Have you ever experienced something similar? You're reading book four of Homer's Odyssey in its original Greek, and just as you're about to get to the best part, you come across the sentence taff nimi nippi, which is obviously when the nymph Idotheas offers the king of the Spartans directions on how to catch Proteus, the old man of the sea, and you're thinking, "Wait a minute." I read this line in T.E. Lawrence's 1932 translation of Homer's Odyssey.
It was claimed that Menelaus should wait till he sees proteus settle down, however considering that prota is Greek meaning first, he should wait until he sees proteus settle down. The more precise translation is that menopause should wait until Proteus takes his first leap, rather than until he calms down. What exactly is going on here? If it hasn't occurred to you, then you're not a historian. We lost pre-industrial slumber in the British Isles, according to Roger Eckrich, author of the landmark 2001 article.
But, while you're here, let me tell you about how a mistranslation of Homer demonstrates how Western culture has been fundamentally misinterpreting human sleep rhythms for almost 200 years. So you lay down on a comfortable surface, close your eyes, and watch a bizarre, perplexing improv performance featuring your mother, your third-grade teacher, and all of your worst nightmares until the sun rises. Right?
Wrong, it turns out that the current monophasic sleep pattern, which consists of one eight-hour sleep period or, to be honest, one five-hour time of sleeplessness and self-hatred, is just that modern. People used to go to bed a little after sundown, sleep for about four hours, then wake up in the middle of the night for an hour or two, and then go back to sleep for another four hours until the sun came up before we had newfangled technology like candles and light bulbs and five-hour energy sleep occurred in two distinct periods. People would pray, interpret dreams, write, visit neighbors, or even do what adult couples like to do when they love one other very much: fight during the wakeful night time period. And you would have known that if you had looked attentively at the historical and literary record, but you didn't. What if I told you that You probably have no idea where the historical and literary evidence is, but you do know who Roger Eckrich was?
He discovered over 500 references to interrupted sleep in 15th-century prayer books, Charles Dickens novels, Don Quixote's old ballads diaries, and even a 16th-century French doctor's manual that advised couples to conceive during the wakefulness period because they would "have more fun and do it better." However, for over 200 years, historians and interpreters assumed that the past could not possibly be different from the present. For years, we've been misinterpreting and mistranslating some of these allusions, especially the odyssey section. And experimental evidence, not just historical study, backs up this biphasic sleep cycle.
Biphasic sleep may be the most normal human sleep pattern. Polyphasic sleep is common in animals, as we've known for a long time. You can figure together that polyphasic sleep means sleeping in various phases if you know what poly means because you took greek or you're on some particular subreddits. Many animals, including most mammals, exhibit a biphasic sleep cycle. For a long time, scientists believed that humans were fundamentally different from other animals and that we slept in a monophasic pattern. However, it turns out that we're probably similar to other creatures in nature, and that researchers had just forgotten that other species don't utilize light bulbs.
But one brave researcher did something no one else had done before: he recalled that light bulbs exist. Thomas Weir, who conducted a study in 1992 to identify people's normal sleeping patterns. He gathered seven men because, while Weir had valiantly recalled that light bulbs exist, he had sadly forgotten that ladies do as well, and had subjected them to 14 hours of darkness every day for a month. The experimental individuals developed a specific pattern over time. They'd sleep for four hours, then wake up for one to three hours before sleeping for four hours again. Is this something you've heard before?
Before the invention of artificial lighting, the night was thought to be a dangerous period, full of thieves, vagabonds, miscreants, swindlers, scoundrels, ruffians, and scallywags. Anyone who wasn't a certified scallywag went to bed when the sun went down. But, like Robert Downey Jr, the knight's reputation grew over time. Church services began to be held at night to avoid persecution as a result of the reformation and counter-reformation, a tradition that subsequently flowed into social life for those who could afford illumination. As cities established street lights and we devised more affordable oil and lamps, the phrase with me light bulb turning out at night got more trendy.
Meanwhile, the industrial revolution's emphasis on efficiency and time awareness brought in the widespread usage of monophasic sleep cycles. And, by the way, for all you Spanish commentators who are currently filming at their mouths, I am aware of siestas. And you are correct. Siestas, or short afternoon naps, have long been popular in many regions of the world, including southern Europe, the Mediterranean mainland, China, India, and the Middle East. Although, as many nations embrace a more westernized work culture, the incidence of midday naps is decreasing. But, first and foremost, siestas and disrupted sleep are not the same things.
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