The Online Photographer

["Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial Page of TOP, when Yr. Hmbl. Ed. nods off and allows a dreamlike state to intrude on his waking thoughts. It is supposed to appear on Sundays, and sometimes does.]

So far, I'm high on my new schedule. I love it.

Biphasic means "two phases." I've been getting up for four hours in the middle of every night. And during that time I do nothing but work on book projects. It's working great so far, although I'm still adjusting the rest of my day to the new schedule.

I'll tell you one thing—the middle period, between first sleep and second sleep, traditionally called the "watch," is great for writing. At 3:00 a.m., there are no lawnmowers or leafblowers, no chatty Cathys on the road out front talking loudly into Bluetooth headsets or big families from rental cottages strolling by, no Harley-Davidsons, no kids yelling, no dogs barking or chainsaws droning, no one calling or message alerts pinging, no workmen or tradesmen scheduled to come by, no threat of the (new) doorbell ringing (it was broken for seven years and I just replaced it), no grunting trucks delivering propane or Amazon packages. Just beautiful darkness and quiet. It is utter bliss. I've gotten more work done on the book project about Xander's birth in the past week than I have in all of 2025 before this, no exaggeration. And when I took stock of all the material I already had, digging bits and pieces off hard drives hither and yon (I've got 50 half-finished projects all over everywhere if I've got one), I discovered that the book is fully one-quarter finished already, maybe even more. I had already written much more than I remembered. 

I put the new wireless doorbell at eye level on the glass of the main door. That way it's more protected from the weather. When it goes kaput, I can scrape the adhesive off the glass with a razor blade. But the guy from the electric company missed it. So I put a sign on it. If he can't find it next time, that's on him.

I'm eccentric ain't I?

The only thing I've had to sacrifice with the new biphasic sleep schedule is all the hours I used to waste every night before bed when, tired and winding down from the day, I would spend hours dicking around on the Internet, watching tennis and pool matches and endless random YouTube videos and shorts. And stay up too late doing so. I can certainly let that go and not be much the poorer.

This new working schedule, by the way, might be Butters' last gift. As I mentioned (complained about?) a number of times this Spring, I had to get up in the middle of the night from one to five times each night for this whole year up till the time he died. So of course I got more and more used to it. Now, I can't tell you how eagerly I look forward to the alarm going off at three o'clock in the morning, after my "first sleep" of four hours. It means a solid four hours to write with no interruptions and no distractions. I just love it. The middle of the night instantly became my favorite time of day. And on the couple of days it all worked right (I'm still adjusting), I actually got more sleep than usual, not less.

I should mention that I've had sleep problems all my life, literally. I stopped taking naps at two, and my parents couldn't get me to go to sleep at night even when I was still literally in my crib (I would clamber out of my crib and go pester them). There have only been two exceptions: on my "Freshman Trip" at Dartmouth when we literally didn't even have flashlights, I synchronized with the sun; and, conversely, after I took "Sleeping and Dreaming" from Dr. Peter Hauri, who was briefly a professor at Dartmouth before he became Director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Mayo Clinic. I got to participate in a "time free environment," when I discovered that I naturally had a 36-hour circadian cycle at the time. This is not an outlier, but it's extreme, way longer than normal.

I don't know if this will continue, but right now I feel like this is one of the most exciting changes of my writing life. We'll see how it goes.

Patience
My regular readers here are very patient people, I'll say that. You're very patient with my eccentricities. You have to be. Maybe I can learn to be patient with myself as well, and to have a little faith. 

So that's the report on the biphasic sleep experiment so far. I'll report again in about a month—feel free to remind me on or around July 15th. If you want to read up about the history of sleep, here's the magnum opus on the topic.

Mike

[CORRECTION: The link has been fixed. Thanks to all who reported the problem. —Ed.]

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Featured Comments from:

AN: "There was a brief period in my early twenties, when I lived alone for a few months and had limited scheduled obligations. During that time, I decided to just sleep whenever I felt like it, and wake up whenever I felt like it. I ended up settling into a biphasic sleep pattern, and felt great. I referred to the waking period between sleeps as 'mini-day.' There was often a small meal during mini-day. Like you, I found mini-day to be a very enjoyable and productive time. Years later, I read about biphasic sleep for the first time, recognized my old sleep pattern, and decided to try it again. It was still great, but unfortunately not as feasible, living in a house with other people, and having many scheduled obligations. Maybe someday…."

schralp: "I’m gonna go out on a limb and just say it; the fact that you’re setting an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night tells me that you’re deluding yourself. If you naturally wake up then and choose stay up to work with catch-up sleep later, that’s great. But otherwise, listen to your body and its rhythms since you now have the luxury to do so. Take it from someone who was not able to do so for many years (medical school, internship, residency, fellowship, and years of clinical practice). Granted, the awakenings were more, and the need to work less predictable, but it has certainly led me to a greater understanding of the wisdom of listening to the body. Sleep as you duly noted is a precious commodity. Don’t force your sleep pattern. We will all be OK without your final report on this experiment in July."