^^ Thank you for sharing all that information, Sensei, though I was already aware of it.
I'm not arguing either, and I understand that you were not standing firmly behind the information you provided, but I must say that I do not believe that you are bound or most likely to be more tired if you go to bed after midnight; many people (myself included) often don't begin to get tired until well after midnight, and going to bed at 9pm can result not in more or better sleep, but in just a few extra hours of restless wakefulness while you wait to become tired (or, worse, while you struggle to make yourself tired). Also, I'm pretty sure that in most latitudes even 4am is generally a time that still occurs at nighttime ... I wasn't talking about sleeping during the day.
I think that when you go to bed ought to be based on when you are tired or when you know you need to go to bed based upon when you must get up in the morning, and not on potentially arbitrary numbers on a clock... especially when those arbitrary numbers are set by "experts" in books rather than your own experience:
I've been smiling at the "facts" supplied by books for decades, especially when I looked into the research that supported them, which was usually little to none: sleep studies are difficult to do on their face, given sleep's very subjective nature, and the fact that people tend to behave much differently in labs than at home (which leaves "studies" like surveys, which can be remarkably inaccurate, or perhaps simply making assumptions based on known physiology or common sense, two things we LDers already tend to defy regularly). This might indicate why the books draw so many different conclusions, BTW.
And, anecdotally, I am a night owl as well, feeling most comfortable going to sleep somewhere around 3am and getting up around 10. I've been doing this for years with no ill effects and fine dream recall... not to mention that I practice polyphasic sleep for one to two months per year, where, despite a sleep schedule that radically defies the "9pm" rule, my recall only improves and I usually feel fairly rested (I would do polyphasic sleep all the time, BTW, if my waking-life schedule and wife permitted it). But that's just me, of course!
I really do believe that we can get a good night's sleep at any time during the night. Whether you go to bed at 9pm or 3am is inconsequential, if you are getting a full night's sleep (also variable, BTW: I do fine these days with 5 or fewer hours' sleep, but younger people should get at least 7). The only exception to this is flipping the whole thing and sleeping during the day, which is not a good formula -- though this is more related to screwing with circadian rhythm than it does hours slept.
Finally, I totally agree with your advice to do some experimenting to find the sleep times and lengths that best suit your recall and LD'ing needs.
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