It is traditional this time of year for me to watch a movie version of Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol.” The part of the story that I can really relate to is when Ebenezer Scrooge is being visited by the three spirits of Christmas throughout the night.

Scrooge falls asleep three times on that Christmas Eve night, and each time he is awakened by the arrival of a different spirit. By the end of the night, the man is a complete wreck.

As I am watching that scene, I nod my head thinking, “I know how you feel, Ebenezer. That’s exactly how many of my nights go.” Not that I am visited by ghosts or spirits, but stressful dreams and other interruptions are annoying.

Besides Dickens and the Scrooge connection, my sleep experience these days is also somewhat like Macbeth’s, the character in Shakespeare’s tragedy. Immediately following Macbeth’s murder of King Duncan, he bemoans the fact that he has also murdered sleep since his mind, now “full of scorpions,” will not allow him to sleep soundly again.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I roam around the house in the middle of the night carrying bloody daggers after slaying anyone. I mean, sure, some nights that dog down the street howling like the Hound of the Baskervilles really gets under my skin and keeps me awake. But it’s not the dog’s fault.

Then, of course, there is Lady Macbeth sleepwalking during the nights following her husband’s deadly deed, carrying a candlestick and trying to rub the blood from her hands. But, clearly, by then she had totally cracked up.

Some nights when I feel as if I shall sleep no more, I begin to wonder if I have cracked up too. Could be, since I’m fairly sure my nerves have never totally recovered from the one season many years ago when I had to coach 7th grade volleyball.

But if I haven’t lost my mind, there must be another reason for all those sleep interruptions I am experiencing. So, I’ve done some research on the problem.

The most common explanation for my sleeping difficulty is simply my age. There are biological reasons why seniors often experience more fragmented sleep and wake up often during the night.

It’s Mother Nature’s way of telling a guy that the days of staying out till the bars close and sleeping until 1 p.m. on weekends are over. It was fun while it lasted. But now the norm is more like “Early to bed and early to rise… .” with a whole lot of interruptions in between.

So, losing one’s mind or just plain getting older may be perfectly acceptable causes of sleep disruptions for most people — but not for me.

I have found a much more appealing explanation for my situation. It’s called segmented sleep or a bi-modal sleep pattern. And, historically, it was a common sleep pattern practiced by geniuses and powerful leaders.

Segmented sleep was the normal, accepted pattern of sleep for centuries. The pattern seems to be that people slept for three to four hours, were awake for two to three hours and then slept three to four more hours.

But here’s the best part: During the Renaissance period, people used their interval of wakefulness to read or write, pray or meditate, or play cards. Smoking tobacco and having sex were also popular pastimes — not necessarily in that order. Sounds good to me.

Since Shakespeare cranked out 39 plays and dozens of poems in just 52 years, while also forming a theater company and performing in plays himself, it’s a safe bet that ‘The Bard of Avon’ put in some long nights, short on sleep.

Another point supporting the theory that Shakespeare followed a segmented sleep pattern is that creativity studies have shown that “the midnight hours of wakefulness are closer to our subconscious and a period of special creativity.”

Gosh, it’s like The Bard and I are sleep deficiency bros! And he’s not the only genius whose sleep pattern was all chopped up like mine.

Franz Kafka, the Czech writer, went to bed at 6 a.m. and woke up at 9 a.m. Then he took a four-hour nap from 3:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. I might be willing to try that schedule as long as I can record Monday Night Football games.

For two years, the German architect Buckminster Fuller followed a sleep schedule of taking 30-minute naps every six hours, a common animal sleep pattern similar to, say, a squirrel’s. Though, to my knowledge Fuller was never found napping on a tree branch.

Alexander Graham Bell slept four to six hours during the day. He would have slept more but the damn phone kept ringing.

French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte only slept four hours a day which possibly explains why he was 5’6” tall. Yet, that does not provide any clue as to why he wore his hat sideways.

Perhaps tonight, like Hamlet, I will have the luxury “to sleep, perchance to dream.” Fine, just as long as the dream isn’t about my seventh-grade volleyball team!

Mike Murphy of Pocatello is an award-winning columnist whose articles are syndicated by Senior Wire. He published a book titled “Tortoise Crossing – Expect Long Delays,” which is a collection of 100 of his favorite columns. It is available on Amazon.com.