in the bed, on the bed 的分別

thermostat

here the word 'in' means it is surrounded by or inside. 'on' here means touching superficially only. e.g. i won't stay in bed; i'll just lie down on the bed for half an hour. the former sentence stresses that the body is inside the bed., and the latter stresses that the body is only touching the bed superficially. more e.g. i put the baby in bed carefully and let it sleep. i put my book on the bed and thus my mother scolded me.
/2014