Dreams Deferred - New York Times

Dreams Deferred - New York Times: "Remarkably, then, our pattern of consolidated sleep has been a relatively recent development, another product of the industrial age, while segmented sleep was long the natural form of our slumber, having a provenance as old as humankind. (Homer even invoked the term 'first sleep' in 'The Odyssey.') For experts like Dr. Thomas Wehr, who conducted the experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health, some common sleep disorders may be nothing more than sleep's older, primal pattern trying to reassert itself — 'breaking through,' as Dr. Wehr has put it, into today's 'artificial world.'"