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 ...
Keep in mind that in England at the winter solstice, darkness lasts about 15 hours.
Every hour of sleep before midnight counts as two.
The big news here is it turns out someone invented electricity
@blam - thanks for posting this. Interesting. I’ve never heard of this. A neuroanatomy professor started off his 1st lecture asking the class; “What is sleep?”
After listening to the various ‘answers’, he flat-out stated that scientists do not know why we need to sleep - we don’t know what it is. Sure, we know re-charging occurs, but why we require this particular activity (sleep) remains a mystery.
I actually like this kind of natural mystery. It’s in the *We will never know*-box. He caught my eye at the end, and asked me - I stated (because I believe it to be) a somewhat out-of-place for the setting, but nevertheless spiritual answer...I said it (sleep); “...is a “little death”...” rendering him speechless, astounded, mocking, I don’t know. I didn’t care.
I still believe it’s the truth. Sleep is “from God” - a very personal reminder (isn’t it?) - of our mortality. I’m not saying this to be preachy, or ruffle feathers, just to say...consider it from this angle. (1Thessalonians, Corinthians, other verses speak of the “dead (shall) rise” at Christ’s 2nd coming, iow, death is sleep - use an online concordance, study it if you’re so inclined - I don’t mean to jerk this thread into all unmanagebleness)...
In this early morning of my wakefulness, I read a surprising - more, a sad amount of pain...suffering here. I grieve with you who are “alone”, or struggling with traumatic mind-movies that interfere with your sleep and healing. I understand that the brain is an organized and organizing entity. It creates “order” - it requires it. It is like some vast, infinite library (if you can imagine it), with the old-style index card catalogs - stretched out into an unimaginable distance. It was originally built for infinity after all...
...those experiences, those traumas that keep re-playing, are the brain’s efforts to organize. To categorize. To “put it away HERE”, to make some sense of random & traumatic life events. To HEAL.
Just a thought. I suspect that this re-playing occurs because in some way, we are not processing our grief, not facing it perhaps, not allowing it to go through its natural phases (shock, denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance)...is it fear? Uncertainty? I don’t know. As I say, I GRIEVE with you. This suffering I wish for you to end. I’m surprisingly moved by the personal revelations here. (must be the early-morning ya think? Ha!)
I have found great relief (from interrupted sleep, from upsetting dreams, etc.) with prayer before bedtime. Asking God to protect my sleep. It helps when I pray believing.
YMMV.
I wish you all peace. rest from such suffering.
And a poem.
Sometimes I can’t find sleep
pressed in-between the crystal sheets
of thoughts and dreams that no one keeps
‘cept me.
Locked within the fire’s glow
the secrets of ancients burn
storytell low.
In night burning billions of blisters of light,
whispers the wind
she says
Go.
I get up in the middle of the night quite frequently. I read FR for a while and then go back to bed. I never knew it was as common as is being reported here.
My goodness. That is awful! Absolutely awful.
I get that part. I don’t understand how it’s physiologically possible. I’d like to know what mechanism allows it to occur.
I saw a perfectly formed 4’ long dragon flying in the bedroom
It was very real...
Read up about Low Dose Naltrexone and find a good doc that will work with it.
PS start with an extremely Low Dose and work up to the regular Low. Dose
Lurking’
Oh.
I’m sorry to hear that.
Mini death.
I’ve thought of it that way too.
I suffered from severe -- and worsening -- insomnia for 35 years before I finally saw a doc who knew what he was doing in the later 1980's. I would strongly urge you to get a second opinion. Ativan is not a therapy.
As I get older I notice I wake up numerous times a night. The good part of this is that I remember more dreams even though the end of a good percentage of them is me looking for a restroom.
It’s a Gutfeld - but a really good one... enjoy.
Greg Gutfeld is hilareous sometimes
I used to like that RedEye show he had
Ativan gave me heart palps. wasn’t taking it for sleep. Pre-op.
I take 400 mgs. of magnesium and 50 mg. of zinc everyday and I only wake up when I forget to take it, I do get up to do business and check old doggie but I fall right back to sleep.
Ha.. I wish I could get that much sleep.
I finally get to go do a sleep study next week to see what is going on. Hopefully I can actually fall asleep.
Fairly sure I have sleep apnea and have since I was a kid.
Sometimes I can fall right asleep but rarely stay that way.
Mostly it takes me a few hours to get to sleep and then I wake up a few times. Sometimes I can fall right back to sleep and other times it might be hours. Then if I do fall asleep again I usually have a massive headache when I get up.
Started Cymbalta about 2 months ago for nerve pain, I take it in the morning because I was hoping not to mess with what little sleep I get.
It was okay until about 3 weeks ago when the strange dreams started and one night I even got out of bed. I had felt the presence of something in bed with me and I was looking around the room and hallway. I thought maybe the cat had been in there but she was in the kitchen.
That might have been the night of the 31st and it was my dog that died 3 years ago that I felt with me. I felt like something was lost and I had to find it. I woke up after I was already standing and looking at my covers that I had thrown off. Not in the same house or even the same bed I slept in back then. But she had spent time in that house for a few years.
It’s not easy for me to get out of bed when awake I don’t know how I did it when I was asleep.
I don’t dream that often so when I do I can recall that I did. I have had a lot of really out there dreams lately. I looked it up and found that it isn’t an unknown side effect. But also said when they stop taking Cymbalta they have “horror movie” night mares. Just something to look forward to if I get taken off of it since it doesn’t seem to be working.
—
Just hoping for no dreams/night mares tonight. I had flying and plane crash ones leading up to 9-11-2001. Also had similar dreams before Challenger and Columbia. Never been on a plane and never will.
One I had about two weeks ago involved lots of trains at a platform.
does getting up to pee count?
bookmark
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