MrRING
Android Futureman
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- Aug 7, 2002
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I have heard that Biphasic sleep was a common phenomenon in the European Middle Ages, where people would wake up in the middle of the night and be active for a few hours, then go back to sleep. I was curious, so I set out to learn a little bit more.
What it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biphasic_and_polyphasic_sleep
Here's some of the historical work from the same article:
And I did come across this site where somebody experimented with a biphasic pattern with mixed results:
http://renaissancehumans.com/what-two-weeks-of-biphasic-sleep-did-to-me-polyphasic-sleep/
Does anybody here have any long-term experience with trying it?
What it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biphasic_and_polyphasic_sleep
Biphasic sleep (or diphasic, bimodal or bifurcated sleep) is the practice of sleeping during two periods over 24 hours, while polyphasic sleep refers to sleeping multiple times – usually more than two.[1] Each of these is in contrast to monophasic sleep, which is one period of sleep over 24 hours. Segmented sleep and divided sleep may refer to polyphasic or biphasic sleep, but may also refer to interrupted sleep, where the sleep has one or several shorter periods of wakefulness. A common form of biphasic or polyphasic sleep includes a nap, which is a short period of sleep, typically taken between the hours of 9 am and 9 pm as an adjunct to the usual nocturnal sleep period.
Here's some of the historical work from the same article:
Historical norm
Historian A. Roger Ekirch[17][19] has argued that before the Industrial Revolution, interrupted sleep was dominant in Western civilization. He draws evidence from documents from the ancient, medieval, and modern world.[18] Other historians, such as Craig Koslofsky,[20] have endorsed Ekirch's analysis.
According to Ekirch's argument, adults typically slept in two distinct phases, bridged by an intervening period of wakefulness of approximately one hour.[19] This time was used to pray and reflect,[21] and to interpret dreams, which were more vivid at that hour than upon waking in the morning. This was also a favorite time for scholars and poets to write uninterrupted, whereas still others visited neighbors, engaged in sexual activity, or committed petty crime.[19]:311–323
The human circadian rhythm regulates the human sleep-wake cycle of wakefulness during the day and sleep at night. Ekirch suggests that it is due to the modern use of electric lighting that most modern humans do not practice interrupted sleep, which is a concern for some writers.[22] Superimposed on this basic rhythm is a secondary one of light sleep in the early afternoon.
The brain exhibits high levels of the pituitary hormone prolactin during the period of nighttime wakefulness, which may contribute to the feeling of peace that many people associate with it.[23]
The modern assumption that consolidated sleep with no awakenings is the normal and correct way for human adults to sleep, may lead people to consult their doctors fearing they have maintenance insomnia or other sleep disorders.[18] If Ekirch's hypothesis is correct, their concerns might best be addressed by reassurance that their sleep conforms to historically natural sleep patterns.[24]
Ekirch has found that the two periods of night sleep were called "first sleep" (occasionally "dead sleep") and "second sleep" (or "morning sleep") in medieval England. He found that first and second sleep were also the terms in the Romance languages, as well as in the language of the Tiv of Nigeria. In French, the common term was premier sommeil or premier somme; in Italian, primo sonno; in Latin, primo somno or concubia nocte.[19]:301–302 He found no common word in English for the period of wakefulness between, apart from paraphrases such as first waking or when one wakes from his first sleep and the generic watch in its old meaning of being awake. In old French an equivalent generic term is dorveille, a portmanteau of the French words dormir (to sleep) and veiller (to be awake).
Because members of modern industrialised societies, with later evening hours facilitated by electric lighting, mostly do not practice interrupted sleep, Ekirch suggests that they may have misinterpreted and mistranslated references to it in literature. Common modern interpretations of the term first sleep are "beauty sleep" and "early slumber". A reference to first sleep in the Odyssey was translated as "first sleep" in the seventeenth century, but, if Ekirch's hypothesis is correct, was universally mistranslated in the twentieth.[19]:303
In his 1992 study "In short photoperiods, human sleep is biphasic", Thomas Wehr had eight healthy men confined to a room for fourteen hours of darkness daily for a month. At first the participants slept for about eleven hours, presumably making up for their sleep debt. After this the subjects began to sleep much as people in pre-industrial times had. They would sleep for about four hours, wake up for two to three hours, then go back to bed for another four hours. They also took about two hours to fall asleep.[16]
And I did come across this site where somebody experimented with a biphasic pattern with mixed results:
http://renaissancehumans.com/what-two-weeks-of-biphasic-sleep-did-to-me-polyphasic-sleep/
Does anybody here have any long-term experience with trying it?