Posted on 09/09/2014 9:06:31 PM PDT by blam
Eric Barker, Barking Up The Wrong Tree
September 9, 2014
Roger Ekrich noticed many old books, including Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", referenced two periods of sleep being the norm in their era.
Via Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep:
...Ekirch somehow rediscovered a fact of life that was once as common as eating breakfast. Every night, people fell asleep not long after the sun went down and stayed that way until sometime after midnight. This was the first sleep that kept popping up in the old tales. Once a person woke up, he or she would stay that way for an hour or so before going back to sleep until morning—the so-called second sleep. The time between the two bouts of sleep was a natural and expected part of the night and, depending on your needs, was spent praying, reading, contemplating your dreams, urinating, or having sex. The last one was perhaps the most popular.
So researchers did a study. When subjects had no exposure to artifical light they reverted to this 2 stage type of sleeping:
Soon, the subjects began to stir a little after midnight, lie awake in bed for an hour or so, and then fall back asleep again. It was the same sort of segmented sleep that Ekirch found in the historical records. While sequestered from artificial light, subjects were shedding the sleep habits they had formed over a lifetime.
Was this fragmented sleep bad? Far from it. Bloodwork showed that the time between the two sleeping periods was incredibly relaxing and blissful:
The results showed that the hour humans once spent awake in the middle of the night was probably the most relaxing block of time in their lives. Chemically, the body was in a state equivalent to what you might feel
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Living up north, I do try to wake at 0100 to see if the Northern lights are active.
They have been recently.
You have! And I knew another one would twig it! :-D
I used to wake up at 2 a.m. pretty regularly. That was when the VC used to fire rockets at us. Not every night but it was uncanny how you would wake up on the nights when they did.
The Aubrey-Maturin series of novels is one of the best ever written! If any other Freeper reads this I serious recommend they read these books by Patrick O’Brian. If you are truly interested in the world that led to the American Revolution and after then you need to read this series.
You’re in my prayers Cali...
Ambin+shot Grey Goose=8hrs.
I sleep about 4 hours, read for maybe one , fall back asleep again til 7 AM or whenever the sun hits my room.
I have really old dog so I am forever awake.
I also wake up frequently crying and screaming. However, I can’t blame PTSD.
I’m just alone.
How can you be asleep but conscious? When asleep, the body performs what amounts to server maintenance because the server is down. It can’t do that if the server is up ... so-to-speak.
So, whachootalkinboutwillis?
That’s tough. Can anything be done?
A symptom of PTSD? Maybe. More likely just a symptom of paying attention...
26 hour days would be ideal. I once had a few months of inactivity to test sleep theory and found that if I stayed up until I fell asleep naturally then slept as late as I wanted I fell into a 26 hour schedule. Makes me wonder to this day whether humans are native to this planet as I was better rested and more alert during that period.
They were artificial, but they were also expensive, relative to income. Back then, they might have had 1 candle in the middle of the room providing all of the needed light. Today, a lit of us will keep the hallway light on all night so we can take care of our nightly business.
The lesser of two weevils?
It can’t be bad if it is how we developed prior to artificial light. It was probably how we survived in the jungle. By having a few people wake up at points during the night, it probably helped keep predators away.
Due to interminable staffing problems, I work two days at 5am and three days at 2pm.
I’ve learned that the first sleep is for body recharge, then the second sleep for REM recharge. Getting comfortable is harder in the first phase, extremely easy in the second phase.
The key is eating something really nutritious when you wake up halfway through the cycle.
I’ve seen aurora twice in my life, once down here. Red.
Morning nap ... 30 minutes
Afternoon nap ... 30 minutes
Evening nap ... 30 minutes
Oh dark thirty mega nap ... 7.5 hours or so
Just avoiding the long dirt nap ....:o)
“So, whachootalkinboutwillis?”
I’m talkin’ ‘bout a severe sleep disorder. I can get up and walk around, and see my dream superimposed on my surroundings. When you go into REM, and dream about a 6th grade dodgeball game, you body does not move at all. Me? My body thrashes trying to avoid being hit by the ball. Ripped up both my rotator cups 9 months ago, in my sleep!
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/rem-sleep-behavior-disorder
“That’s tough. Can anything be done?”
Nothing has worked so far. I have injured myself many times. Started at puberty. See my #39.
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