A Cure for Insomnia from 1450!

Turns out The Middle Ages had at least one great idea!

Because I seem to have lost the ability to tune out politics, recently I feel like I may have also forgotten how falling asleep is supposed to work. I wake up. I fall back to sleep. I wake up again. And this seems worrisome because I have always read that this is bad. A person (by which I mean me) is supposed to slumber peacefully for an uninterrupted eight hours.

Or so I have been told. But now I am wondering: Am I really a dysfunctional sleeper? Or am I just a woman whose biological clock is a reflection of the wisdom of the ages? Is it possible that my neuro-pathways are still set to the way that humans slept for thousands of years? After all, the human race arbitrarily re-invents how everything is supposed to be done whenever it feels like it needs to sell a bunch of stuff.

What I am referring to is the fact that before the industrial revolution, humans expected the night to provide them with TWO sleep shifts! This is now referred to as Biphasic Sleep, but it was also how sleeping was done for the first thousands of years of civilization! The change-over to one big single sleep that is supposed to last EIGHT hours probably happened because of the invention of artificial illumination. And then, once the industrial revolution kicked in, everyone had no choice but to try and sync up their schedules to the demands made by whoever was doing the hiring.

I’m not making this up. And it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the way it used to work actually mimics the way it usually DOES work for me.

In the old and possibly more organic sleep model, everyone goes to bed at around ten for “A First Sleep.” This continues until around midnight and is followed by a period of two or three hours when everyone wakes up and resumes activity of some kind. In the middle ages, this period even had its own name. They called it ‘The Watch.’ And it seems like more than a random fact that ‘The Watch’ syncs up with some of the same hours of the night that a lot of so-called dysfunctional sleepers find ourselves awake and staring at the clock or the ceiling.

That this behavior, now referred to as insomnia, has a lengthy and seldom discussed historical past when it was considered normal serves as a nice contrast to all the media hectoring about how bad it is to be waking up at night. In fact, I found it kind of shocking that I somehow lived most of my life without ever hearing a single reference to the idea of “Second Sleep.”

And that made me begin to wonder what else I didn’t know about this complex biological function. So I carefully perused the library of the internet to better understand and then share with you the workings of sleep.

SLEEP: What does it look like? Am I asleep right now? How can I be sure?

According to the internet, this man is sleeping deeply. We can tell that by the great big smile on his face. He is also the reason that we are taught from early childhood that we must remember to brush our teeth before bed!

A good way to tell if you are sleeping correctly is to consult an overhead photo of yourself, your hair fetchingly arranged on the pillow and a serene smile upon your face that seems to say “I am mildly amused for no particular reason.”: (Why someone was in your room taking photos of you while you were asleep is a separate issue that needs to be addressed, the sooner the better. )

As with all things, sleep amusement should be done in moderation.

This level of sleep amusement reveals a woman who has taken the whole idea much too far.

If this is her husband, caution should be exercised. Any couple who are this capricious even while unconscious might be suffering from ‘hypnogely’ which Google Wellness experts claim could be a sign of a neurological disorder. On the bright side, an attractive couple such as these two who are able to be this giddy even when they are out cold will definitely be highly sought after as paid audience members for any of a number of sparsely attended and poorly rated televised morning talk shows.

But back to those of us who are not able to maintain these levels of Sleep-Joy™. It is not uncommon for high levels of anxiety to wake a lot of us up all through the night.

Ten to midnight is one of the times that many find ourselves awake, wearing someone else’s bathrobe, and staring at an over-sized faux- vintage alarm clock without any memory of ever having purchased it in the first place.

At times like these, we must ask ourselves, “In what weird catalog was this faux- ‘vintage’ alarm clock even for sale? Or did we drink a second glass of wine at dinner and then unknowingly fall prey to impulsively buying more of those questionable ‘bargains for under $5.00’ on Temu? Fingers crossed it doesn’t mean that we are going to wake up to find that we have also sleep-shopped a bunch of ‘old timey’ faux-carved “Bless this Kitchen’ signs bearing ‘funny’ greeting card sayings about needing our morning coffee. ‘

Small wonder that by 1:00 A.M. we have begun to worry that the stress of all this unconscious mid-night shopping is catching up with us after we catch a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror and realize we have aged at least 50 years in less than an hour.

By 2:30 every thing we know to be true is called into question. All that we have ever been at any point in our miserable lives seems up for grabs. Are we losing our perspective or does that ridiculous clock appear to be getting larger with every hour that passes? And what made us think it would be a good idea to place an oversized ticking object on our already crowded night table?

By 4 A.M. it is becoming clear that this contemptible clock is using up all the available oxygen. What if Temu is doing more than just stealing all our private information and selling it to the Chinese government. What if it also invented a living breathing clock-creature, designed in a secret Chinese lab, whose only purpose on this earth is to promote sleep deprivation as a way to weaken the will so no one will be unable to resist buying all kinds of horrible five dollar items on Temu.

Though now that you think about it, 4 A.M. would also be a perfectly good time for you to begin your SECOND SLEEP…were it not for the fact that you’ve been brain-washed into believing that what you are experiencing is insomnia? So you keep lying there, staring and feeling broken, maladjusted, debilitated, and decayed (and nine other words that the thesaurus suggested you use instead of dysfunctional.)

This is not the time of night you want to be awake and questioning all the choices you ever made in life. Chief among them: why you decided it was a good idea to wear so much heavy eye liner to bed. Who do you think you are right now? JD Vance?

All you want is a way. to quiet your spinning brain and your thoughts which are running around in circles, like that ‘actively moving plush toy for dogs’ you saw last night on Temu. Hopefully it’s still on sale. Last night it was 81% off but only for the next 2 hours! Fingers crossed it’s not too late to buy two or three of them. But first, why do you suddenly feel like there is someone else in the bed, directly behind you? You’re sure you went to sleep alone. Yet you can hear someone else’s breathing. What if a phantom head has begun to grow out of the middle of your back? You know that sounds ridiculous. But it’s not like it never happened before.

It seems like only yesterday that this very thing happened to Ray Milland. There he was, a Golden Globe and Academy Award winning actor for his role in Billy Wilder’s ‘Lost Weekend.” And the next thing he knew, he had Roosevelt Grier’s head permanently attached to his neck. Fortunately for some reason he still owned a couple of enormous turtle neck sweaters, large enough to accommodate the width of two entire necks with attached heads. Probably bought them on Temu and forgot to send them back. What other explanation can there be for that warm breath you feel on your cheek…Oh wait..

And next time you look, it is 6;05 …a perfect time for your “Second Sleep” to conclude.

So kudos to you! You have made it through the kind of sleep that could very well have won you praise and admiration in The Middle Ages. Your second sleep is done and you are re-energized. You are ready to greet the new day with something that definitely resembles aplomb. And just as important, you are grateful. You are elated at the notion that you will not have to cope with having two heads for the rest of your life.

What I learned: TWO SLEEP SHIFTS is an idea whose time has returned.

Why have ‘they’ been keeping this excellent idea a secret all these years? It’s more than an improvement over 8 continuous hours, it’s an idea that makes sense. I wonder what other great ideas from The Middle Ages we have allowed to lie fallow. (No. Not witch burning or blood letting with leeches. Those should not be revived. Hopefully those are not included in Project 2025.)

But come on: TWO SLEEP SHIFTS is an idea that’s worth it’s weight in melatonin.