For centuries, people have been sleeping at night in two shifts – once in the evening and then again in the morning. But what changed and why did this habit disappear?
Click start to play today’s Spell It, where we learn how this strange sleep shift actually ‘suits’ most people.
In the early 1990s, American historian Roger Ekirch found an interesting account in the Public Record Office in London, UK, which stored the country’s National Archives from all the way back to 1838. There, he read the testimony of nine-year-old Jane Rowth, as part of his research about the history of night-time routines. In Rowth’s deposition from the 17th century, he came across a strange phrase he had never heard before: “first sleep”. Rowth was describing how her mother had arisen from her first sleep of the evening, and continued her deposition with no further explanation – as if it were utterly unremarkable to divide the night into different durations of sleep.
According to a January 2022 report in the UK-based news website BBC Future, Ekirch took that phrase and ran with it – he scoured the archives and found hundreds more references to the phenomenon of double sleeping or ‘biphasic sleep’ as he later referred to it. It was clear the habit was more widespread than he ever imagined.
First sleeps are mentioned in famous works of medieval literature, like English writer Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and English poet William Baldwin’s Beware the Cat. Ekirch found casual references to it in letters, diaries, medical textbooks, newspaper articles, plays and in many more places.
It worked like this: most people would fall asleep between 9pm and 11pm. It was common in the medieval West to sleep communally, with other family members, friends, and even servants. A couple of hours later, people would begin rousing from their first sleep, and their wakefulness would last till about 1am.
This period was called ‘the watch’, and it was a surprisingly efficient window of time to get things done. People would do anything and everything under the weak light of the moon, stars and oil lamps – from ordinary household chores to checking on farm animals to patching cloth. For many, it was also a time of prayer.
Once the watch ended, people would then head back to bed for their ‘morning sleep’, which could last till dawn or later.
Remarkably, biphasic sleep wasn’t just unique to England. It was widely practiced around the world – in Italy, it was called premier somme, and in Italy, primo sonno. It was a habit that was practiced in Africa, Australia, South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Ekrich even found the earliest record of it from the eighth century BC, in the Greek epic The Odyssey.
Somehow, at some point, this ancient, global phenomenon just disappeared.
Ekrich found that along with a move towards timekeeping, the reason for its disappearance had to do with the Industrial Revolution. Artificial illumination became more prevalent, with electric lighting changing people’s circadian rhythm and allowing them to stay up later. By the end of the 20th century, biphasic sleep became a thing of the past.
Would you welcome a return to double sleeping? Play today’s Spell It and let us know at games@gulfnews.com.
