Multiphastic sleep experiment

[malada]

I think I first heard about multiphastic - specifically biphastic - sleep about a year ago. From old documents, it was uncovered that in preindustrial times people slept in two parts during the night - a deep 'first sleep' followed by a period of wakefulness, then a 'second sleep' that lasted until dawn. I've been experiencing something similar on occasion when I've gone to bed early: I'd sleep for a few hours then be frustrating awake for a few hours, then fall back to sleep. Timing seems to be critical for starting that first sleep and if I don't get that right I'll just be awake for hours and hours and hours.

I went to bed around 9 and have just woken up around 12. How long I should stay awake and what to do while I'm awake are still unknowns. I've got a snack of some hot cider and a granola bar and I'm doing some mild web surfing at the moment. I'll probably read a little. I'd like to fire up LMMS - a music composition software - but I think that might get my mind too activated.

This multi stage sleeping may explain a lot of my poor sleeping patterns I've experienced lately. If it's an older and more natural way of sleeping why not go with the flow? To be honest, I prefer to sleep straight through in a single session but that doesn't seem to be the way my body wants to work.

-m