Naturally Nocturnal Humans

To the OP and others who are 'nocturnal':

Have you traveled across the international date line (ex: you live in the US, but travel to Japan), and found the symptoms lessened or eliminated during the normal day hours there? I wonder if it's actually being nocturnal, or just having a different sleep/wake cycle. With a complete day/night swap, perhaps you feel normal?

I know that I've traveled across the line and never felt right there no matter how long I stayed - but on returning home I felt better once the requisite time passed and my cycle returned to the norm.

Originally posted by Nightflower
I go to bed at 6 am now, ... i get up at around 4-5pm.

Of course i tried on and off to change my rythm, but if it worked, it was only a few days and my hour's got later and later.

But when the sun rises and birds start to sing, i feel very comfortable going to sleep. I even open the windows a bit so i have some sunlight. It helps me to sleep when i know and can sense its day outside.

Forcing yourself into daylife will only make you sick in the end.

What can we do to wake society? How do you cope with beeing nocturnal? How do you manage to get through school. How do you manage to survive the day if you have to get up early? What are you doing against boredom at night?

Thank you for sharing this, it was like reading a story of my life... I'm the exact same way and have been for a long time. Like you said, I can sometimes sleep at night and be awake during the day, but it only lasts a few days and then I start going to sleep later and later until I'm going to bed around 6 am. It kindof stabilizes then and I stop having problems with the hours at which I go to sleep. It just feels more natural to me to go to sleep once the sun is up. I definitely understand what you mean when you say that forcing yourself into day life can make you sick... Physically and mentally, I just feel terrible if my sleep schedule is disturbed... I feel like a zombie and am not able to think or concentrate, just moving one step at a time from place to place. I usually try to get jobs which are overnight or at least in the evening, otherwise I just simply wouldn't be able to function. The only thing I don't like about this whole issue is the fact that while I usually sleep for half the day, I'm missing out on doing various things.

It's interesting how many people say allowing themselves to enjoy a nocturnal lifestyle has helped combat depression.

I suffered severe depression for years, and now it's mostly gone. In that time I've become mostly nocturnal.

I really just love the night-time.

I'm a bit telepathic, and during the day it's like buzzing in my brain, so many peoples' thoughts and feelings and fears battering at my senses. I'm in a quiet area where (other) people sleep at night, so the night-time is blissfully peaceful.

It's a wonderful feelinge to stretch your mind out into the starlit darkness, without encountering more then an occasional dreamer.

May I take this opportunity to ask something to you all nocturnal people?

How many of your consider your selves to be mediums or have extra degree of sensitivity to the environment or people?

honestly sometimes i wonder how long i can keep up with how my brain is wired my mother was a night person and we used to stay up late now that i am older with my own family i notice one of my daughters is always my night time tv partner and i worry for her since it really doesnt go away and even if i sleep early wich i really cant im still tired /zombie till 10 oclock at night.

if i get into bed at even 9 oclock say it feels in my mind like its 3 in the afternoon. i can tell my internal clock is much different then people who are awake in the morning.
ive noticed night people are often more in touch with there inner psych and are more prown to understand matters like esp and empathy its like the quiet of night helps us focus

this is the best thread ive read so far on ats and am impressed with its originality

Be Well

many stars and a solid flag for you my freind ...

Originally posted by gconran
To the OP and others who are 'nocturnal':

Have you traveled across the international date line (ex: you live in the US, but travel to Japan), and found the symptoms lessened or eliminated during the normal day hours there? I wonder if it's actually being nocturnal, or just having a different sleep/wake cycle. With a complete day/night swap, perhaps you feel normal?

I know that I've traveled across the line and never felt right there no matter how long I stayed - but on returning home I felt better once the requisite time passed and my cycle returned to the norm.

I personally never traveled to a opposite time zone. I can imagine it could make you beeing awake at day, would make sense since the rythm is in our genes, but if it's healthy? Maybe our clock would adjust over time, maybe not. it's a good question. I don't think it would feel natural to me, there's more about the night that appeals to me than just the clock time. The night is like a different magical world, where i feel at home.

People in older times didn't have the tech to travel so far in such a short amount of time, so there was always a population stuck somewhere with nocturnal and day people mixed inbetween. I guess nature must have a reason for that, maybe we were the watchers over the sleeping, who kept the fires running and stuff like that.

