Bimodal sleep is a sleep pattern that is believed to be the most or at least a very popular sleep pattern for humans prior to the industrial revolution. It involves two sleep cycles around 3-4 hours each with around a 2 hour gap in between. The argument has been made that humans are meant to sleep like this, and will provide a more restful sleep. During the gap between the two sleeps humans did a number of things, prayed, read, had sex... etc. This gap was also used for dream interpretation, as it seems humans might be more likely to remember their dreams following this pattern.

I am not sure all of this stuff is true, but a guy named Roger Ekirch wrote a book about this type of sleep and gave historical examples. The book is called At Day's Close: Night in Times Past.
I am wondering if anyone here has attempted to do this for a period of time and what the response was for them, or if anyone finds themselves following this pattern naturally. I've attempted it twice so far and it seems weird forcing myself to get up, but I do feel more wakeful and energized the next day. It might be too early to tell if this will benefit me or not.

I also think that this may be a good time for entheogenic use, as this time of the night is rather calm, and supposedly this time of being awake is good for meditation.

Your thoughts??

This is not exact, but reflects my natural sleep schedule to some degree.
9am-2pm is normally the first sleep cycle, then 10pm-3am. Then at 9am it starts again.
I go to work around midnight now so the second cycle gets disrupted & i've started getting very tired & agitated around 1am if no caffiene is used to stay alert.

All the other things take place inbetween cycles, a combination of being introverted & not wanting to shower 2x daily because i wake up with my hair looking like kramer generally keeps me from going out much.
Aside from that though, the calmer atmosphere later at night does seem to be useful when there is time. Meditation, quiet, & less crowded streets are great for contemplative, peaceful, self exploration & it's much safer to use psychedellics outside in the comapny of friends

Yeah I definitely like the quiet of the night! Sounds like a tough sleep schedule for you now. I hope you'll be able to adjust it to fit your work schedule better.

Most buddhist monks routinely wake up early for meditation, 4 usually as they find that is when there mind is the cleanest and most easy to control.

I know for sure that if the second half of the sleep goes wrong like if you fall asleep too late or are unable to enter REM, which it might, it tends to fuck you up for the whole day. Especially for the first couple of weeks there would be some side effects as the brain unconsciously adjusts itself.

Just purchased that book you mentioned, looks like a good read! I've attempted have a polyphasic sleep cycle several times but its so hard to integrate into a world that revolves around the biphasic cycle (e.g. can't have your second sleep due to commitments). I do agree it does keep your mind refreshed for the periods that you are awake and feel it also helps facilitate memories and learning quite a lot!

I had a friend visit a Catholic monastery, and he also said that the monks would get up every night to do prayer and church in the middle of the night and just go back to sleep afterwards.



I know what you mean Sharps. It has been pretty hard to get my body willing to get up during the wake time in between the two sleeps. Also I hate waking my girlfriend getting up or back into bed during the night, but I am definitely becoming more silent! I am definitely excited to see if this sleep facilitates learning, since it has been reported that studying directly before sleeping helps with recall since your brain processes or encodes the information while sleeping. I can only imagine that if attempting to learn something studying before bed twice in a night might have twice the benefits??

I found an article while not a science journal it does mention the pineal gland activation in night that can help stimulate creativity. Apparently higher levels of prolactin are released while sleeping and continue to release during the wakeful period during the night. Here is a quote from the article about prolactin. "This is the hormone associated with sensations of peace and with the dreamlike hallucinations we sometimes experience as we fall asleep, or upon waking. It is produced when we feel sexual satisfaction, when nursing mothers lactate, and it causes hens to sit on their eggs for long periods. It alters our state of mind." Sounds pretty cool!

Hopefully more scientific research will be done in the future. I guess for now I will have to rely on my own experience and the experience of others in regards to sleep cycles. Here is the link of the article I got the quote about prolactin from http://http://aeon.co/magazine/...den-time-for-creativity/

I do have some experience with this:

While on a road trip in the end of 2014 my sleep schedule went from sleeping 7-9 hours a night to going to sleep whenever I was tired of driving - sleeping in the cold (I have a topper on the back of my truck set up for traveling and sleeping in it, but the December cold still permeates of course) - and waking up whenever I happened to. Then I'd drive some more, and go back to sleep whenever I felt like it. This would often mean 2-4 hours of sleep in the afternoon or early evening, then some more driving, and then 4-6 more hours of sleep to finish the night off. I'd repeat this schedule while on the road, until I got to my destination. (in this case, central IL to the middle of FL's east coast, broken up into several days with camping along the way)

I found that when my sleep schedule would work out like this, broken up as you spoke of, I would feel way better the next day - especially when I kept this schedule for multiple days. Very noticeable. I was calmer and felt more grounded; clear. My back, which often aches after driving for days in a 1992 Toyota pickup, was way more resilient to the stress and often didn't ache at all, and felt very supported/supportive. And lastly, I maintained a body-weight exercise routine while on the road, and found that when I slept like this, I could do more reps/sets, with far less resistance than I'd normally feel. In other words, I seemed to be stronger and could endure more; had more energy.

When I'd go back to sleeping a solid 8ish hours straight, I'd feel how I'm used to feeling - not bad, but not as good as it could obviously be, just with a different sleep schedule.

Somehow I'd forgotten about these experiences until I read your post...I'm interested now in recreating this schedule to see what happens.

The results beat any supplement I've ever tried hands down. Blatantly obvious improvements all around - felt and performed better overall. I wasn't absolutely sure it was the sleep changes that caused this, but it was the only major thing that had changed, and now with this thread, I think I'll be investigating this more thoroughly soon...

Very interesting...

I'm happy this thread has helped you remember the time you slept this way in the past DesykaLamgeenie! I too have been feeling calmer and clearer! On the days that I had slept twice the night before it has made the day definitely seem "easier" than on a day that I had slept through one solid block. I've yet to maintain this schedule consistently though, because it requires to make sure that I have most of my work done in order to get to bed on time. I want to try and consistently stick to this schedule for a length of time. I believe for both of us that if we continue to do this we should try and start journaling and post back some more on what we have noticed. Does not seem like a whole lot of research, even subjective research, has been done on this.

Yeah I agree, and I will definitely do that.

It makes me wonder also about how usually when I sleep for over 8 or 9 hours in one stretch, I end up feeling more stiff/tired the next day than I would have if I'd slept less than 8 hours...and I know of several others who experience the same thing.

Wouldn't it be somethin to discover that, for at least some people, sleeping in 8-hour blocks is detrimental compared to 2 shorter blocks equaling 8 hours...

Good luck! Happy sleeping!

Thanks you too