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To: EveningStar

An interesting element of the pre-Industrial age that was so typical that nobody made a point about it, had historians puzzled for many years. They kept noticing references to “first sleep” and “second sleep”, until finally it clicked.

Almost nobody slept the night through. Halfway through the night, everybody would get up for an hour or three, to stoke the fire, go to the toilet, likely prepare bread that would be risen in time to bake fresh for breakfast, whatever; and then they would all go back to bed until before morning, when they would get up for pre-dawn farm chores.

Such a sleep pattern made all sorts of sense when you lived an agrarian life. However, with industrialism, people would “work all day and sleep all night.”

However, after all those years on a two-sleep pattern, we seem to have physically and psychologically adapted to it; which may explain all the sleep problems that exist today.

But what about people who still live an agrarian life? The answer to that is that the two-sleep pattern only seems to have existed in the Temperate climates. North of there, darkness prevails much of the year, so the middle of the night is the same as the middle of the day. And South of there, in more Tropical climate, different sleep patterns as well, because of an abundance of light.

But Industrialism came to the Temperate climates first.


22 posted on 01/13/2013 1:10:37 PM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
Temperate zones?

Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?

38 posted on 01/13/2013 2:39:50 PM PST by Scoutmaster (End it now (enditmovement.com))
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
Halfway through the night, everybody would get up for an hour or three, to stoke the fire, go to the toilet,

That starts in the latter part of many people's middle ages.

51 posted on 01/13/2013 4:40:45 PM PST by bgill (We've passed the point of no return. Welcome to Al Amerika.)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

***go to the toilet, likely prepare bread***

So THAT’S where brown bread got it’s start!

Sorry, just couldn’t resist.


55 posted on 01/13/2013 4:58:40 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Click my name! See new paintings!)
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