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Duration and Placement of Sleep in a “Disentrained” Environment
Author(s) -
Campbell Scott S.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1984.tb02327.x
Subject(s) - psychology , sleep (system call) , circadian rhythm , duration (music) , wakefulness , free running sleep , sleep onset , audiology , developmental psychology , period (music) , stimulation , slow wave sleep , sleep patterns , electroencephalography , insomnia , neuroscience , psychiatry , medicine , circadian clock , art , physics , literature , light effects on circadian rhythm , computer science , acoustics , operating system
Sleep/wake cycles of 9 young adults were electrographically recorded during 60 hrs of enforced bedrest. During this period subjects were required to lie quietly, with no time cues and minimal exogenous stimulation. Sleep and wakefulness patterns were clearly modified under these conditions. There was an alternation of waking periods with an average length of 2.7 hrs and sleep episodes with a mean duration of 2.99 hrs. Eighty percent of both sleep and waking periods were less than 4 hrs duration. The circadian pattern of sleep period duration persisted in disentrainment, but temporal organization of sleep episodes was substantially disrupted; sleep episodes occurred throughout the 24‐hr day. The results suggest the presence of two distinct components of the human sleep system–one, sleep duration, is controlled by an endogenous circadian oscillatory system; another, sleep placement, is controlled primarily by behavioral controls, in the form of social and occupational pressures, and self‐imposed behavioral alternatives to sleep.