I find this extremely interesting! for some of our insomniacs!

[Guest guest]

I thought I would post this info, as I have done some research and had never

heard of this!!!

Ok, so it appears to be true that humans naturally have biphasic sleep. Before

the advent of lighting, we all apparently went to sleep for about 4 hours when

it got dark, then woke for an hour or so, and then slept another 4 hours.

Depending on who you were, and how you were feeling, people would either

meditate/pray, analyze thier dreams, talk to others, have sex, or just reflect

quietly on the day. The book I finally found on this topic is written by a

historian, and he has tons and tons of references that this in fact has been

true throughout history, before there was artificial lighting. He mentions an

experiment done at on modern people, (national institute mental health),where

they imitate pre-industrial households, and indeed, eventually we all exhibited

this biphasic sleep pattern. The intervening period of " non-anxious wakefulness "

has it's own endocrinology, with high levels of prolactin. There are also a few

remaining tribes out there that also exhibit this pattern.

So there you go. I was very excited when I read this, because I have a few

patients who wake up in the middle of the night, wide awake for a couple hours,

and there doesn't appear to be any reason, and they feel absolutely fine, and I

have been trying to treat it as though they had insomnia!