[edit on 20-3-2010 by Nightflower]

reply to post by thomas_


dude that is so weird i just read your post after i posted mine that is so eery ive got goose bumps and am thinking that this thread has actually touched on something new

not your a typical reptillian crapola this has substance so coool.

When i started this thread i was worried to even get good feedback and not be bashed. But now i'm really overwhelmed by all the feedback and contribution.

Thanks everyone

Originally posted by March of the Fire Ants
When I first saw this thread I was tempted to chime in with a 'me too' comment but I have to say I'm a bit surprised at the lack of skeptisism here..

With hindsight however I've come to associate this with being anti-social, un-productive and depressed. Not a lifestyle I want to accept as 'the way I am' purely because getting up early didn't feel good.

I'm not anti-social, un-productive, nor depressed. I have simply accepted that my natural rhythm dictates not sleeping at night. I also get by fine on much less sleep than is supposedly required. It's now 1:45 in the afternoon. I don't feel as calm and at peace as I do in the wee hours.

I don't dislike the daylight. I just happen to love the night.
As the song goes:
"The day is OK and the sun can be fun,
but I live to see those rays slip away."

reply to post by creaton91


its not a choice its in our hard wiring even if i am in bed early and ired my brain wakes up at 10pm

no changing just nature

Be Well

Posted in a thread a while back about people being happier in the sunlight. Totally the opposite for me. Being in the sun actually makes me very irritated. I get into a horrible mood and constantly feel tired no matter how much sleep i've gotten. So I know exactly what most of you are going through. Luckily my wife is the exact same so it's not a big deal at all.

i am one ! and i fee the same as you do

it make you wonder when newborns are sleep all day and awake all night
and the turn around the baby trick as parent try to correct it then like my parents tried but there are also nocturnal my parents stay up till 3am and
sleep till 11pm they have been like this since i can remember from the 70s to now yes indeed they're night people

what you call night blindness when you drive deer staring in the headlight effect i think its nocturnal people that have there eyesight is more sensitive as i see better at night as my eyes are sensitive during the day light hours

I have the same thing, it's called delayed sleep phase syndrome

It's very annoying, not following you own cycle makes you groggy, forgetfull and it's bad for your health, very bad. With me, my body goes into fight or flight mode, for about 8 hours!
And people think you are lazy and unreliable, because you are a bit slower and often oversleep.

If i do follow my own cycle i feal great, but your social life tends to suffer from it.

It's annyoing how fast something that doesn't fit the norm is called a syndrome and classified as a sickness or something like that.

I have pretty light sensitive eye's, too. Even to bright light in rooms irritate me alot, makes me feel uncomfortable. It helps to wear sunglasses, but gives ya strange looks from people. Once i got draged out from a train by the police and searched at evening . Maybe wearing a black coat(?) and having sunglasses on in the evening was a lil to scary for them.

I'm more of a morning person, but I work nights 11p.m-7a.m for the city. So I had to adjust to stay awake on the night shift. On some days it is really hard to stay awake when I'm driving a truck plowing, sanding, hauling all night. So in some cases I take a 20-30 minute snooze in the truck if my eyes feel heavy. Which is well worth it. It decreases the risk of getting into a accident by 100 times from what I found. Because after that snooze I feel very alert by the end of the night.

I almost had multiple of incidents that could have been extremely dangerous. The longest that I had my eyes shut when I was driving was for 8-10 seconds! Woke up with a heart palpitation. If I can't have a little rest in the truck I have to blast the music inside, roll down the windows, turn on the A/C. But even that doesn't work when my eyes feel heavy so, I have to force my eyes open and try and follow the broken lines in the middle of the road to keep me distracted. That or have lots of coffee, but I'm not a coffee drinker.

Nice and well made thread. As a psychologist and scientist i need to say that its nothing called a : Naturally Nocturnal Human.

But i do know what you mean,and your point is correct. Just used the word natural in a wrong sent

Originally posted by Archirvion
Nice and well made thread. As a psychologist and scientist i need to say that its nothing called a : Naturally Nocturnal Human.

But i do know what you mean,and your point is correct

. Just used the word natural in a wrong sent

Would you care to explain? How would you call it?

I wanted to bring the point, that these people are that way because nature made them like this, across. Many still think it's not natural to be night active, for a human, while it truly is for many.

So from a nature or nurture POV, would you (open to all 'Nocturnals') say it is something you were born with or something that developed due to X circumstance?

