please empty your brain below
If contemplating this post doesn’t keep me awake at night…

Marc | 04.11.25 - 7:07 a.m. | #

How irritating that I've read this after a night where I just could not get to sleep...

But yes, you're right - sleep *is* weird.

RG | 04.11.25 - 7:12 a.m. | #

Likewise. Early train this morning meant the alarm was set for 5, but I was awake half the night because Id gone to bed too early, and the other half because I was worrying about missibg the alarm.

Timbo | 04.11.25 - 7:18 a.m. | #

What is really weird is that we sleep for roughly eight hours a day in one session and this has only really been the case for around two hundred years.

There is overwhelming evidence that that for various reasons (e.g. feeding animals, guarding animals) we used to go to sleep much earlier and wake up for a couple of hours around midnight.

All that changed over a short period of time and our bodies quickly adapted. The electric light bulb kept us awake later at night and made cities safer at night. Thicker curtains and better dyes enabled us to wake later in the summer months. To a great extent we can now control, to some degree, when we go to sleep even to the extent of of using blue ambient light to fool our body into thinking it is still daylight.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest two three-hour stretches of sleep are as effective as an eight-hour stretch but we, unlike countries that embrace the siesta, insist on one sleep session a day.

If you went to a place without electricity (try a trek in a remote part of Nepal for example) your sleep pattern would rapidly change and align more with the rising and setting of the sun.

Pedantic of Purley | 04.11.25 - 7:19 a.m. | #

I spent a few years working nights. Sleep becomes the dominant thing you think about, talk about with your colleagues, and try not to do whilst back at work. The low point was when the kids in the flat above were at the jumping about age, you can't even moan about the noise in the day.

It took years to get back to more or less normal too. The effect of shift work is grim, something I don't think is anything like as recognised as it should be.

Herned | 04.11.25 - 7:52 a.m. | #

^^ came here to say this ( Purley )

I learned that we used to sleep for four hours roughly 9pm to 1am, then be awake for an hour to feed animals, stoke the fire, eat, or have sex, then sleep again for another four hours between 2am-6am when you’d then get up for the day - utterly fascinating. 8 hour sleep in one go throughout the night is a much more recent thing.

Alan | 04.11.25 - 7:57 a.m. | #

always used to go to bed at midnight, me. And set my alarm for 7am.

Now. As I’ve aged I get to 10pm and I find myself nodding off. During the height of summer when it’s still light it’s most disconcerting to be able to find you can fall asleep whilst there’s still some daylight left outside - wasted daylight. Bah.

Daryl | 04.11.25 - 8:01 a.m. | #

Answer to your opening question: yes, for the past 75+ years. Still none the wiser.

Bruce Perkins | 04.11.25 - 8:27 a.m. | #

Wondering if this post was brought to us courtesy of a long sleepless night...

Town mouse | Homepage | 04.11.25 - 9:13 a.m. | #

I suspect some readers will be familiar with the youtuber's Tom Scott and for fear of spoiling one of his best videos, sleep was found to be very high on the best things list. The incredible weirdness is I think why I like it so much, although before it occurs I have no idea whether the dreams therein will make me wake up in a cold sweat and check the locks to my flat, remind me of missing the bus to PE at school or be such a wonderful experience that I wish that I could return to it immediately.

In spite of its Dali-esque surrealism the extraordinary thing is that everything is tied to your waking experiences, relationships, people, places and desires. Which is to say, yes, it is weird!

WoodfordWanderer | 04.11.25 - 9:16 a.m. | #

I have often read about this *discovery" that sleep used to come in two sessions, with a waking time in the middle. But I haven't seen any hard evidence. Could it be a myth?

dg writes: no

Malcolm of Kent | 04.11.25 - 9:30 a.m. | #

There's lots of historical accounts of people waking in the early hours and doing a variety of activities (depending on your relative place in society, one suspects).

Louise | 04.11.25 - 9:57 a.m. | #

As I've aged, and no longer work full-time, I've tended toward the 2-sleep 3-4hrs - 1hr gap - 3-4 hrs rhythm. In summer months I can often be found reading, ironing or cooking at 03.00. I'm virtually medieval!

Frank F | 04.11.25 - 10:11 a.m. | #

I have thought about this quite a bit, and agree - yes, it seems weird. Though perhaps it is the illusion of normality in daytime life that is the truly weird thing.

What I find fascinating is the way that logic seems to be absent in the way we experience happenings in dreams. We can flit from one continent or period of history to another within seconds, without feeling surprise or puzzlement.

cau1khead | 04.11.25 - 10:46 a.m. | #

FrankF,
Me too but I generally watch YouTube in the intermediate waking session so definitely not mediaeval in that respect.

