E Have you winterized your
horse yet Even though global warming may have made our climate more mild, many
animals are still hibernating(冬眠). It’s too bad that humans can’t hibernate. In
fact, as a species, we almost did. Apparently, at times in the
past, peasants in France liked a semi-state of human hibernation. So writes
Graham Robb, a British scholar who has studied the sleeping habits of the French
peasants. As soon as the weather turned cold people all over France shut
themselves away and practiced the forgotten art of doing nothing at all for
months on end. In line with this, Jeff Warren, a producer at
CBC Radio’s The Current, tells us that the way we sleep has changed
fundamentally since the invention of artificial (人造的) lighting and the electric
bulb. When historians began studying texts of the Middle Ages,
they noticed something referred to as "first sleep", which was not clarified,
though. Now scientists are telling us our ancestors most likely slept in
separate periods. The business of eight hours’ uninterrupted sleep is a modem
invention. In the past, without the artificial light of the
city to bathe in, humans went to sleep when it became dark and then woke
themselves around midnight. The late night period was known as "The Watch". It
was when people actually kept watch against wild animals, although many of them
simply moved around or visited family and neighbours. According
to some sleep researchers, a short period of insomnia (失眠) at midnight is not a
disorder. It is normal. Humans can experience another state of consciousness
around their sleeping, which occurs in the brief period before we fall asleep or
wake ourselves in the morning. This period can be an extraordinarily creative
time for some people. The impressive inventor, Thomas Edison, used this state to
hit upon many of his new ideas. Playing with your sleep rhythms
can be adventurous, as anxiety may set in. Medical science doesn’t help much in
this case. It offers us medicines for a full night’s continuous sleep, which
sounds natural; however, according to Warren’s theory, it is really the opposite
of what we need. The example of the French peasants shows the fact that ______.
A.people might become lazy as a result of too much sleep
B.there were signs of hibernation in human sleeping habits
C.people tended to sleep more peacefully in cold weather
D.winter was a season for people to sleep for months on end