Second Sleep...The Golden Hour...Edison is My Enemy!

So, I was listening to a talk show on the radio while driving recently when I heard something very curious.  The speaker suffered from insomnia and he was sharing his research on something called second sleep.  Wait, whaaat?  Second sleep???  "What about first sleep or any sleep at all!" my sleep deprived brain began shouting  And at that moment, I may or may not have honked my horn very loudly to express my disdain, but I digress...

Basically, what I gathered from Mr. Sleepless on Satellite Radio, was that we humans were designed to experience a first and second sleep.  You see, way before Thomas Edison, the Electric Sunshine Man, invented the light bulb our ancestors actually went to bed when it got dark outside.

(By the way, I was in a oh-so-70's musical based on Edison's life called the Electric Sunshine Man waaaaay back in grade school.  I was the file clerk.  I wore a very old-fashioned dress.  I typed at a very old-fashioned typewriter.  I had one line.  I don't remember it because I am sleep deprived and old.)

So, those lucky people got to go to bed at let's say... around 9 PM or so.  Then, they slept for a few hours and their bodies woke them up around maybe midnight.  They would spend the next hour or so, referred to as the "Golden Hour" awake.  Maybe they made themselves some hot tea, snuggled with their sweetheart, nursed their baby, plowed their fields by moonlight, whatever.  The point is that they spent some awake time, and then they went back to sleep until morning.

Okay, so I just want to say for the record and all.  That I want to experience the "Golden Hour" and I also want to smack The Electric Sunshine Man upside the head for his little invention and for the awful song that I still have stuck in my head from that awful musical.

The Electric Sunshine Man
Doing the best that he can
Doing it right
Hey, out of sight
The ELECTRIC SUNSHINE MAN.....
The ELECTRIC SUNSHINE MAN.....

Sleepless in Orlando,

Melissa