Pedantic of Purley | 04.11.25 - 12:11 p.m. | #

When I worked I never used an alarm clock and always woke up at 7am, just right for getting to work on time, regardless of what time I went to bed and even when the clocks changed. Since retiring I wake up at random times and sometimes miss the whole morning. I find that weird.

kev | 04.11.25 - 12:13 p.m. | #

In my next life I want to be a koala

Caroline | 04.11.25 - 12:51 p.m. | #

what's particularly weird for me is reading this blog post right after waking up from a dream which featured you (DG).

Or, well... not exactly you personally, but your blog.

My nightbus home turfed me out owing to a road closure because of a big accident, so I had to walk, but I knew the way because it was a route you'd recently walked and blogged. I remember coming across some uneven rocky ground and smugly thinking, aha, no chance of me tripping because I'm forewarned: I remember DG noting the uneven rocky ground on this stretch!

Sorry, I know other people's dreams are dull as ditchwatcher, but it was a sufficiently weird coincidence I felt like commenting anyway.

stevekeiretsu | 04.11.25 - 1:05 p.m. | #

As someone else alluded to, one of the reasons it took so long for researchers to be aware of biphasic sleep is that it wasn't frequently practiced by the ruling class. They had no tasks to attend to, beyond maybe a midnight snack (which was definitely a thing) or a bit of hide the sausage. So it wasn't specifically recorded, except in passing in the annals of the time. It does seem that, given a choice, a late bedtime and sleep through the night was preferred.

Chz | 04.11.25 - 1:17 p.m. | #

I remember a Channel 4 documentary when I was young around late 1990s that blew my mind called something like ‘secrets of sleep’ that concluded (amongst other things) we sleep to dream. One example of a teacher in the US who lost the ability to sleep because the switch in the brain that sends us off to sleep failed and despite best all medical intervention, eventually he died which was upsetting. Another segment of the doc was a disc jockey in the US in 1950s who did a charity ‘stay awake’ for as long as he could and started seeing things dreaming/nightmares with his eyes open and the experience left him permanently affected and was never the same again. Slightly horrifying but very interesting. Can’t find it online though

SJM | 04.11.25 - 3:06 p.m. | #

Oddly enough, I had these same thoughts just this past weekend.

steven crosby | 04.11.25 - 3:24 p.m. | #

I'll tell you something else that's weird: fatal familial insomnia, also known as fatal insomnia. Worrying about whether you've got this definitely won't help you get to sleep, but you almost certanly haven't because it's an exceptionally rare prion disease.

James | 04.11.25 - 4:44 p.m. | #

Four words that can ruin any hope for a lifetime of consistent sleep: Delayed Sleep Onset Disorder aka extreme night owl tendencies (being energised before midnight, with sleep naturally coming in the early hours). Getting to sleep before midnight can be a real challenge, as the body wants to be active.

Also a huge amber flag that one has the other four words that can make life feel like it is on hard mode: ADHD, which itself never comes alone, always with some other member(s) of the ND family.

Who knows, this info may provide a lightbulb moment for those who have had a life-long, later than societally acceptable bedtime.

I love sleep btw, nothing better than a quiet, dark room and a cool pillow, and nothing worse than insomnia.

anon | 04.11.25 - 7:14 p.m. | #

For some of us older people we still sleep in two sessions but instead of getting up to feed the animals and stoke the fire it’s to go to the loo!

Brian | 04.11.25 - 8:46 p.m. | #

There is an old episode of In Our Time on circadian rhythms which is fascinating and well worth a listen, lots of sleep related info.

Anyoldname | 04.11.25 - 8:58 p.m. | #

There is a short story by Isaac Asimov (I think, but it's decades since I read it), where visiting aliens are amazed and horrified to encounter humans, because in all the species across all the galaxy, only humans sleep.

It was a good prompt for realising how bizarre sleep is - and is perhaps the reason it has stuck in my mind for so long.

Marek | 04.11.25 - 9:00 p.m. | #

All I know is that no matter how much sleep I get, it's never enough!

Cornish Cockney | 04.11.25 - 10:23 p.m. | #

Only 2 sessions Brian? You're lucky! 3 or 4 as often as not for me. If re-sleep doesn't come quickly I just read for a bit. No longer having waking deadlines helps!

Strabismus | 05.11.25 - 2:11 a.m. | #

I use being awake in the wee small hours to put the washing into the dryer, to make full use of cheap electricity. I might even set off another load of laundry.

Lucy Garden | 05.11.25 - 8:41 a.m. | #











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