Night Owl or Morning Lark?

[§ê¢rꆧ]

So, I was just wondering... are we Night Owls here at RigInt or Larks? I would guess there are more Owls than Larks, but I could be wrong. Please answer honestly, how you really feel. There have been periods of my life where I had to get up early and did, yet I was still a Night Owl in spirit, even though I wasn't staying up late as late as I wanted too - mostly I was just sleep deprived.

And then of course there are those for which there seems to be no dichotomy; they are often light sleepers, I have found. Sometimes they stay up late, but they also get up early usually without much problem. There's an poll option for you, too.

Please vote, if you have opened this thread to read, even if you don't post.

Please post if you have anything at all to say about circadian rhythms, night people, day people, sleep... to me, this is a very fascinating subject. I'll elaborate my take on it in a bit, too, beyond the fact that I am a TERRIBLE NIGHT OWL that indulges in moonlight perhaps too much, often, and have arranged most of my life to allow for this. Bright light hurts me, or so it seems, and it certainly makes me sleepy, which it isn't supposed to. Anyway...

[NaturalMystik]

Total night hawk. I do a lot of my work after midnight. I don't function well in the morning, and having to get up early effects the whole day. Whether I've had 12 hours of sleep, or 6... I love nights... Although I do love the sun too! Too bad mornings are so early.

[brainpanhandler]

Just got up, again, although I don't have to be up for another few hours, but at this point I'll just stay up. Sleep disorder. Do all my best thinking in the morning after a few cups of coffee. I used to envy people that could function on only a few hours sleep as I thought I could get so much more done. It hasn't worked out that way for me. As a kid I could sleep for 12 hours straight, easily. It was impossible to wake me from sleep as a kid. If my parents had to get me up it was a 30 minute tussle simply to bring me to consciousness. I had a somnabulism faze as a kid as well and I have ahd more than a few girlfriends report that I do and say weird shit in my sleep. I've had girlfriends tell me they have had entire conversations with me before they discovered I was asleep. I have a sneaking suspicion that a number a relationship have ended as a result of this sort of thing.

So, I am a converted night owl, but since I love owls and also shun the light, I am going to call myself a morning owl.

[Username]

~
from The Devil's Dictionary

DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.
~

[marmot]

[§ê¢rꆧ]

That's a beautiful owl, marmot. Since moving to West coast, I hear an owl hooting out at night when I go out for a smoke, and it never fails to give me pleasure. Maybe sometime if I am very lucky I will get to see him, because I sometimes go out for my daily walk at night.

There are some folks that claim night owls have something called DSPS (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome). On the one hand, I think this is good, because it is at least recognizing the phenomenon, working against that "oh you are just too lazy or don't have enough willpower" argument some larks foist on us owls. On the other hand, it is more medical-ization of something that seems perfectly normal... to me, anyhow.

I once signed up for a sleep study in college, and went through a battery of tests, in hopes that I might learn something about my natural sleep rhythms and perhaps function better. They told me I was too psychotic, based on the psyche tests I took, to participate

Now, I don't exhibit any psychotic behavior that I know of and no one else has ever told me that, but it was nonetheless shocking to be turned down because I'm 'too psychotic'

So these days, I've just given up trying to be a lark. I work best at night, and I just explain to people that's how it is. Sometimes I have to get up early and it throws me off functionally, but what can you do.

brainpanhandler, have you ever thought of using a voice activated recorder to record what you say when you sleep?

[lightningBugout]

I have ahd more than a few girlfriends report that I do and say weird shit in my sleep. I've had girlfriends tell me they have had entire conversations with me before they discovered I was asleep.

Me too. One told me I often said "I'm not a machine."

[brainpanhandler]

brainpanhandler, have you ever thought of using a voice activated recorder to record what you say when you sleep?

That thought has occurred to me. I am certainly curious to know what I say in my sleep and I have always tried to get people who have heard me talk in my sleep to tell me what I said. I tried on occasion to get a girlfriend to take notes. None of them ever successfully did. The fact that they all tend to have hazy recollections and appear evasive when I ask them to recount what I said suggests to me that they do not want to tell me what I say in my sleep. It's actually created a bit of a bind for me. Who the hell wants their subconscious mind on display? While I am curious as hell to know, I am also a bit frightened as well. I may try the voice activated recorder someday, but imagine how creepy that might be. What if I speak in tongues or express some deeply repressed desire or speak in a voice not my own or god only knows what?

