The 4 A.M. Breakthrough and the History of Sleep

Two days ago, my eyes popped open at 4 in the morning, and all I could think was, “NO!  I need sleep!”  I produce a small local theater company - we do single-night showcase performances a few times a year - and we had a show that night. It was going to be a busy afternoon and long night;  rest was essential.  I closed my eyes, but, predictably, did not go back to sleep.  After a while, I got up, made myself some Sleepy-Time tea, and sat down to drink it.

Two and a half hours later, I looked up at the clock, then back down at the table and the 23 pages I’d just written.  As I had sipped at my tea, more and more a scene from the boyhood of my main character grew in my mind, playing there like a reel from a film, till I had no choice but to write it down. Reading back over it, I was delighted with every word.  And it was now 7 in the morning, with one of the busiest days I could imagine (not to mention that loooooong night) ahead of me.  I knew that I had to be busy, out the door, running errands, loading up props, etc, etc, no later than noon, so I set an alarm, went back to bed, and slept for 2 ½ more hours.  I woke and burst into action, running from that moment till the actors took the stage at 7 p.m., and then adjourned with all of them to the after-party, where I was among the first to excuse myself and head home around 11:30 p.m.  

When I got there, did I sleep?  Did I fall into bed and crash to sleep the sleep of the over-worked?  No. I sat back down at my writing table, and wrote another dozen pages.  Then I slept.

I had recently ordered (and read) two books, called  The 4 a.m. Breakthrough,  and The 3 a.m. Epiphany.   I recommend them.  While they don’t exactly tell you how to make this kind of breakthrough happen, they are filled with unusual (sometimes bizarre) writing exercises that keep your writing chops edgy, like finger exercises for a piano student.  In graduate school, my adviser had often given us random elements we were required to try to work into whatever fiction we were working on at the time - a requirement which led to some of my favorite work. Intentionally bending your own mind, making your inner self uncomfortable challenges your creative self in productive ways.  Try these books out.  But I hadn’t done any of these exercises in quite some time, being very focused on the discovery and development of the characters for my most recent piece.  So I don’t think that’s what caused this sudden flush of nocturnal juices for me.

Some time ago, a friend sent to me (on social media) a copy of an article about sleep.  After reading it, I did more research.  It seems that waking at night, and breaking your sleep pattern into two distinct chunks, is the natural human pattern.  For centuries, it was referred to in multiple cultures and in multiple languages, as first sleep and second sleep.  Less than a decade ago, after reading research which detailed references to first and second sleep in literature going all the way back to Homer, a researcher named Thomas Wehr conducted a study with hundreds of volunteers.  For four weeks, each of the subjects was only allowed exposure to light ten hours a day, and no exposure to artificial lighting.  By the end of the four-week period, every subject had fallen into a pattern of what is now referred to as segmented sleep.  They (like I normally do, though for years I worried that it was some kind of aberration) would sleep soundly for four hours or so, then be awake for anywhere from one to three hours, then sleep again, more lightly, for two or three hours.  It seems, from this research and others, that segmented sleep is the natural human pattern.  The invention of artificial light, however, changed things - tempting people out into the streets at night, extending work days, and compressing the amount of time available for sleep.

So I am, apparently, not as weird as I thought I was - or at least not for the reason of my sleep patterns.  I am, these days, pursuing segmented sleep.  I reject the notion of getting by on as little sleep as possible (really?  Margaret Thatcher only slept four hours a night?  Or LESS?).  Sleep is as essential to good health as diet and exercise, and it is no wonder, in this cram-everything-possible-into-your-day kind of world, where many glory in such pronouncements as “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” .. that we are all so fundamentally, all-consuming tired.  But it isn’t just for my health that I now actively respect my night-waking pattern.  It doesn’t take long, when looking into the research on segmented sleep, to discover that, historically, artists and writers and scholars thought of that interval between first and second sleep as their most productive, most creative, most free-thinking time.  Certainly, at those times that I honor it, like that night two nights ago, it has been for me.  

So, friends and fellow writers - sleep well - for four hours.  Then, when your eyes drift open and you think to yourself that you must be awake just to go to the toilet, reconsider.  Pick up a pen, or a book, or a drawing pad.  Sit quietly with it, and let go of your preconceived ideas about how and when and for how long you should sleep, and let your mind do what it really wants to do in those hours.  

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For more information on segmented sleep, or "second sleep" - follow these links:

BBC News Segmented Sleep
Rethinking sleep: The New York Times
A History of Bimodal, or Segmented, Sleep