(or maybe I'm just sleepless, but...interesting piece from WSJ on how some people can run on little sleep but still get a lot done)

For a small group of people—perhaps just 1% to 3% of the population—sleep is a waste of time.

Natural "short sleepers," as they're officially known, are night owls and early birds simultaneously. They typically turn in well after midnight, then get up just a few hours later and barrel through the day without needing to take naps or load up on caffeine.

They are also energetic, outgoing, optimistic and ambitious, according to the few researchers who have studied them. The pattern sometimes starts in childhood and often runs in families.

While it's unclear if all short sleepers are high achievers, they do have more time in the day to do things, and keep finding more interesting things to do than sleep, often doing several things at once.

Nobody knows how many natural short sleepers are out there. "There aren't nearly as many as there are people who think they're short sleepers," says Daniel J. Buysse, a psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, a professional group.

Out of every 100 people who believe they only need five or six hours of sleep a night, only about five people really do, Dr. Buysse says. The rest end up chronically sleep deprived, part of the one-third of U.S. adults who get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, according to a report last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

To date, only a handful of small studies have looked at short sleepers—in part because they're hard to find. They rarely go to sleep clinics and don't think they have a disorder.

A few studies have suggested that some short sleepers may have hypomania, a mild form of mania with racing thoughts and few inhibitions. "These people talk fast. They never stop. They're always on the up side of life," says Dr. Buysse. He was one of the authors of a 2001 study that had 12 confirmed short sleepers and 12 control subjects keep diaries and complete numerous questionnaires about their work, sleep and living habits.One survey dubbed "Attitude for Life" that was actually a test for hypomania. The natural short sleepers scored twice as high as the controls.

There is currently no way people can teach themselves to be short sleepers. Still, scientists hope that by studying short sleepers, they can better understand how the body regulates sleep and why sleep needs vary so much in humans.

"My long-term goal is to someday learn enough so we can manipulate the sleep pathways without damaging our health," says human geneticist Ying-Hui Fu at the University of California-San Francisco. "Everybody can use more waking hours, even if you just watch movies."

Dr. Fu was part of a research team that discovered a gene variation, hDEC2, in a pair of short sleepers in 2009. They were studying extreme early birds when they noticed that two of their subjects, a mother and daughter, got up naturally about 4 a.m. but also went to bed past midnight.

Genetic analyses spotted one gene variation common to them both. The scientists were able to replicate the gene variation in a strain of mice and found that the mice needed less sleep than usual, too.

News of their finding spurred other people to write the team, saying they were natural short sleepers and volunteering to be studied. The researchers are recruiting more candidates and hope to find more gene variations they have in common.

Potential candidates for the gene study are sent multiple questionnaires and undergo a long structured phone interview. Those who make the initial screening wear monitors to track their sleep patterns at home. Christopher Jones, a University of Utah neurologist and sleep scientist who oversees the recruiting, says there is one question that is more revealing than anything else: When people do have a chance to sleep longer, on weekends or vacation, do they still sleep only five or six hours a night? People who sleep more when they can are not true short sleepers, he says.

To date, Dr. Jones says he has identified only about 20 true short sleepers, and he says they share some fascinating characteristics. Not only are their circadian rhythms different from most people, so are their moods (very upbeat) and their metabolism (they're thinner than average, even though sleep deprivation usually raises the risk of obesity). They also seem to have a high tolerance for physical pain and psychological setbacks.

"They encounter obstacles, they just pick themselves up and try again," Dr. Jones says.

Some short sleepers say their sleep patterns go back to childhood and some see the same patterns starting in their own kids, such as giving up naps by age 2. As adults, they gravitate to different fields, but whatever they do, they do full bore, Dr. Jones says.

"Typically, at the end of a long, structured phone interview, they will admit that they've been texting and surfing the Internet and doing the crossword puzzle at the same time, all on less than six hours of sleep," says Dr. Jones. "There is some sort of psychological and physiological energy to them that we don't understand."

Drs. Jones and Fu stress that there is no genetic test for short sleeping. Ultimately, they expect to find that many different genes play a role, which may in turn reveal more about the complex systems that regulate sleep in humans.

