My Thoughts This Morning [The Nightshift]

First and second sleep. Segmented sleep. Bi-phasic sleep. All terms to describe something very few Americans do these days.

Up until the end of the nineteenth century, most Americans would split their sleep into two different periods of time, with a 1-3 hour window of activity in between.

Possible activities included: Sewing, reading, sex, and chopping wood. Wait…sex… chopping… nevermind. Using oil lamps and the light of the moon, our ancestors stayed busy throughout the dark of the night. I read a story years ago about the dangers of traveling between houses late at night using these sources of illumination. No doubt, giving life to some of our tales of things going bump in the night.

Anyway . . . Since becoming a writer, it seems my brain has made the decision for the rest of me follow a split-sleep pattern. interestingly enough, I usually open my eyes at some point during the witching hour, just saying… Okay, I’m not really saying anything with that remark.

Most nights I wake up for at least an hour, opening WordPress on my phone, and checking to see if I have any comments to reply to. This is my favorite part. A large percentage of the blogs I follow originate from other continents, and many are written in languages other than English. I’ve written about this before, the benefits of translating languages, thereby making fantastic discoveries I could not have made if I’d limited myself to my native tongue.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again/amp

Here’s a link if you’d like to read further.

Joseph Shanklin
February 16, 2020