What is Digg?46 Comments
- gr8one, on 10/12/2007, -5/+33Chuck Norris doesn't sleep, his heart stops beating for 5 minutes every night. Just enough time to replenish his rage.
- dantidote, on 10/12/2007, -10/+21Why do I sleep? Because I'm ***** tired.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9The kick is, rats who sleep eventually die as well!
- captinherb, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9They now believe that the eyes move rapidly from side to side during REM sleep is to activate both sides of the brain to better process things. The Psych community is now using a therapy to help deal with trauma by having the patient wear headphones that alternate a beeping sound between the two sides as they talk about the trauma. It is proving to be quite successful.
- StayLucid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6If anyone doesn't know about lucid dreaming, I HIGHLY recommend you look into it. Lucid dreaming is when you're aware that you're dreaming, and you're able to control your dream. When you're good at it, you can do absolutely ANYTHING you can imagine... you're only limited by how confident you are that you can do it. Even when you don't have very good control, it's still an amazing experience to know that everything around you is being created by your mind.
An excellent site (with great forums) was linked in this article: www.dreamviews.com. Another good site, though maybe a little flaky, is www.ld4all.com. - jebuscrisis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I'm a sleep technician and recently attended a lecture by Dr. William Dement, one of the founder's of sleep research and the first to observe and document REM sleep. A couple of points of interest.
1. The part of your brain the initiates REM sleep and the part that initiates normal sleep are separate. You might say that persons with narcolepsy have that REM part of the brain starting up without permission while they are awake. Infants initiate sleep using the REM portion of their brain while adults initiate sleep through the NREM mechanism. Newborns dream or have REM sleep for almost half the night.
2. Eye movements during REM sleep (thought to be the dream state) orient with actual eye movements in your dream. Someone who is dreaming of a tennis match will have eyes moving rapidly in association with watching the match while someone driving or flying might only flick their eyes occasionally.
All stages of sleep are necessary, REM and NREM. Sleep deprivation begins as soon as you wake up and builds up a 'pressure' to go to sleep while you are awake. People can function quite well if you knock out their REM sleep, but they feel horrible when they loose NREM sleep, especially stages 3/4. - Akaricloud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I have a few problems with some of their statements;
Sleeping only occures during REM sleep (5th stage) However I am wondering what it takes for that stage to be broken. I think we have all had dreams where we wake up during the dream, maybe adjust ourself, look at the clock, and dooze off again and continue to sleep.
Such an exmaple was yesterday morning with me. I was dreaming about a cricket match, i woke up because something hit my window, I looked at the clock, 6:13AM, went back to sleep, continued in the dream, was awoken again at 6:17AM, went back to sleep and conituned the dream.
I was awoken twice, was consious of my awakening. Why was it when i closed my eyes again i skipped back to the 5th stage of sleeping?
Another point mentioned was;
"The person doesn't hear anything unless it is a loud noise."
This again I cannot agree with.
Recently aswell I fell asleep with the television on. I began having a dream about something called the "Magic Bullet" I was cooking with the use of it, an cooking recipes etc. When I awoke there was an infomertial playing about "The Magic Bullet" (the same thing i was dreaming about) I have had similar experiences, this was just the most recent.
The point is. I dont know the accuracy of their study. - robbiedo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Digg me down, but sleep as an energy conservation measure has probably a much larger explanatory value than any other factor for the vast range of organisms which sleep. A comparative analysis of species would be interesting. Why do cats sleep so much?
- wonderboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Anybody else think it would be cool to fall asleep on command? There are so many classes where the time would be better served just sleeping through it. And no more having to lay in bed for an hour before I fall asleep.
- eliomar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Delta waves, please take me away.
- Aeiri, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"Poor mans drug: sleep deprivation"
I'd actually say that if used right, a real poor man's drug is sleep itself.
It's great, it completely disassociates you with reality and relaxes you to no end, and also has you trip out (dreams). - megaloid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You should not have gotten dugg down for your comment. Every yogi, seer, shaman, or otherwise sober person will recommend lucid dreaming as a learning tool.
- joshikus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7like defragging a HD!
- yahoofrom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3this world is God's lucid dream. kekeke.
the world will end if he wakes up. - victimofkratina, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"Sleep gives the brain a chance to organize and archive memories. Dreams are thought by some to be part of this process."
So its like an automated backup and defrag? - victimofkratina, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Lucid dreaming is indeed awesome, Ive been able to do it for many years now, not by will but every once and awhile Ill have them. They only last a few minutes, maybe 10 if youre lucky, but they are wonderful. I think its a phase where you are asleep but have breached consciousness...quite a phenomenon.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/warner_independent_pictures/thescienceofsleep/med.html - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Lol windows.
- milomilomilo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4im not sure there is a limit to how long you can stay awake before death, because you dont die directly from lack of sleep but from what other problems it causes.
really though, after a long enough period, if you wont give your body sleep it will take it, even if that means going unconcious against your will. The perfect example is how we never remember the last minute or 2 before we fall asleep, because our body shuts down on its own, we dont go to sleep on command.