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Leonardo da Vinci were too busy to sleep much, according to historical accounts. Winston Churchill and Thomas Edison came close but they were also fond of taking naps, which may disqualify them as true short sleepers.

Nowadays, some short sleepers gravitate to fields like blogging, videogame design and social media, where their sleep habits come in handy. "If I could find a way to do it, I'd never sleep," says Dave Hatter, a software developer in Fort Wright, Ky. He typically sleeps just four to five hours a night, up from two to three hours a few years ago.

"It's crazy, but it works for me," says Eleanor Hoffman, an overnight administrator at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York who would rather spend afternoons playing mahjong with friends than sleep anymore than four hours. Sometimes she calls her cousin, Linda Cohen, in Pittsburgh about 4 a.m., since she knows she'll be wide awake as well—just like they were as kids.

"I come to life about 11 at night," says Mrs. Cohen, who owns a chain of toy stores with her husband and gets up early in the morning with ease. "If I went to bed earlier, I'd feel like half my life was missing."

Are you a short sleeper? For more information on the genetic study, contact Dr. Jones at chris.jones@hsc.utah.edu

Write to Melinda Beck (who wrote this) at HealthJournal@wsj.com

I was woken from my sleep again by shouting from next door. "Wake up!" she yelled. "Get up!" she screamed. "You're no good any more."

The last people I lived next to were kindly, gentle folk. The most I really overheard was Sunday evening's poke.

I lived above an old man once whose legs were amputated. His daughter stayed there, smoked a lot, he sleep-talked while sedated.

Considering in abstract all the ways we intersect, The bits of life we hear and share, the private sound's effect -

I wonder if in quiet times they can hear me through the wall, And if I seem a happy chap, or make no sound at all.

(c) me

Sleep
by Samuel Johnson
'The Idler' no. 32, Saturday, 25th November 1758

Among the innumerable mortifications that way-lay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiaritv with knowledge, and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the Speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harrasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still as he enquires more perceives only that he knows less.

Sleep is a state in which a great part of every life is passed. No animal has been yet discovered, whose existence is not varied with intervals of insensibility; and some late Philosophers have extended the empire of Sleep over the vegetable world.

Yet of this change so frequent, so great, so general, and so necessary, no searcher has yet found either the efficient or final cause; or can tell by what power the mind and body are thus chained down in irresistible stupefaction; or what benefits the animal receives from this alternate suspension of its active powers.

Whatever may be the multiplicity or contrariety of opinions upon this subject, Nature has taken sufficient care that Theory shall have little influence on Practice. The most diligent enquirer is not able long to keep his eyes open; the most eager disputant will begin about midnight to desert his argument; and once in four and twenty hours, the gay and the gloomy, the witty and the dull, the clamorous and the silent, the busy and the idle, are all overpowered by the gentle tyrant, and all lie down in the equality of Sleep.

Philosophy has often attempted to repress insolence, by asserting that all conditions are levelled by Death; a position which, however it may deject the happy, will seldom afford much comfort to the wretched. It is far more pleasing to consider that Sleep is equally a leveller with Death; that the time is never at a great distance, when the balm of rest shall be effused alike upon every head, when the diversities of life shall stop their operation, and the high and the low shall lie down together.

It is somewhere recorded of Alexander, that in the pride of conquests, and intoxication of flattery, he declared that he only perceived himself to be a man by the necessity of Sleep. Whether he considered Sleep as necessary to his mind or body, it was indeed a sufficient evidence of human infirmity; the body which required such frequency of renovation gave but faint promises of immortality; and the mind which, from time to time, sunk gladly into insensibility, had made no very near approaches to the felicity of the supreme and self-sufficient Nature.

I know not what can tend more to repress all the passions that disturb the peace of the world, than the consideration that there is no height of happiness or honour, from which man does not eagerly descend to a state of unconscious repose; that the best condition of life is such, that we contentedly quit its good to be disentangled from its evils; that in a few hours splendor fades before the eye, and praise itself deadens in the ear; the senses withdraw from their objects, and reason favours the retreat.

What then are the hopes and prospects of covetousness, ambition, and rapacity? Let him that desires most have all his desires gratified, he never shall attain a state, which he can, for a day and a night, contemplate with satisfaction, or from which, if he had the power of perpetual vigilance, he would not long for periodical separations.

