has this ever happened to you you're reading book four of homer's the odyssey in its original greek and just as you get to the best part which obviously is when the nymph idotheas giving men allows king of the spartans instructions on how to catch proteus the old man of the sea you read the line taff nimi nippi and you're like wait a minute what when i read this passage in my 1932 translation of the odyssey by t.e lawrence it said that menolaus should wait until he sees proteus settle down but given that prota is greek for first the more accurate translation isn't that menolau should wait until proteus settles down but to wait until his first leap what's going on here wait that hasn't happened to you well geez then you must not be historian a roger eckrich author of the seminal 2001 paper sleep we lost pre-industrial slumber in the british isles but while i have you here why don't i tell you about why a mistranslation of homer is actually proof that western society has been fundamentally misunderstanding human sleep patterns for over 200 years so you know sleep right you lay down on a soft table close your eyes and watch a strange confusing improv show starring your mom your third grade teacher and all your greatest fears until the sun comes up right wrong it turns out that the modern monophasic sleep pattern one eight hour period of sleep or let's be honest one five hour period of insomnia and self-hatred is just that modern before we had newfangled technology like candles and light bulbs and five hour energy sleep occurred in two distinct periods people would typically go to bed a bit after sundown sleep about four hours and then wake up in the middle of the night for an hour or two and then go back to sleep for around four more hours until the sun came up during that wakeful nighttime period people would do a number of things pray interpret dreams write visit neighbors or even do the thing adult couples tend to do when they love each other very much argue and if you look closely at the historical and literary record you would have known that but you didn't do that did you now you probably don't even know where the historical and literary record is but you know who did a roger eckrich he found over 500 references to interrupted sleep in 15th century prayer books charles dickens novels don quixote old ballads diaries even a 16th century french doctor's manual that recommended couples conceive during the wakefulness period as they will quote have more enjoyment and quote do it better but because historians and translators spent about 200 years assuming that the past couldn't possibly have been different from the present we've been misinterpreting and mistranslating some of these references for years including that passage in the odyssey and this biphasic sleep schedule isn't just supported by historical research but experimental research in fact it may be that biphasic sleep is the natural human sleep pattern we've known for a long time that animals typically exhibit polyphasic sleep if you know what poly means because you took greek or you're on some very specific subreddits you can probably piece together that polyphasic sleep means sleeping in multiple periods many species including most mammals specifically show a pattern of biphasic sleep now for a long time researchers thought that humans were fundamentally different than other animals and that we naturally exhibited monophasic sleep but it turns out that naturally we're actually probably the same as other animals and that researchers had just forgotten that other animals don't use light bulbs but one day one valiant researcher did what no one before him had done and remembered that light bulbs do in fact exist thomas weir who in 1992 did an experiment to determine people's natural sleeping cycle he routed up seven men because while weir had heroically remembered that light bulbs exist he had unfortunately forgotten that women also exist and forced them to experience darkness for 14 hours each day for one month over time the experimental subjects settled into a distinct pattern they would go to sleep for about four hours wake up for one to three hours and then go back to sleep for another four hours sound familiar now you may be wondering hey sam why did we stop sleeping that way and if you are wondering that i'm disappointed because i literally just reminded you about how light bulbs exist you see back before artificial lighting night was considered a terrifying time full of various thieves vagabonds miscreants swindlers scoundrels ruffians and scallywags when the sun went down anyone who wasn't a licensed scallywag went to bed but much like robert downey jr the knight became more reputable over time fueled by the reformation and counter reformation church services began to be held at night so congregants could avoid persecution a trend that eventually bled into social life for those who could afford candlelight later as cities developed street lights and we invented cheaper oil and lamps and eventually the say with me light bulb going out at night became more fashionable and all the while the industrial revolution's focused on efficiency and time consciousness ushered along widespread adoption of monophasic sleep schedules and just by the way to all you spanish commenters who i know are absolutely filming at their mouth right now i know about siestas and you're right siestas a short afternoon nap usually after lunch are historically common in many parts of the world including southern europe the mediterranean mainland china the indian subcontinent and the middle east although prevalence of midday naps is down as many countries adopt a more westernized work culture but first of all siestas and interrupted sleep are different things and second of all i can't fit everything into every video alright i've got a word limit if i go over it then i get cut off before i can finish them nebula is a streaming service i started with a bunch of my creator friends and while i've talked about it in a lot of videos today i want to come clean and tell you guys the truth about nebula it's rocks nebula not only has ad-free versions of all the youtube videos you know and love it's also got originals you can only get there including an hai brick special and trivia show wendover documentaries and companion videos to hai episodes including ones where we show you all the extra jokes my writers wrote for episodes but that i heartlessly cut for time and slash or appropriateness and we've partnered with another incredible streaming site curiositystream to offer a pretty crazy bundle deal 14.79 during the current sale for an entire year of nebula and curiosity stream which is home to thousands of fantastic documentaries including curious minds the science of sleep so to get that bundle and support hai click the button on screen or go to curiositystream.com h a i