yourfavouriteuncle wrote:

Cool thread. I generally sleep rather well, but am fascinated by the nature of sleep, why we need it, and what goes on while we are snoozing.

I saw a documentary on narcolepsy a few years back and the general gist of it seemed to be that actually we don't *need* sleep per se, rather our natural state is to be unconscious and sleep simply allows the chemical that makes us conscious to build back up to the required levels to keep us awake for the 16 hours or so of our waking day. Or something. I await to be corrected in some flamey way.

The whole "do we need to sleep?" debate is more complicated than you might imagine, mainly because we know remarkably little about sleep.  To be honest I haven't studied it in much detail since writing a dissertation on it in the late 90's (and it's likely to have progressed a fair bit since then), but my understanding is that, well, there still isn't much understanding.

Stuff we do know?  Sleep deprivation is definitely fatal in animals - whilst people have been vicious enough to try it in dogs, you won't be surprised to learn that we've never found out if it applies to people.  We also know that sleep deprivation definitely has an affect on our ability to perform tasks properly - on average 17 hours without sleep is enough to have an equivalent effect to being over the drink driving limit.  

Most of the information that we have on prolonged sleep deprivation still comes courtesy of an American kid with the utterly memorable name, Randy Gardner.  He decided to deprive himself of sleep for a school project, and managed it for 11 days, with much of it documented throughout.  Unfortunately both sides of the "do we need sleep?" debate have taken things from his experiences to support their views.  On the one hand, he was documented to experience some hallucinations, and reduced cognitive ability.  On the flip side, he was still beating his friends at pinball on the final night, and seemed perfectly sane when giving a press conference at the finale.  He himself felt that he'd emerged from the experience unscathed.  Certainly he came to no serious harm.

The conclusion of my review of stuff in the 90s was that, based on what little evidence we have, you probably can survive without sleep - so long as you exist in a perfect universe with no surprises, no challenges, and nothing out of the ordinary.  Which of course you don't.  Anecdotally I used to work 48+ hour shifts as a hospital doctor.  Most of the time it was absolutely fine, because it had become a job you could literally do in your sleep, but very occasionally something unexpected would happen, and you'd be thrown.  I got a needle stick injury once, I went to Occupational Health as instructed and the first question I was asked was, "how long have you been on your shift?".  Then she showed me the data they'd recorded from the same question- they had only one recorded at less than 24 hours...

The other issue with studying sleep deprivation is recording sleep.  Randy Gardner may well have actually slept without knowing it for instance.  Most people experience what are called "micro-sleeps" which can last just a matter of seconds, and usually occur if you haven't been getting sufficient sleep at night.  Again, we don't really know what they're for, but they definitely do something.  One bizarre study showed that you could successfully treat severe depression by depriving the sufferer of sleep.  They would show amazing improvements, but...  Even a very brief micro sleep was enough to revert them straight back to their previous state (or worse).  The problem with micro sleeps is that you don't know they've happened, but if you're driving or similar it can be a complete disaster.  The classic is this video which is usually wheeled out to illustrate the point:



So yeah, in the modern world, sleep is definitely necessary.  

(On the dreaming thing - we all do it, every night, so long as we've slept properly.  You even dream in non-REM sleep, although it's very different.  The vast majority of dreams aren't remembered.)

My wife suffers from night terrors, frequently being "awake" and demanding that I get the huge spiders/monsters/whatever out of the bed. Just humouring her seems to let her get back to sleep at least. 

I'm convinced my daughter's now getting the same. Frequent wake ups, screaming, inconsolable, but if you yell to wake her it gets worse as she's frightened by being snapped out of sleep. Hard work, and we're seriously considering taking her to a doctor about it.

Jesus - we all sound a trifle disturbed - maybe video games ARE bad for you. I assume most of us have had that weird experience of seeing images from a game we are currently into when trying to get to sleep? It usually happens with stuff like Tetris but I still get it from time to time with shmups.

