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Speaker 1: Ah, it's time for bed, turn off the lights and

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Speaker 1: tuck in. But what happened before the light bulb? When

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Speaker 1: nature turned off your lights way too early? I'm Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: How everybody dealt with darkness is next on the backstory.

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Speaker 1: Does anybody really get enough sleep? I know I sure don't.

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Speaker 1: But did you know that until one simple invention came along,

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Speaker 1: pretty much the entire world slept a whole different way

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Speaker 1: every night. I'm going to tell you about that invention

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Speaker 1: in just a moment, but first, there's a pretty fascinating

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Speaker 1: backstory that's all about how we slept until the late

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. Folks went to bed really early, they woke

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Speaker 1: up late, did all sorts of stuff, and then went

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Speaker 1: back to sleep until morning. And they did it for

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Speaker 1: thousands of years. It's called segmented sleep. Now, I always

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Speaker 1: wondered back in the day, did people sleep more or

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Speaker 1: maybe just sort of pass out in front of the

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Speaker 1: fireplace when they got tired in the evening. Turns out no,

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Speaker 1: if they were going to be awake, even if it

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Speaker 1: was dark outside, they wanted to be totally awake. So

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Speaker 1: it's a typical day. You work all day. We all

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Speaker 1: do that, maybe eat some supper. Then you go to

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Speaker 1: bed early, like really early, six or seven o'clock, and

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Speaker 1: that's called your first sleep. Then, and here's where it

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Speaker 1: gets kind of fun. You get up around ten or

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Speaker 1: eleven PM and you stay up until maybe three am.

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Speaker 1: Second sleep kicks in at that point and that lasts

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Speaker 1: until it's light outside. And more people did this than not.

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Speaker 1: How do we not know this? Huh? See, nobody wants

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Speaker 1: to waste light in those days because after dark light

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Speaker 1: was all about fire, which was a real hassle to fuel.

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Speaker 1: So again, you wanted to be really awake when you

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Speaker 1: were awake, no dozing off and wasting candle or firelight.

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Speaker 1: So what happens in between sleeps? It's crazy active. You

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Speaker 1: go to parties, do social stuff like go now for

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Speaker 1: a beer, and you get stuff done around the house,

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Speaker 1: or maybe you write letters, poetry, books, make music art.

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Speaker 1: The time in between sleeps is called the watch, although

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Speaker 1: of course the French make it fancy. Of course they do.

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Speaker 1: They call it do'urvai. You gotta love the friend you,

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Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. How great would it be

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Speaker 1: to be rested at the end of the day feeling

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Speaker 1: terrific when you go out with friends instead of exhausted. Well,

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Speaker 1: this went on for thousands of years all over the world.

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Speaker 1: The ancient Greeks felt more creative and in touch with

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Speaker 1: their dreams after first sleep, so late at night they'd

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Speaker 1: rush off to the temple to get their dreams interpreted

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Speaker 1: so they could figure out what they meant, what was

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Speaker 1: going on in their own heads. I totally get that.

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Speaker 1: Did you ever wake up in the middle of the

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Speaker 1: night and remember some crazy dream and then you try

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Speaker 1: to go back to sleep because you feel guilty waking up?

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Speaker 1: And in the morning you know you had a crazy dream,

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Speaker 1: but you forget. It drives you nuts trying to remember

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Speaker 1: and trying to figure out why the heck you had

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Speaker 1: the dream in the first Right into the late eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: there were these huge parties at the White House where

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Speaker 1: people didn't even arrive until as late as ten or

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Speaker 1: ten thirty. Dinner wasn't served until after eleven. Social lightes

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Speaker 1: everywhere held huge formal events with dinner at eleven o'clock

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Speaker 1: and then folks hanging around a party on until like

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Speaker 1: three or four am. Regular folks, though, did the same thing,

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Speaker 1: hanging out in the local tavern sitting by the fire,

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Speaker 1: maybe making music or just small talk. And it was

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Speaker 1: regularly noted for being a great time to conceive children.

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Speaker 1: So what changed all that? Segmented sleep was pretty much

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Speaker 1: a normal part of life right up until the light

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Speaker 1: bulb that changed the dark part of our days forever.

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Speaker 1: By the way, it's kind of ironic that Edison's light

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Speaker 1: bulb took segmented sleep off the map for most of

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Speaker 1: us and didn't change the way he rested. He mostly

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Speaker 1: just took naps. He wasn't a big sleeper. Now, you'd

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Speaker 1: think that the light bulb changed life everywhere, but that's

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Speaker 1: not exactly the case. Even today, midday siestas and late

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Speaker 1: night dinners are a thing in Mexico, Italy, Spain, Greece

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Speaker 1: and other spots. They shut down stores and restaurants in

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Speaker 1: the late afternoon, take a refreshing snooze, and get right

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Speaker 1: back to life in the late evening, and in parts

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Speaker 1: of the world off the grid, segmented sleep is still

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Speaker 1: really common. For some. It's about saving personal energy and

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Speaker 1: limited available energy off the grid during the heat of

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Speaker 1: the day and re energizing yourself for late night. So

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Speaker 1: segmented or divided sleep wasn't and isn't just about utter darkness.

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Speaker 1: It was also about the same thing that makes you

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Speaker 1: and me wake up in the middle of the night,

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Speaker 1: our circadian rhythm, that's our internal body clock. For a

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Speaker 1: lot of us, that middle of the night wake up

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Speaker 1: is totally natural, even though a lot of us, including myself,

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Speaker 1: beat ourselves up for it. We just wish we wouldn't

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Speaker 1: wake up. We started ignoring what our body told us

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Speaker 1: when artificial light overtook our darkness. Now we power through,

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Speaker 1: so the actual sleep part of our day is jammed

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Speaker 1: into six to eight hours instead of spreading out over

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Speaker 1: twelve hours with a wake up in between. Maybe, though,

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Speaker 1: it's at the expense of our creative output and allowing

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Speaker 1: our bodyclock to tell us what to do without all

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Speaker 1: that guilt. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.

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Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Steve Goldstein of Amplified Media. We're

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Speaker 1: out with new episodes twice a week. Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: to the Backstory. The pieces of history you didn't know

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Speaker 1: you needed to know