08/17/2025
I see a lot of people wanting hypnotherapy for sleep issues and this waking up mid-night is often a concern.
Connect with me for help with your sleep 😴
Once, men and women did not sleep as we do now.
There was no idea of “eight hours straight.” In the Middle Ages, the night was divided into two breaths: the first sleep and the second sleep.
When the sun set and the sky turned to dark velvet, people would retire early, letting themselves be lulled by the silence. After four or five hours, their eyes would open on their own—not from restlessness, but from habit. That pause in the night was a small, secret world.
By the flickering light of a candle, they prayed, leafed through worn books, or sipped spiced wine. Some crossed the street to knock on a neighbor’s door, others stayed in the kitchen telling stories to their children, hands wrapped around a warm cup. It was the heart of the night, and yet life flowed slowly—intimate, deep.
Then, when the invisible clock of darkness decided, they returned to bed. The second sleep carried them to dawn, when the rooster’s crow marked the beginning of the day.
For centuries it was this way—documented in diaries, stories, even medical manuals.
Then came the 19th century, with streetlamps, factories, and the noise of the cities. The middle hours of the night lost their magic, and people learned to sleep “all in one go.”
By the 20th century, almost no one remembered that sleep had once been split into two acts, like a play written by the darkness.
Today, we would call it insomnia.
Then… it was simply the most natural way to live in step with the night.
