Thanks, Caveman! What a great article!

This really helps with understanding my mixed reaction to Wiley's book. So much of it seems so right, but a lot of missing pieces too.

I am familiar with some of these ideas. I practiced "attachment parenting" with my babies, including co-family sleeping, also known as the family bed. We all slept together in one room, with most of us in the same bed for several years. People who do this are aware of the practice of sleeping with babies in "primitive" cultures and wish to replicate this. We also carried our babies around with us much of the day.

I love the idea of segmented sleep and not seeing night wakings as a "disorder." This really answers the questions about how people without artificial lighting can sleep through long winter nights. The answer: they don't First they sleep, then they think about their dreams, talk, and have sex. Then they sleep some more.

Those fires people were tending surely made as much light as our electric devices and light seeping through the edges of the shades.

As for the monthly all-night sessions, I bet those tended to co-incide with full moons. Women with fertility problems are often advised to coordinate the light in their bedrooms with the moon's cycles. i.e. complete darkness for most of the month, then the shades open or a dim night light for the three nights around the full moon. Wiley doesn't get into moonlight at all, as far as I can remember.

And even with all the above, it still seems these folks get more sleep than we do.

I'll sign up for everything except the part about no mattress or pillow!