Blog #19 for HONO1397

 This week for our weekly class discussion we took a look at a well developed article relating sleeping habits. This article was written by Arthur Roger Ekirch and was titled Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-industrial Slumber in the British Isles. Essentially what it covered was a bit of an unorthodox and not so much researched topic relating sleep which was the sleeping habits of individuals within the 1600s. The article touched bases with sleeping schedules, sleep routines, the pros and cons of the lack of light back in these pre-industrial times and even talked about this idea which apparently was very common called first and second sleep. So basically what that entailed is basically what you read: two sleeping hours within one night. Yeah, I know, its weird and crazy and unordinary and why even do that?? Oh your poor body..

Yeah so these folks would go to bed within 9 or 10 pm, wake up an hour or two after midnight and then go back to bed until sunrise. And wait ‘till you read this: in between the first and second sleep they take, people would tend to various needs and responsibilities they needed to take care of!

You needed to go take a leak? Boom, go for it

You want to go have a midnight stroll and smoke a pipe while doing so? Sure, why not.

You want to go talk to your neighbors who are probably waking up from their first sleep as well? By. All. Means.

I mean the possibilities are endless it seems like, and this interlude between sleeps helped a lo of folks get through their lives and some even took this time to get closer to God, contemplate on thoughts they might have had, or write something down they dreamt about. It was a way of keeping one life away from work and responsibilities alive and taken care of. It was a neat thing they did back in the day and maybe the reason we don’t practice that anymore is the lack of time we feel we already don’t have.