All envy would be extinguished if it were universally known that there are none to be envied, and surely none can be much envied who are not pleased with themselves. There is reason to suspect that the distinctions of mankind have more show than value, when it is found that all agree to be weary alike of pleasures and of cares; that the powerful and the weak, the celebrated and obscure, join in one common wish, and implore from Nature's hand the nectar of oblivion.

Such is our desire of abstraction from ourselves, that very few are satisfied with the quantity of stupefaction which the needs of the body force upon the mind. Alexander himself added intemperance to sleep, and solaced with the fumes of wine the- sovereignty of the world; and almost every man has some art, by which he steals his thoughts away from his present state.

It is not much of life that is spent in close attention to any important duty. Many hours of every day are suffered to fly away without any traces left upon the intellects. We suffer phantoms to rise up before us, and amuse ourselves with the dance of airy images, which after a time we dismiss for ever, and know not how we have been busied.

Many have no happier moments than those that they pass in solitude, abandoned to their own imagination, which sometimes puts sceptres in their hands or mitres on their heads, shifts the scene of pleasure with endless variety, bids all the forms of beauty sparkle before them, and gluts them with every change of visionary luxury.

It is easy in these semi-slumbers to collect all the possibilities of happiness, to alter the course of the Sun, to bring back the past, and anticipate the future, to unite all the beauties of all seasons, and all the blessings of all climates, to receive and bestow felicity, and forget that misery is the lot of man. All this is a voluntary dream, a temporary recession from the realities of life to airy fictions; and habitual subjection of reason to fancy.

Others are afraid to be alone, and amuse themselves by a perpetual succession of companions: but the difference is not great; in solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert. The end sought in both is forgetfulness of ourselves.

Samuel Johnson, 1709 - 1784.

Jeff Warren is the author of a fantastic book called The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness. In it, he describes twelve unique states of mind that are available to us over a 24-hour day. Some occur with strict regularity, others are more rare. It's particularly interesting if, like me, you daydream at night, snooze in the day and occasionally feel like you don't quite know what's going on. It helps mental health too, mainly because by explaining and eulogizing a state of mind, he takes the fear, worry and stress out of sleeplessness. A bit like when people say: "you're not afraid, you're excited". But better. Here is a piece on insomnia he wrote for Huffington Post:

Holidays are over and money is tight. But you still need a vacation, a break from the everyday routine and the everyday mind. Consider a head trip, the ultimate in bargain getaways. Most of us think of awareness as a kind of binary proposition: we're awake and then we're asleep. But the real mind is far more variegated and textured. Every 24 hours we move through a number of overlooked but still exotic states of consciousness. Some of these destinations are inevitable, others take a bit of work to get there. They all have insights to offer the open-minded traveler.