[brainpanhandler]

I have ahd more than a few girlfriends report that I do and say weird shit in my sleep. I've had girlfriends tell me they have had entire conversations with me before they discovered I was asleep.

Me too. One told me I often said "I'm not a machine."

This comment brought to mind the case of Joey The Mechanical Boy.

http://www.drbilllong.com/Autism/Bruno.html

That's a can of worms and I am not suggesting it has anything to do with you, but that's what came to mind.

[Magnus]

I've always been a night owl but have only been able to indulge in it later in life. I like to start work around midnight, maybe a little earlier, and then enjoy the dawn with coffee on the deck. I HATE mornings otherwise, but this way they are truly wonderful. Then I go home on the bus while everyone is going to work. They're all clean smelling and quiet while I'm covered in filth yet very happy. Having to wake up early and actually be somewhere can put me in a fowl mood for a week. Mostly because it's impossible for me to fall asleep at an appropriate time and so get little or no sleep. But also because I resent it.

I've also been told I talk in my sleep but they never tell me what I said. Since I dream of Rigint type things I probably yell "Kill the pedophiles!" or some such thing. They never stick around long... I gotta get one of those tape recorders.

[Seamus OBlimey]

Wiki

Coop

[norton ash]

People who read a ton and are into night life, cultural events, entertainment and mind expanding (or blotting) tend to be night folk... which I believe describes most RI'ers.

[§ê¢rꆧ]

Could you get used to reading a clock like this?

(FYI, that clock says 4:40)

Anyhow, if you haven't voted, please take a moment to vote.

I wish I could change the poll to include Non 24-hour Sleep/Wake Cycle (or Free-running Circadian Rhythm Disorder), because I think that describes me better than Night Owl. Although I do feel most comfortable at night.

[Project Willow]

Why, it's a board of B People!

http://www.b-society.org/

Why do we need to work at the same time and in identical patterns as the industrial times, when today's innovation society does not demand this from us? Especially now, when we discover that a fourth of our entire population does not even fit to this old-fashioned day rhythm?

Why do we all have to be stuck on the road to work every morning and hurry back from there to pick up the kids before the day-care centre closes, when actually this could be different?

B-Society's mission is to change the structures, on the labour market and in society at large, so B-people can finally fit in. We are going to reckon with the 8-4 society and its lacking respect for B-persons' day rhythms.

The 10 commandments of B-society

1. The daily rhythm of each individual is genetically conditioned by heredity. Society needs to be structured to support a diversity of daily rhythms.
2. We are calling for an uprising against the tyranny of early rising, and for a better world where a diversity of daily rhythms is acknowledged and respected, giving us the opportunity for a better quality of life, more productive working time and major socioeconomic gains once we no longer take up the same space on the same roads at the same time.
3. We are working for equality between early birds and night owls.
4. We are working for a more flexible labour market. Each individual's daily rhythm should, as far as possible, govern that person's working life.
5. We are working for the introduction of collective agreements for early birds and night owls at negotiations for labour market agreements.
6. We are working for the establishment of day nurseries, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools as well as universities that open between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m, at least.
7. We are working for more research into daily rhythms.
8. We grant ”B-certification” on http://www.b-productive.dk/eng to businesses, who allow employees to work according to their own daily rhythm, work rhythm and life rhythm.
9. We are working globally for a better world that supports a diversity of individual daily rhythms, working rhythms and life rhythms.
10. Imagine how differently society would have turned out if the creators of the world had been night owls!

[Nordic]

I tend to talk in my sleep when someone is trying to wake me up. They think I'm awake, but I have no memory of the things I say. And apparently I can be a real dick.

More than once, in high school, I would stumble out to the kitchen for breakfast and my mother would be sniffling over the stove making me breakfast. I'd say "what's wrong?" and she'd say "I wish you wouldn't swear at me when I'm trying to wake you up."

Good lord. Swearing at my sweet old mom. No matter how much I told her I had no recollection of it, it didn't seem to help. And of course she refused to repeat whatever it was I said exactly.

I'm a night owl all the way. My natural rhythm is to go to bed between 2 and 3 and wake up between 9 and 10. When I work on film sets, I like working "splits" the best, which is basically where you do half-day, half-night. So your call time is, say, 2 pm and you work till 3 or 4 in the morning. That suits me the best. The 5 or 6 am calls just kick my ass, and I'm yawning and out of it all day long.