I came upon an interesting “fact” when reading the book “Wild Nights Out – The magic of Exploring the Outdoors after Dark” by Chris Salisbury. I don’t know if it is actually a scientific “fact”, but Mr. Salisbury made the following statement; “In the pre-industrial era, and across the world, it was the common habit to have ‘two sleeps’ during the night, interrupted by a brief passage of time in the middle, for all sorts of nocturnal activity. Our assumption of the need for a continuous night of sleep, it appears, is a more modern phenomenon.”

I found this idea to be interesting for a number of reason, not the least is that I have been doing that for many years. My nightly habit is to go to bed early sleep for a few hours, wake and do things until I am fully awake, then head back to bed for another few hours – getting up again in the pre-dawn hours. My wife does the same, usually “shifted” from my schedule by an hour or so. It is not unusual to get up and get a glass of milk and a bite to eat, perhaps read for awhile or possibly write things such as this blog. Sometimes I go outside to check out the weather and such. I am thinking that perhaps I should set up my small telescope so it is easy to do a bit of star gazing. After a half-hour to an hour I am sleepy again, ready to finish the night – waking early to start another day.

I noticed a similar behavior in a small Australian aboriginal village I visited a few years ago. The Natives Australians slept outside using their houses to store stuff – but not to live in, while the rest of us slept inside of our houses. The town would be abuzz with chatter and kids playing until around 9:00 pm, and then become quiet until around 1:00 am, at which point I could hear small groups of people chanting, singing, and drumming – it seemed to be a quiet “mystical/spiritual” time for some of the adults. I never got up to go see what was actually going on, but the singing and chanting was a nightly event. Soon all was quiet again until around sunrise when the town began to wake up with the usual daytime chatter and activities.

I am heartened to hear that my nighttime activities are perhaps “normal” for some cultures. Modern medicine keeps saying that I “should” get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, or more. I haven’t done that since I was perhaps forty years old. I wonder if the “two sleep” approach isn’t perhaps hardwired into our genetics. A story I made up that I find amusing (and interesting) is that perhaps the two-sleeps pattern is an important element of our survival stemming from when a real and constant danger might be being eaten by a large predator. In that environment it would be most advantageous to make sure that someone is always on watch, keeping the fire going and being ready to sound the alarm if need be.

My fantasy about this is that young children go to bed early and sleep through the night because it isn’t safe for them to be roaming around after dark – far better that they are silent and asleep. Once children reach adolescence they seem to like to stay up late into the night, thus keeping an eye out for danger (or perhaps creating it themselves in the tradition of “kids will be kids”) while the older folks get their first sleep of the night. When the adolescents finally go to sleep it is time for the old folks to wake and begin their middle-of-the-night activities, perhaps solo or in groups – taking their shift at guarding the group. The oldsters, such as myself, awaken from their second sleep in the pre-dawn hours (I get up around 4:30 am) to quietly begin to do things to start the day – in my case I meditate, check out the weather and things outside, perhaps start the coffee and take a shower as the rest of the family slowly begin their day.

I like this story (even if it is mostly false) because it reminds me that we are just animals, and that as animals we have built-in actions and biological rhythms (such as the 24 hour circadian rhythm). It reminds me that perhaps it is best to pay attention to what our body wants to do “naturally” instead of trying to force it into a mode of operation based upon artificial needs such as when the factory shift begins or the bus arrives. Of course, this is all much easier to do now that I am retired and have few artificial time constraints. For example, one of my favorite things to do is to take a nap – especially one starting at around 9:00 am. A morning nap is a very delicious thing.