Also, the hallucinations are not fun, it consists of extreme paranoia, and dellusion. its not like you see pretty colors. more like a sound of a breeze might sound like a scream or moan. And losing your depth perception is not pleasant either. - captinherb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@phronko
http://www.cognitivetherapy.me.uk/emdr.htm
http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/specialtechniques/a/gazleynet404_2.htm
http://www.4therapy.com/consumer/about_therapy/item.php?uniqueid=7035&categoryid=401
or the old standby http://tinyurl.com/22c6t - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3phronko, I am a lucid dreamer and I read that the study about counting seconds in a dream by having the lucid dreamer move their eyes from left to right every second was performed by the lucidity institute http://www.lucidity.com/.
I dont know why you were dugged down for mentioning this. - chubbymidget, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Sleep those little slices of death. How I loathe them -Poe
- yahoofrom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2irregular life bad for health.
- wspence, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sleep disordered breathing can also cause arousals. you may think you heard a noise but it could have been in the dream itself. As for why you think you went back into REM its plausable. This happens all the time. Its sort of sleep inertia, but I see it all the time in sleep studies and its not uncommon. However, you never really know what stage of sleep your in unless you're getting a full EEG hookup next to your bed.
- wspence, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm a sleep tech too. I find this interesting, however, its my understanding that most people after their 20's barely touch delta (in other words a few minutes a night) and this is prevalent in the patients that see.
- PsychoticClown, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1From the page: "For any animal living in the wild, it just doesn't seem very smart to design in a mandatory eight-hour period of near-total unconsciousness every day. Yet that is exactly what evolution has done. So there must be a pretty good reason for it!"
I love how the writer attributed that to "Evolution", as if it's an intelligent, thinking entity. - Aeiri, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Why was it when i closed my eyes again i skipped back to the 5th stage of sleeping?"
Were you consciously looking at your sleep states, too? How the hell do you know the next second you were in the 5th stage of sleeping?
Maybe you went through the first steps, just your body didn't need that much repairing so it allocated less time for the first 4 stages of sleep. - Petrushka, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3"Why be awake? Everyone knows why we have periods of being awake. In fact, it's bloody obvious. Being awake gives the body a chance to find food, reproduce, etc. Being awake involves using the brain in a focused and purposive fashion. Consciousness is thought by some to be part of this process."
- phronko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This isn't one study...it just summarizes hundreds of studies. I don't think it said that the stages necessarily occur in order every time, from the last time you woke up. It's possible to skip around and go straight to REM after waking up for a minute.
Also, the article did mention that sounds in the environment can be incorporated into dreams. I suppose it just meant that they don't "hear" in the sense that they are consciously aware of sounds. - Drehmini, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3haha I read the title as why Sleepy works... oh the irony.
Time for bed. - Toast1185, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It is entirely possible to train yourself to get only REM sleep. This is called polyphasic sleep. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep) So you don't necessarily have to build up back through every stage of sleep to get back to the good stuff.
Perhaps the other cycles of sleep are just there to kill time. I have done some research (collegiate level) on the subect and I can say that REM sleep aids in memory consolidation and basic functioning. However I do not know whether the other phases impact any other part of your life. It would be interesting to see what the effects of too much REM sleep would be. - phronko, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4I'd be more inclined to believe you if you provided a link, a reference, or at least a name. As is, I'm skeptical of whether your little theory is taken seriously by anybody. Last I heard, the eyes move during REM because the person is looking around in their dream (and unlike the rest of the body, their eyes are not paralyzed). Lucid dreamers can signal to people while they're dreaming by moving their eyes in a certain pattern. Plus...looking left doesn't just activate the left side of the brain....both sides are activated no matter where you're looking...so I fail to see how looking around would activate both sides. Did you make that up?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4You know who doesn't sleep? Jack Bauer!
- MattFaber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've been a member of www.dreamviews.com forums since it started. I definitely second the recommendation. I am Crucible there.
- dukeinlondon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Why did you get dugg down ?
- robbiedo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Sleep conserves energy. Historically, calories were difficult to come by..well until the invention of Chocodiles!
- googolplexabyte, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I just recently stumbled upon this program. Here is a page on their site about brainwave link to sleep.
http://www.bwgen.com/theory.htm - victimofkratina, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1must be the opium talking. ***** poe.
- SundayTrain, on 10/12/2007, -10/+6Close eyes, dream of great sex with Laetita Casta and wake up w/ boner...Thats sleep! Oh and if you fly in your sleep, use caution around telehone lines and giants!
- phronko, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Yes...thanks...that was one of the theories in the article. Nice recap though (?)
- troller, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2Poor mans drug: sleep deprivation
I wanna try this, does anyone know how long a human can survive without sleep?
How does the Rat Die?
Quote:
After three days, a person will start to hallucinate and clear thinking is impossible. With continued wakefulness a person can lose grasp of reality. Rats forced to stay awake continuously will eventually die, proving that sleep is essential. - fani, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6Why do we sleep ?
Well......I'll sleep over it and tell you tomorrow - catmistake, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0no mention of the evolutionary argument... we sleep because the small mammels we evolved from slept... and they slept (during the day) to prevent from being eaten by dinosaurs and other nasties.
- Ramtech, on 10/12/2007, -13/+6I know theres 5 Stages of Sleep. And we barely start dreaming until the 5th Stage. Its like a shutdown process for windows.
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