Dreams in Action

Paleo and primal diets enjoy great popularity today. So do ancient methods of food cultivation and other back-to-our-roots practices.

But I wonder if anyone would be willing to try my preindustrial sleep solution?

One of the odd things Dave and I experienced during the circumnavigation of Death Valley National Park was a kind of split sleep. We’d go down with the sun around 8pm, snooze for 4 hours until just after midnight, wake up and fiddle around for a while, lay down again around 1:30am, then wake up about 4 hours later to get moving at dawn.

About a month after we came out of the desert, I learned that our waking in the middle of the night wasn’t just about the high temperatures, which would make it hard for anyone to log continuous shut-eye. Turns out it was also about an ancient and nearly forgotten pattern we humans quit after the electric lightbulb was invented.

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My garage is a mess. There’s so much stuff out there that although I need to get it straightened up, I’ve been putting it off for a long time. As in years, while I accumulated the good (like untouched trekking poles and technical clothing that I’ll never wear), and the bad (like expired nutritional supplements), and a bit of ugly (um, what is that thing?).

Most of us Americans have closets and cupboards and garages and basements full of items we’ve acquired and don’t need, stuff that gave us a temporary high and then quickly faded into uselessness. I’m as guilty of this as the next person, yet one of the primary insights I gained from our recent circumnavigation of Death Valley National Park was how little we really need to exist and how much accumulation can distract us and even interfere with getting our basic needs met.

Back to Basics: Only What You Really Need

Stripped down to the essentials, Dave and I were content with the little we had. Water and food were at the top of the list, of course. And we carried the sat phone and the maps and the GPS, all crucial. Otherwise, we were strictly utilitarian with clothing and gear. We weren’t packing smart phones or tablets or even crossword puzzles. It was just us and the desert.

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