For most of my life, I have slept only about 4-6 hours a night, or day, since I often worked the graveyard shift. While I was a paramedic, I was up and down all day and night, sleeping whenever I could between calls. After I retired from EMS, I went back to sleeping about maybe 5-6 hours a night, but at night rather than during the day. Recently, I have been sleeping 8-10, and sometimes even more hours a day. I think it might have something to do with my lack of a thyroid. I have no problem staying up at night and am not particularly tired when I go to bed at midnight or one o'clock in the morning, but I get sleepy almost immediately after going to bed, and then I don't want to get up in the morning.
Ken.. When we were in business, we owned a few video rental shops.. We opened up at noon and closed at 2:am and this went on for 7 years.. We became night owls then, and today we are still night owls.. We go to bed around 2:00am to 3:00am and don't get out of bed till almost noon, if not later.. That is about 9 or more hours of sleep.. We have been doing this since I retired in 1997.. The fact you sleep for 9 hours a night isn't that unusual as we do it all the time.. Medication, maybe but if your body needs the sleep, it will get it..
I'd feel better going to bed at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and sleeping until noon, except that I can't always do that in the winter. My neighbors are great about helping out with plowing the driveway or snow blowing the sidewalk but they don't understand anyone sleeping late. To them, anyone who isn't up early in the morning to clear the snow is lazy, I think, and the fact that I might work until 3:00 in the morning is lost on them. Plus, there is the fact that the post office won't deliver the mail unless the sidewalk is clear. So getting up early is something I have to do in the winter, but it's tough.
Basically, I've always been an "early to bed, early to rise" person. Same as you Ken, during the few years I was in EMS in the mid 70's, my sleeping hours were varied while working. After those years, I worked in manufacturing and started work at 7AM, which meant I was in bed at 10PM or so. During my teen years, living on the farm, everyone (dogs, step-parents and myself) were in bed at 10PM and up at 5:30AM to feed/water livestock. After those years, came my time in the Navy. Could hit my rack to sleep anytime after "knocking off" work, but "Reveille" was at 6AM. On days I had the "Duty", my sleeping hours could really vary, depending on times I'd have to stand a Watch. So, today, I'm in bed by 10-10:30PM, because, even though I'm retired, I go to bed when my wife does. She is still working a full-time job. I may get up between 5 and 6AM, but most times I get up when she does at 6:50AM. If we are going out for breakfast on Saturday AM, I will get her up around 8:30AM, but I will still get up around 7. On Sunday's, I let her sleep in until 9:30 or so. Even if we were both retired, we still go to bed around 10-10:30PM. We have absolutely no problem taking a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, if we really need it.
During my life, I have worked the night shift more often than the day shift. Maybe that's the problem. I have tried going to bed early, like about 10:00 pm, but then I would find myself just lying there or, worse, going to sleep early but still getting up late.
We know two retired couples that go to bed in the early AM (1-2am). The one wife told me she only needs 4 or 5 hours of sleep and gets up at 6AM or so, w/no nap during the day. We simply can not function on less than 8 hrs of sleep, 99% of the time that is.
The endocrine system has everything to do with sleep patterns and as you already know, the thyroid is the base for the endocrine system. One aspect of sleep does involve melatonin production whereas it is activated during the dark hours and is inhibited when it is light. Just for the purpose of experimentation, you might get a timer that gradually turns on the lights at a given time. Since you go to bed in the dark, no matter the hour, your melatonin kicks in and you sleep. If your window curtains keep a lot of light out when the sun comes up, you will continue to sleep especially if the meds you are on take you past REM or a deeper sleep. Coming out of the deep sleep you have to pass by REM again and then into the light sleep pattern of the cycle which takes some time if everything is going properly. Long and short, if you hit the hay by 2:00 A.M. and turn on the timer for say, 7:00 A.M. (which gradually lights up the room and stops melatonin production) you should wake at the end of a light sleep cycle. Waking in the middle of ANY cycle causes disorientation and / or fatigue after getting up rather than the "rested and recuperated feeling, but the gradual lighting should, in theory, do the trick. If you do not wish to go for the timer, open your bedroom curtains and depend on the light coming through the window at whatever time the sun comes up in Maine but do not ask your wife to bang on the garbage can with a baseball bat. That, my friend, is a definite cycle killer and the start of a real bad day.