.
Okay, John, but you’ll eventually take off the sheets to wash them, right?
What is this “wash” thing of which you speak?
I laughed when I read your super fab gorgeous post. It’s so… space age.
John, how did your mattress arrive? They’re actually selling knock-offs at Sams Club; like the toppers, they’re actually vaccuum-packed, so the whole mattress fits into about a 18x24x36 box.
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Ours was delivered by space age miracle delivery guys, who dragged it up the stairs and set it up for us.
Michele: They make pillows too. Do a Google on ‘Tempur pillows’…
I’ve been debating whether to replace my aging mattress or just buy a Tempur mattress top.
Small world…I just had a king sized memory-foam mattress delivered to my house yesterday too. It’s friggin’ awesome. Has that new memory foam smell, which I need to get use to but I can’t wait to sleep in it when the platform for it arrives on Friday.
Where did you get yours and what did you pay, if I may ask?
I got a 12″ thick king-size (5″ of memory foam, 7″ polyurethene foam) for under $500.
You’d have to ask Krissy what we paid, although it was more than $500. The mattress isn’t only foam but also has some sort of space age miracle spring system in the middle that’s supposed to evenly redistribute your weight for better rest (or something).
The memory foam pillows are comfortable, but quite heavy. When I turned the pillow over in the night, sometimes I conked my husband on the head. I now have an ordinary pillow.
Brenda: “When I turned the pillow over in the night, sometimes I conked my husband on the head.”
If I believed in Freud, I’d mention something about a weakened superego during dreams allowing you to act out impulses you didn’t know you had.”
Yea, the pillows are heavy. I wonder what they’d be like in a pillow figh. The pillow might even store temporary impressions of your target.
My mother got a memory foam pillow on the advice of a physiotherapist. She likes it now, but her initial reaction was that it was “like sleeping on a roast beef.”
I have to say, that made me very curious to try one.
Excuse me for being the geek here, but the John’s picture of the Space Age Miracle Fiber Mattress looks a lot like a SimCity game before the city has been built. Makes me want to zone a portion of the mattress for “Light Residential.”
I’m sorry. Really – very, very sorry…
I wonder about the longevity of your matress’s miraculous properties. Will the plasticity giving element dissipate? To complete your clay analogy, will it dry out and crumble? You have to admit, a happy-ever-after ending just doesn’t suit the “quest for the perfect mattress” narrative.
I think what will happen is one day the mattress will suck me into it — and won’t let go.
Ok, now that just sounds like the makings for a fun short story. “The Matress That Ate My Lovers.”
Brenda’s comment got me laughing my socks off. But do try to get that shoot when you wash the sheets, please?
That mattress sounds great. My wife and I are eager to upgrade to a king-size when we have a little extra money, and I think we might as well go all the way and get the super-comfortable space-age mattress. Our current queen-size mattress is definitely showing its age (10 years).
I wonder whether this is form-fitting enough to increase SIDS risk. Not that you have any infants lying around or in the works that we know of…
As for SimCity, I would posit that the entire mattress is zoned ‘light residential’ by default. Oh wait, it isn’t green. Never mind.
“I wonder whether this is form-fitting enough to increase SIDS risk.”
The amount of sinkage is proportional to weight. I sink in a couple inches, a baby sinks in less than half an inch. I have no idea about the SIDS risk but the possibly increased smothering risk did keep the baby from sleeping on it when they were an infant.
I wonder about buying a full-size mattress.
I’m a *total* memory foam junkie, as I’ve bought several memory foam matress pads over the years.
However, I’ve noticed that memory foam tends to degrade into regular foam over time.
Two memory foam pads that I’ve bought have over time become mere regular foam pads, and I’ve replaced them.
I’d love a whole matress of this stuff, but I’m wary of spending so much to have it slowly degrade to become a regular foam pad.
“…I’m wary of spending so much to have it slowly degrade to become a regular foam pad.”
I am so glad someone finally gave me a reason not to buy this otherwise excellent sounding mattress — you see, I have just gone thru a Sleepy’s Kingsdown full-sized mattress which was almost $1,000 in only 3 years! The 1st 2 that they delivered had to be returned in under a month! I finally just kept it and am now desperately seeking a great new mattress. I thought about one of those partial waterbed types, what do you all think? Or is this message relay so old that no one’s coming by anymore? Oh, dear, I may have just typed my little fingers to the bone for nothin’!
PEGGY
Anybody slept on one of those vacuum packed 12′ memory foam matresses from Costco – need to separate the opinions from the foam frosting users to the whole bed being made of foam. Any input would be appreciated,
I’ve got one of those Costco 12″ memory foam beds. It is very comfortable. I like it a lot although it is probably not 100% as good as the real Tempur beds. I would say it’s at least 80% as good for less than 40% of the price. So it is a very good value, imo.
With Costco, you can always return it if you don’t like it so you have little to use by trying one out.