I have on occasion woken up with tears in my eyes - but from laughing in my dream - no idea what at - just remember laughing and waking up feeling great.

My brother used to talk really clearly in his sleep which was a bloody nuisance but that night terror thing sounds ghastly....

My sleeping pattern for years has been bed at 2:30-3 am and getting up at 10-11 am. I'm apparently a very heavy sleeper but thankfully no snoring.

As stated in another thread, I don't dream. Or at least never, ever, remember even the slightest hint of them. So everytime this thread gets bumped I am gonna feel well left out.

Too many horrific dreams to recall.  One involved children being brutally butchered on the other side of a barred wall and me being helpless to do anything but watch.  Never felt as strong a sense of despair when awake.

Paul the sparky wrote:

She also has recurring dreams about me cheating on/leaving her, and brilliantly when she wakes up she has the right hump with me, even though she knows I've done nothing wrong. Mental.

Ha yes, I get that sometimes. Just because you're unconscious, doesn't mean you can't do something wrong.

I don't recall my own dreams much, but I have had quite a few zombie related ones over the years. Certainly post Resident Evil, to bring in a game connection. I think they just make ideal nightmare monsters more than anything. I think I've learned to cope with them better through my years of experience though, and tend to take the fight to them now.

beano wrote:

Keep getting a weird jolt and a fall sensation.

I get that sometimes when I'm on the verge of falling asleep. I did sone research and it's actually your blood pressure dropping sharply as you fall asleep that causes the falling sensation and the jolt.

Something to do with change in pressure affecting your inner ear which is the fall, and also the falling blood pressure causes some reflex in your veins making them pulse, which is the jolt, or what your brain enterprets as hitting the ground after it registers the falling sensation.

Elmlea wrote:

My wife suffers from night terrors, frequently being "awake" and demanding that I get the huge spiders/monsters/whatever out of the bed. Just humouring her seems to let her get back to sleep at least.  I'm convinced my daughter's now getting the same. Frequent wake ups, screaming, inconsolable, but if you yell to wake her it gets worse as she's frightened by being snapped out of sleep. Hard work, and we're seriously considering taking her to a doctor about it.

My parents took me to the doctor when I had night terrors as they were at their wit's end. There wasn't a great deal the doctor advised, assuring them that I'd eventually grow out of them (and I did). They did recommend that I cut down on TV but I have no idea if that made any difference. I think you're right about the not waking her up thing. My parents did the same. It must be awful as a parent. To this day my mum practically turns pale whenever it's mentioned.

Everyone on this forum appears to be afflicted by something. I want to start a 'relatively normal' thread.

Bollockoff wrote:

Elmlea wrote:

How can that possibly be compatible with working? Why not just go to sleep at 10pm one night and get u at 6am instead?

Majority of my working hours are in the afternoon. If I need to wake up early I just set an alarm and roll with it on Starbucks coffee/tea. @reg very hairy people can still be normal right?

No.

Skerret wrote:

Bollockoff wrote:

Elmlea wrote:

How can that possibly be compatible with working? Why not just go to sleep at 10pm one night and get u at 6am instead?

Majority of my working hours are in the afternoon. If I need to wake up early I just set an alarm and roll with it on Starbucks coffee/tea. @reg very hairy people can still be normal right?

No.

We're not all monsters who howl at the moon and feast on the hearts of your loved ones.

Creepy. Hard to tell what's real and what's not sometimes.

I rarely remember any dreams but read somewhere that you can't dream and snore. Don't know if there's any truth in this but it could offer some reason as I've been told I snore although I've never heard it!  
I did have one strange episode with the wife where I'm still not sure who was asleep or awake to begin with but we both finished off awake. The whole sexsomnia thing can be a bit strange and extreme but one of us seemed to be at least mildly affected by it.

I've a funny feeling this thread is going to move on to a discussion on drug use.

Some winners do, but they get disqualified.