Our ancestors slept differently (and Homer tells us this in the 'Odyssey')

Homer's Odyssey , William Baldwin 's Beware the Cat , and Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales all have something in common, and it has nothing to do with literature. The first to notice this similarity was Professor Roger Ekirch of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In his research on sleep that led him to write * At Day's End: Night in Times Past*, he realized that many accounts collected in ancient works ( ranging from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution ) spoke of something known as the "first sleep." He observed the same coincidence in a colonial story from Rio de Janeiro in 1555 that He described how the Tupinambá people ate dinner after that mysterious first dream. He thus concluded that our ancestors slept differently.

So, he set to work. By researching hundreds of letters, diaries, philosophical writings, newspaper articles , and even plays, he concluded that the habit of first sleep was not limited to Europe , but had spread to Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Australia, South America, and the Middle East, until it was suddenly forgotten. It was biphasic or polyphasic sleep , which meant that instead of sleeping straight through the night (about eight hours, as doctors recommend), sleep was done in two four-hour blocks, separated by a period of wakefulness lasting an hour or more.

During that waking period between the first and second sleep, some people stayed in bed (it should be noted that before, until approximately the mid-19th century, it was also common to share a bed with friends or even strangers or travelers , a kind of "social sleeping" that was quite normal when beds were scarce), prayed, went for walks, or talked with their partners. Some even performed some chores or visited their neighbors. This may partly explain why quite a few historical figures, like Leonardo da Vinci, are known for sleeping about four hours a night and then taking a short nap throughout the day. In fact, several studies estimate that more than 86% of mammals (including dogs, rodents, and whales) sleep in various periods.

People prayed or talked with their partners. Some even performed chores or visited their neighbors.

Furthermore, according to National Geographic, in 1992, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted pioneering sleep research with a group of individuals and observed that, after several weeks of confinement in a dark room for 14 hours a day, almost all participants had entered a fragmented sleep cycle. On average, for the entire group, the pattern was bimodal, with people tending to fall asleep early in the evening and again toward dawn. This reinforced many experts' theories that this is indeed our true sleep pattern, although not everyone agrees.

Those who defend it point out that it could serve a survival function, since if people in a group wake up slightly at different times of the night, there would be no average time when everyone was asleep. From an evolutionary perspective, this would serve as a sentinel function in societies like primitive ones, which entailed greater risks. Those who oppose this theory, however, advise against it, as tricking the body into sleeping less instead of waking up naturally after a restful sleep is not advisable. In a 2021 article, Elizabeth Klerman, analyzing the effects of artificial polyphasic sleep, compared it to stopping a washing machine before it finishes a cycle.

But why did we change then? The most common explanation is electric and artificial light. This ended our dependence on sunlight, which led to us working later, nullified natural darkness, and therefore reduced our chances of sleeping . Other experts point out that, in reality, there is no more "suitable" option and that it really all comes down to human adaptability. But Ekirch did conclude with his study that biphasic sleep could go some way to explaining those typical midnight insomnias, which are more logical and normal than we think and should be taken naturally, which, paradoxically, would probably help avoid them.

Homer's Odyssey , William Baldwin 's Beware the Cat , and Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales all have something in common, and it has nothing to do with literature. The first to notice this similarity was Professor Roger Ekirch of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In his research on sleep that led him to write * At Day's End: Night in Times Past*, he realized that many accounts collected in ancient works ( ranging from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution ) spoke of something known as the "first sleep." He observed the same coincidence in a colonial story from Rio de Janeiro in 1555 that He described how the Tupinambá people ate dinner after that mysterious first dream. He thus concluded that our ancestors slept differently.