Your Ancestors Didn’t Sleep Like You

Long ago. Before the world discovered the light bulb. People slept much differently than they do now. In fact, everything they did was influenced by their natural body clock rather than this one. The fake digital age in which we exist.

slumberwise.com...

The existence of our sleeping twice per night was first uncovered by Roger Ekirch, professor of History at Virginia Tech.

His research found that we didn’t always sleep in one eight hour chunk. We used to sleep in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night. This range was about 12 hours long, and began with a sleep of three to four hours, wakefulness of two to three hours, then sleep again until morning.

References are scattered throughout literature, court documents, personal papers, and the ephemera of the past. What is surprising is not that people slept in two sessions, but that the concept was so incredibly common. Two-piece sleeping was the standard, accepted way to sleep.

“It’s not just the number of references – it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge,” Ekirch says.

The next time you think there's something wrong with you just remember. There's something wrong with the world, not with you.

a reply to: ADSE255

Makes sense really.
Candles and lamp oil were expensive so you went to bed early.
You got up in the middle of the night to throw wood on the fire cuz it was cold in the room.
Then you got up with the sun....

a reply to: ADSE255
Its the same way many mammal species across the world sleep. When I first learned people used to sleep this way too, I tried it for a couple months years ago when I worked at night. It was actually pretty nice, but I eventually just went back to the eight hour block.

I guess it is just more convenient to me since it is all I have known as long as I have existed in the mortal realm.

a reply to: ADSE255

I wonder if sleeping in two sessions was the root of the siesta?

I've read this before and was fascinated by it, I think it makes a ton of sense and I love old bits of lost history like this.

That being said, human beings are a successful species because of our ability to adapt, and adapting to different sleep patterns is no exception, so although it's interesting and made sense hundreds of years ago, I'm not sure it's legitimate to claim that because we USED to sleep this way, that it's somehow inherently better or healthier for us to still be sleeping this way. We also used to cure disease with leeches, doesn't make that better than our modern methods.

Either way though, fascinating stuff!

a reply to: ADSE255
When Sir Thomas Browne, author of the Religio Medici, is writing about sleep in another work, he remarks "To keep our eyes open longer were but to act our antipodes. The huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia."
He takes it for granted that his readers will know what he means by "first sleep".

a reply to: Bluntone22

Yup, makes total sense. Im completely nocturnal myself. Sleeping at inervals that appease the business world totally clash with me.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

We could learn a lot from our mammanial brethren. Lights and technology were an invention that both bettered our civilization, but not without a price. Everything comes with a price.

Being a shift worker this is my natural sleep pattern anyways,

Basically 3/4 hrs then awake for 2/3 then sleep 2/3, Makes good of body anurithums (?) though I have a lot more energy and I'm convinced it helps testosterone recovery levels too.

Doesn't stop making me a BEAR (Growl) when I'm woken though.

Fox.

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
a reply to: ADSE255
Its the same way many mammal species across the world sleep. When I first learned people used to sleep this way too, I tried it for a couple months years ago when I worked at night. It was actually pretty nice, but I eventually just went back to the eight hour block.

I guess it is just more convenient to me since it is all I have known as long as I have existed in the mortal realm.

Yes that's good. Others like you have also.

Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford, points out that even with standard sleep patterns, this night waking isn’t always cause for concern. “Many people wake up at night and panic,” he says. “I tell them that what they are experiencing is a throwback to the bi-modal sleep pattern.”

Outside of a scientific setting, this kind of sleep pattern is still attainable, but it does require changing our modern, electric lifestyle. Very cool person J. D. Moyer did just that. He and his family intentionally went an entire month with no electric light.

slumberwise.com...

a reply to: ADSE255

We used to sleep in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night.

I can attest to two sleep periods, the first is 3 or 4 hours? From experience, about as long as it takes for the fire to burn down and need restoking. To do that you have to get up and this movement suspends the sleep cycle for a bit.

I don't agree with the twelve hours part as much, though. The Sun is its own waking force. So are the birds that sit above in the trees and yammer, "Get up human, cook something". Let alone having any livestock that brays and whines to be fed.

The further back one goes the more subsistence were living conditions. It takes a long time every day just to draw water, secure fire wood, maintain shelter and feed oneself.

Add in clothing, pest control, enemies, thieving wildlife. People were busy all the live long day.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: ADSE255

Makes sense really.
Candles and lamp oil were expensive so you went to bed early.
You got up in the middle of the night to throw wood on the fire cuz it was cold in the room.
Then you got up with the sun....

As everyone with a woodburner knows.

a reply to: Subsonic

Yes, it makes a lot of sense. It's the reason I myself began questioning my own sleeping patterns, in lieu of questioning my own sleeping patterns.

a reply to: Subsonic

We're successful yes. But with this, imho, not so much. We can succeed at many things in life, but when it comes to Mother Nature...were completely F**cked. No one beats Mama!

a reply to: ADSE255

This is still the most valuable information I've learned from an ATS contributor. It is transformational for many of those who think they have a sleeping problem. www.abovetopsecret.com...

There is a massive industry based around supposed sleep problems that depends entirely on the mistaken or false idea that sleeping once is 'normal'. Your ignorance denying thread is part of opposing that awful mistake.

I suspect these Northern European 'upper classes' who started the unhealthy habit intended that we should fail to assimilate the lessons of our dreams and so gain power over us.

The next time you think there's something wrong with you just remember. There's something wrong with the world, not with you.

I already knew that sleeping 12 hours a day is what nature intended for us

originally posted by: NarcolepticBuddha
I already knew that sleeping 12 hours a day is what nature intended for us

I figured you for at least 16.

a reply to: Kester

Thank you my friend, for your contribution via your thread.

Yes, there is a massive industry based on this, no question.

This is how I view it. ..

*Create the School System and control it.
*Normalize the way we educate people.
*Create avenues in which to cause division.
*Use technology in such a way as to to create population control.
*Create groups such as PC mentality to control said group created by said government.

a reply to: ADSE255

And don't forget the exciting world of energy drinks!!

Whatever's wrong with you, have an energy drink or 3

i dont know. im nocturnal, but ive walked around the woods at night. you cannot see a thing. the only reason i can see anything is street lights, even in the middle of upstate ny, there is sometimes light creeping in from somewhere. or i have a flashlight.

no light, there is no reason to be awake at night. if i had raccoon eyes, i would love it, but no raccoon eyes here, its pitch black out there at night.

so why would they wake up for 2 hours then go back to sleep? who knows. but a 12 hour night might be the culprit, cause i only need 5-8 hours of sleep per night. my sleep cycle is i wake up at the 5 hour mark. i can then decide get up or indulge.