I don't mean to seem overly critical, it's just that as someone who lived like that for years and is now happier to see an end to it, I find it hard to understand why there's such universal agreement here that this is just 'the way you are'.

I'll concede that this could be the case for some, possibly most of you, but I think some need to be a bit more honest with themselves. I'm all for being happy with who you are but..

No offence meant at all, there just came a point where I had to have a word with myself!

Originally posted by thomas_
May I take this opportunity to ask something to you all nocturnal people?

How many of your consider your selves to be mediums or have extra degree of sensitivity to the environment or people?

Amazing question. I've always felt that way but I come in and out of it, depending on my sleeping cycle. A few years ago when I was out of school(I studied in the morning), I used to go to bed at around 4am because I had no real schedule at all. I had been depressed, completely anti-social and had failed my last year in high school before saying # it and taking some time off. I distinctly remember telling everyone that "this is exactly where I'm supposed to be" simply because I experienced a lot of "deja vus" and "premonitions".
It paralyzed me in such a way that I didn't know how to react or what to do until the feeling was gone because it was all so different than previous occurrences. The context which I had in my mind ended up to be nothing like what it was when it took place. Not the best example, but crying because you're sad is different than crying when you're happy, right?

I felt a lot more connected, even though I was COMPLETELY disconnected from everything. But after the year was over, out of nowhere on the very last week before classes began, I went back. Classes were in the morning once again, and except for the weekends, I was forced to start sleeping early. not to say I liked it and it hardly did anything for me and I would sometimes sleep through all the classes, something I used to do even before. The "deja-vus" and the "premonitions" were pretty much far and in between that year. HOWEVER, my level of consciousness around that time made it easier to get myself to have lucid dreams and things like that.

I started taking some classes at night the year after graduation, while I thought it was perfect for me, I wasn't motivated and all I wanted was for it to be over...just like my high school years spent studying in the morning. It literally sucked. Any extra sensitivity was slightly forgotten in me going to the same "level" as years before. until now.

Lately I sleep at 6am wake up at noon, sometimes later, still study at night but I'm in college now, doing something I love. but that feeling is back and it's particularly stronger now. But I'm no longer depressed or anti-social, and I've been questioning myself about this - I can't have lucid dreams anymore, probably because I don't sleep as much or whenever I hit the bed I fall asleep almost instantly. But those other things are back and they last longer. Recently I spent almost an entire week feeling weird about this, like my life is a movie I've seen repeatedly, but the context in which I remembered it continued wrong.

But everything feels like it's connected once again. It leads me to believe that back then was just the beginning of it, like it was leading me here and there's something bigger happening around(or inside) me that I can't see it or I don't know what it is yet.

What I mean is: I've always been really sensitive since I was young, but it grows whenever my sleeping is out of place from everyone else. My creativity is all over, too. But at the same time other things I have in me that are hidden/forgotten all happen to come to surface when I'm aligned with other people. These days I've been trying to keep both where I can see and find them and this was something I could never do/think of doing before.

I guess it all has to do with learning from and about yourself. I'm completely aware sleeping when everyone else is waking up isn't that good and I try my very best to compensate. It's the least I can do.
Like those nocturnal humans before us, they couldn't leave the morning ones behind because they needed them in a certain level just as as much as the morning humans needed them. Guess it's just a matter of accepting the differences..but that seems to have been lost in modern society somehow?

It's nice to see so many others that have the same pattern. I'm tired all day, no matter what time I get up or how much sleep I get. But, when that sun drops below the horizon I can feel the energy in me increase. I knew someone that was into the new wave or new age or whatever you call it and she said something to me once that made a lot of sense. She said that some of us are ruled by the sun(day time people) and some of us are ruled by the moon( we night owls).



Oh how many times I've tried being a day person when I was younger. I would force myself to stay up all night and day so I would fall asleep the next night. It never lasted more than a few days and I'd be right back into my normal pattern. I eventually gave up and accepted that I'm meant to live my life in the night. I wouldn't try to change it for anything now. I love it at night! The peace and quiet of the world, you can actually hear yourself think. There isn't a feeling of being constantly rushed as it is in the daylight hours. NO crowds to deal with. No traffic to deal with. The only draw back is the police that are always curious as to why you're out that late and the infomercials on television.



Now if only the television stations could realize there are so many of us and take all those damn infomercials off and put something good on.