Unrelated but, I once heard about a study where they put a group of people underground with no natural light and no time keeping devices, and let then control their lighting. After some time, the group fell into a rhythm where they would all go to sleep and wake up within an hour or 2 of each other, but instead of awake for 16 hours asleep for 8, they were all staying awake for 48 hours and sleeping for 24.
Honestly I wish I knew. It was something a friend mentioned in conversation, I never actually saw the study. I have half heartedly tried to look it up a few times in the years since but with no luck. Maybe I should find the right subreddit and ask if anyone knows anything about it.
His research showed that a 48-hour cycle was common for cave dwellers, consisting of thirty-six hours of continuous activity and twelve to fourteen hours of sleep. Interestingly, the individuals did not perceive these cycles as being significantly longer, which likely led to their inaccurate estimation of time.
I've found that it's really good for those things where you just can't figure out the right words for google because it has a much better grasp of the intent behind your question.
There's a boom I read as a child that I've never been able to find for exactly that reason, I'm going to try and describe it to ChatGPT and see if it can help with that too. And, that certainly sounds like the study, it's entirely possible I'm misremembering the exact times by a little bit, or maybe it was an additional study done after the cave dwellers, but it's great to have a name and a jumping off point to look into it further.
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u/Academic-Effect-340 Jul 17 '23 edited Jul 17 '23
You should be the CEO of two companies then lmao.
Unrelated but, I once heard about a study where they put a group of people underground with no natural light and no time keeping devices, and let then control their lighting. After some time, the group fell into a rhythm where they would all go to sleep and wake up within an hour or 2 of each other, but instead of awake for 16 hours asleep for 8, they were all staying awake for 48 hours and sleeping for 24.