It Turns Out We've Been Sleeping Wrong For Centuries

For as long as we can remember, humans have been told that sleep is a non-negotiable part of survival. Right up there with food, water, and oxygen. But what if I told you that the way we sleep today is actually not how our ancestors did it? That’s right—turns out we’ve been sleeping wrong for centuries.

Meet Paul Kern: The Man Who Forgot to Sleep

Back in 1915, Hungarian soldier Paul Kern took a bullet to the head during World War I. Miraculously, he survived. But there was one small side effect—he never slept again. For the remaining 35 years of his life, Kern never closed his eyes for a proper night’s rest. Doctors speculated he might have been experiencing “microsleeps”—brief moments of unconsciousness throughout the day—but if he truly stayed awake for over three decades, that would make his case unique in human history.

Of course, the rest of us aren’t so lucky. For most people, sleep isn’t just a luxury; it’s an absolute necessity. But how we sleep has changed dramatically over time—and not necessarily for the better.

A Forgotten Sleep Pattern Hidden in Plain Sight

In the 1990s, historian Roger Ekirch stumbled upon a curious phrase while researching historical texts: first sleep. Charles Dickens casually mentioned it in Barnaby Rudge, as if his readers would know exactly what he meant. But here’s the catch—humans today don’t have a “first sleep” because we sleep in one big chunk.

Ekirch dug deeper and found over 2,000 historical references to a forgotten sleep pattern: segmented sleep, also called biphasic sleep. Up until just a few hundred years ago, humans didn’t sleep all at once. Instead, they went to bed early, woke up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, and then went back to sleep until morning.

The Midnight Hour: What Did People Do?

During this mysterious wakeful period, people weren’t just lying in bed counting sheep. They did household chores, visited neighbors, prayed, wrote letters, and—if you believe 16th-century French physician Laurent Joubert—conceived a lot of babies. Apparently, he claimed that the time between first and second sleep was the best for making babies. Talk about planned parenthood!

The Bright Idea That Changed Everything

So, if biphasic sleep was so common, why did it disappear? The culprit: artificial lighting.

Paris was the first city to install streetlights in 1667, followed by gas lamps in London in 1807, and then—bam!—electric lights took over in the late 19th century. With darkness no longer forcing people into bed early, bedtime got later, and those few hours of wakefulness in the middle of the night vanished. Coffee houses, which became popular in the 17th century, made things worse. Why go back to bed when you could stay up drinking coffee with friends at 2 a.m.?

Did We Make a Mistake?

While modern humans stick to one long sleep session, some scientists suggest that segmented sleep might actually be more natural. In an experiment in the 1990s, American scientist Thomas Wehr put people in total darkness for 14 hours a day. By the fourth week, participants naturally adopted a biphasic sleep pattern—just like our ancestors.

Ekirch even suggests that modern insomnia might be linked to this lost sleep cycle. If you wake up at 3 a.m. and can’t fall back asleep, it might not be a problem—it might be your body trying to return to its natural rhythm.

Should We All Go Back to Biphasic Sleep?

Before you ditch your alarm clock and embrace the segmented sleep life, consider this: while biphasic sleep worked in the past, it was often out of necessity rather than preference. Back then, sleeping conditions were terrible—people shared straw mattresses, bed bugs were a nightly nuisance, and privacy was nonexistent. Compared to that, our modern sleep setup is a dream.

So, should you switch back? That’s up to you. Some people naturally wake up in the middle of the night, and instead of stressing about it, they might be better off embracing it. But if you’re sleeping soundly in one uninterrupted stretch, there’s no need to change a thing.

At the end of the day (or night), sleep is still one of the biggest mysteries in science. The only thing we know for sure? However you do it, just make sure you get enough of it!