First stop: the middle of the night. Most of us wake up half a dozen times a night, at the end of every REM period. Usually these wake-ups are so short we forget they ever happened. But sometimes, especially as we get older, they're longer. We wake blinking in our beds and stare at the dark ceiling. We listen to the sound of our bed partner's regular breathing, of the occasional car passing outside, of the wind in the trees. Sleep, for the moment, is out of reach. At this point, though few of us realize it, we are actually confronted with a choice. Choice A - the one most people make - goes something like this: "Oh man, I can't get back to sleep. I have insomnia. I have to be up early tomorrow, I'm going to be a zombie at work. I'm dead. I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead" followed by hours of agonized tossing and fretting and staring at the LED bars on the clock radio in abject despair. This is the dark night of the soul route, a bit extreme perhaps but nonetheless a scenario many will find familiar. But there is another choice - choice B. Choice B draws on some fascinating historical and scientific research that challenges the consensus view of sleep as a continuous, consolidated 8-hour block of time. When University of Virginia historian A. Roger Ekirch began researching sleep in pre-industrial societies he was surprised by hundreds of references to something called "first sleep" and a second or "morning sleep." It seems as though before the advent of mass artificial lighting - with its attendant suite of late-night consumption opportunities - much of the Western world slept in two sections: once in the early evening, and once more in the early morning. In between our ancestors woke for several hours to a curious state of consciousness that had no name, other that the generic "watch" or "watching." Ekirch's historical evidence aligns with scientific findings from the respected National Institutes of Health chronobiologist Thomas Wehr. For one month Wehr had a group of volunteers spend the full duration of a 14-hour winter's night in bed. Every one of the volunteers lapsed into a segmented sleep pattern. Although it took a succession of long winter nights to provoke this kind of sleep, when Wehr published his findings he speculated that segmented sleep may be the default physiological pattern for humans in general - certainly it matched similar patterns observed in modern forager cultures. Sleep, it seems, is more plastic than most of us realize. It can be pressed and squeezed and shaped by culture. Perhaps, Wehr speculated, as we age this older segmented pattern begins to reassert itself. A final bit of background for Choice B. During the wakeful portion of the night the brains of Wehr's subjects showed "striking" chemical correlates. Levels of prolactin rose to twice their daytime levels, a hormone associated with lactating mothers and peacefully roosting chickens. The volunteers described an altered state of "quiescent rest," a peaceful awareness where time passed very quickly. When Wehr told some of his older friends and colleagues about his findings it apparently changed their whole experience of being awake at night. "It's amazing," Wehr told me, "one's attitude can determine whether the Watch is experienced as a disorder or part of the natural sleep rest cycle." Now let's return to our scenario, one I relate from personal experience. We wake in the night to the sound of our partner's breathing, an occasional car driving by outside, the wind in the trees. Fresh from a period of REM, the mind is filled with dream images. "This is natural," we think. Alertness mixes deliciously with drowsiness. At once heavy and buoyant, we luxuriate in bed and ponder our dreams, looking inside but also out. In Wehr's words, we are situated in a unique "channel of communication" between dreams and waking life that has been gradually closed off by our productivity-obsessed culture. The Watch is a protected window into the myth-saturated world of dreams. It is a time for prayer and contemplation, of lying in our warm beds and seeping in rare atmospheres. It is, in sum, a kind of wakefulness that should be celebrated, not simply endured. So. You're awake in the night. Tomorrow will come regardless. Why not enjoy the trip?

The book is as much a journey of self-discovery as anything else. Warren practices lucid dreaming at a retreat in Hawaii, tries to meditate in Scotland (hoots), and mixes the whole things up with digests of psychological literature and interviews with various boffins on the subject.

It hasn't had quite as much attention as it deserves, because sometimes the whole 'altered states' thing is often seen (including, if I'm honest, me from time to time) as a bit beardy weirdy, not proper science. But sleep? Well, we spend a third of our lives doing it. Who knows what we could be missing out on.

The picture above is animated on his website and explains the full cycle, but until you get there, here are some of the states of mind he discusses. Some of them may sound pretty familiar:

• Hypnagogic: a transitionary state before we go to sleep when we often experience mild hallucinations.
• Slow wave sleep: deep sleep when our body grows and repairs itself. We do seem to dream a little in this state, but the dreams themselves are usually unspectacular. People woken for this phase report dreaming about getting ready for exams and other mundane activities.
• The 'watch': a period of ultra-relaxed wakefulness occurring in the middle of the night that is mainly experienced by cultures whose rest and activity patterns follow the sun.
• REM dreams: A lighter type of sleep where we do our most creative dreaming. This is where all the bizarre stuff happens.
• Lucid dreaming: this state is difficult to enter, but magic if you can do it. Suddenly you control everything: you can do what you want and it all seems absolutely real, not like a normal dream at all.
• Hypnopompic: the mirror image of the hypnagogic - a transitionary stage after we wake up when, again, we can experience mild hallucinations.
• Trance: well-known to anyone who's seen a hypnotist in action.
• Sensorimotor rhythm: a goal of neurofeedback 'brain training' that is thought to help people such as those with attention disorders to concentrate. Creates a clear, calm and focussed state of consciousness.
• The Zone: also called 'flow' by psychologists. A high arousal, high concentration state when everything clicks. The Holy Grail for people playing sports.
• Pure conscious event: very hard to articulate. This is a highly focussed state usually achieved through meditation where the brain's continuous chatter is dialled right down to nothing and we can just be.

Nothing on snoring, I note. Still, tireless in my scientific enquiry, I managed to dig up this gem:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbOzHsRkmdU&hl=en]

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