Rise and Shine

This morning, I was awoken by my husband getting out of the shower. And by this morning, I mean at 2am. He got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and I guess figured it was time to get ready for work. He realized half way through that a) I was still sleeping and b) it was really dark outside.

I used to do this all the time in high school. I would wake up in the middle of the night and get all the way through my morning routine-makeup and all only to realize that I have several hours before I should be awake.

Historically, people slept differently than we do today. It's called sleep segment. They would go to sleep when the sun went down (around 8pm) and sleep until midnight. They would be awake for a couple of hours and then go back to sleep until around 6am). Apparently, this was very common up until the 1800s when electricity came about. Here are some bible verses that people used in their articles:

But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron (Judges 16:3).

At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! (Ruth 3:8)

At midnight I rise to praise you, because of your righteous rules (Psalm 119:62).

Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning (Mark 13:35).

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them (Acts 16:25).

These articles go into more detail:

BBC News
Polyphasic Society
Cranach, the blog of veith