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February 23, 2012
The First Sleep and the Second Sleep
- "He knew this, even in the horror with which he started from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the presence of some object, beyond the room, which had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream." Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (1840)
- "Don Quixote followed nature, and being satisfied with his first sleep, did not solicit more. As for Sancho, he never wanted a second, for the first lasted him from night to morning." Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote (1615)
- "And at the wakening of your first sleepe You shall have a hott drinke made, And at the wakening of your next sleepe Your sorrowes will have a slake." Early English ballad, Old Robin of Portingale
- The Tiv tribe in Nigeria employ the terms "first sleep" and "second sleep" to refer to specific periods of the night -- BBC News - The myth of the eight-hour sleep
Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 23, 2012 11:19 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
I just read a post by Dr. Helen Smith at PJM about this. I left the following comment:
This is extremely interesting. My "normal" sleep pattern is exactly like this. I'm literally unable to sleep more than 4-5 hours at a stretch.Usually I'll stay up till 2:00 am or so, then sleep until my alarm sounds at 7:00. Sometimes I get tired and go to bed early, say 11:00 or 12:00. Then I wake up at 3:00 or 4:00, surf the web for awhile, then try to catch a little more sleep at 5:00 or 6:00. When this happens, I sometimes sleep right through the alarm and am late for work.
So I guess my choices are to either settle for one sleep period (which I usually do), or else go to bed extra early, as WJW said. That's no fun. I'm just not tired at 9:00 or 10:00. But my ancestors who hunted and gathered, and who worked on farms or in factories certainly would have been.
The absolute worst is waking up at around 5:30 or 6:00. By the time 7:00 rolls around, I want nothing more than to be able to go back to bed.
Posted by: rickl at February 23, 2012 4:42 PM
For the longest time I thought there was something wrong with me, but this article fits perfectly with my own experience.
Posted by: rickl at February 23, 2012 4:52 PM
Me three. I get crippling migraines if I sleep more than 5 hours. Most times I sleep in spates of 3 hours then up for about 4 hours and then a 2 hour nap. More than that gets me a nasty headache.
Posted by: Jewel at February 23, 2012 7:41 PM
At my advancing age I now define these time periods as First Tinkle and Second Tinkle.
Posted by: Don Rodrigo at February 24, 2012 10:23 AM
Oh! I'm not abnormal. I do this nearly every night.
Posted by: Toni at February 24, 2012 1:10 PM