I was reading Greg’s post Sleeping Like a Caveman and this reminded me that my sleep pattern has changed past year. I wake up in the middle of the night for a few hours and then go back to sleep and wake up early as always. I was worried about this and still don’t like it really. But then I found on one of the Paleo boards the claim that before the industrial revolution this was the normal sleep pattern for everyone. It’s called bimodal or segmented sleep (wiki). The general idea is that without electricity people went to sleep early and then they woke up in the middle of the night, which was the most creative part of the day. In fact the fourth Jewish prayer Hatzos is associated with that midnight wakefulness and was the common pattern. I read somewhere that the first part of the sleep is the deep sleep, for me it is the second part and the frist is full of dreams and worries. And you remember them better when you wake up in the middle.
Further reading:Bimodal or Segmented Sleep
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