The most dangerous lie in human history isn’t about food.
It isn’t about medicine.
It is about sleep.
For 200,000 years, humans did not sleep 8 hours.
That number was invented in 1938 by a mattress company called Simmons Beautyrest.
Before that campaign, the average human slept in two shifts.
Historians call it “Biphasic Sleep.”
You would sleep for 4 hours, wake up for 2, then sleep for another 4.
During that 2-hour window, people would pray, have s*x, write, think, and connect with their families.
Some of the greatest works in human history were created in that sacred middle window.
Shakespeare wrote most of his plays between 1AM and 3AM during his second wake period.
Mozart composed entire symphonies in what he called “The God Hours.”
Then the Industrial Revolution needed workers on a fixed schedule.
You cannot run a factory on biphasic sleep.
So they hired a psychologist named Dr. Nathaniel Kleitman to “prove” that 8 consecutive hours was the biological standard.
He faked the studies.
He was funded entirely by the mattress industry.
And the medical establishment adopted his research without question because it aligned with the factory model.
They turned the most creative 2 hours of human consciousness into a “sleep disorder.”
They called it “Insomnia.”
They medicated it.
They gaslit an entire generation that 8 hours of continuous sleep was healthy. They pathologized the exact window of consciousness that produced some of the greatest art, music, and literature in human history.
You are not an insomniac.
You are experiencing the most natural form of human consciousness.
And a mattress company convinced you it was a disease.
Stop medicating your genius.
Wake up at 2AM.
Write the thing.
The “God Hours” are calling.
© Andre Gonzalves
Notes to Readers:
I’m there. Last night I was typing emails at 1:30 a.m. The hours vary and sometimes I just get up, use the facilities and then catch another four. Just depends.
Of course, with all the pending changes, my mind was going a zillion miles an hour. Feeling better today if a bit tired. I’m ready for the change in location.
Thanks to everyone who thought to donate to my moving pot. I think I have these help! calls every couple of months. Living off of a meager social security and retirement check will do that.
Anyway, not complaining. It’s another adventure.
Eliza Ayres, Blue Dragon Journal
Sunny's Journal 