Why Do We Sleep?

Nobody knows! There are only theories! I don't think I knew that...I figured people had this sorted out by now.

I mean, if you go without sleep long enough you will probably go crazy and die, but that's not the body's reason for sleep.

https://www.livescience.com/32469-why-do-we-sleep.html
http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/why-do-we-sleep

My own theory? All that pie I ate.....oof...need to lie down.

Because some genius was all like, 'oh wow, life is finite and actually pretty damn short, why don't we just shut all the way down for fully 1/3 of the brief amount of life that we have?'.

Great idea, genius.

I would be curious to find out which animals sleep the most/least. Humans have to be near the top of the "least." Why don't we sleep more?

Another explanation for why we sleep is based on the long-held belief that sleep in some way serves to "restore" what is lost in the body while we are awake. Sleep provides an opportunity for the body to repair and rejuvenate itself. In recent years, these ideas have gained support from empirical evidence collected in human and animal studies. The most striking of these is that animals deprived entirely of sleep lose all immune function and die in just a matter of weeks.

we had to be certain

i guess that's as good a reason as any. just look at sleep as the same as eating.

We lose consciousness during sleep, but that doesn't mean our brains are inactive. They're doing all sorts of work sorting through and tidying up the day's inputs, putting them in their correct places, erasing the useless crap and reinforcing the possibly useful bits.

Whyyyyyyyyyy are we sleeping?

all that dreaming isn't doing you any good though. using up precious brain cells. dreaming can make you tired!

it's just how god made us sir

sleep is the true killfile (unless you are unknowingly deeply internalizing all of the worst posts during your sleep)

i'm kind of sick of dreaming, to be honest. same shit different night. i'd take an anti-dreaming pill before bed if i could. i'll bet i would have a ton more energy.

have there been studies into our perception of time while dreaming vs how long the dream-signaling brain activity occurs? I want to believe that my worst nightmares were actually a bit shorter.

what if you think you are dreaming a bunch but it is really only a few microseconds?

There's a Ballard story about this

before i got my apnea fixed i would dream every night that people were trying to kill me which was apt because i was slowly dying every night. so, i guess dreaming CAN act as a warning sign. that's useful.

what if our afterlives will be the "eternity" we perceive during the decay of our oxygen deprived brains and religion is only about maintaining a lie to yourself as you slip into this self constructed eternity? would you buy my afterlife training software?

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge redux

Before I had my apnea fixed I think I struggled to dream tbh

I have to admit I like my subconscious having its say/fucking with me

what if you think you are dreaming a bunch but it is really only a few microseconds?

― you are juror number 144 and we will excuse you (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, November 13, 2017 3:11 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not microseconds, but REM sleep lasts from about 90 minutes to two hours, and I've had dreams that have literally seemed to cover decades of time.

I have to admit I like my subconscious having its say/fucking with me

― the intentional phallusy (Noodle Vague), Monday, November 13, 2017 12:29 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but do you only know this happened upon waking up?

how will I know?

If anyone wants to have the type of long vivid dreams with extended REM time you get with nicotine patches, try a bit of Arctic Root (Rhodiola Rosea). I take it every day and have crazy long dreams every night. I had one the other night where I was part of an angry mob throwing someone off a skyscraper. It wasn't pleasant, but at least not dull. Otherwise sleep just be the cousin of death, as they say.

why wouldn't you sleep? pre lights lots of ppl would have two sleeps in the long winter nights, and a sweet hour or two to themselves in the between

I would be curious to find out which animals sleep the most

My cat.

What is the sleepiest animal on earth? (spoiler: we're not sure)

it begins as a blessing but it ends with a curse

I would be curious to find out which animals sleep the most

My old flatmate, David.

einstein said: "everybody is a genius. but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." sleeping / dreaming is relief for the brain from the feudal/capitalist ideological colonization 99% of people suffer all day, pretending to be dumber than we are, in order to 'get along' and 'accept' our 'fate'

my man

You are sleeping, you do not want to believe. You are sleeping.

that's what they want you to believe

Why the fuck do we wake

I'm not joking, some fucking days I wished I hadn't.

https://d30y9cdsu7xlg0.cloudfront.net/png/446229-200.png

SUBTHREAD - ts: being asleep v being online

it all blurs together innit?

inter me in the cloud pls

i sleep because i feel bad when i don't sleep

Dreaming has been regarded as an evolutionary tool to experience a task before it occurs, but not sure personally how much it's helped me prepare for new jobs in the last several years.

If that truly was the case, I'd probably be an amazing fuck!

As a rule I don't dream at all iirc

try some arctic root, you will most like dream then.

likely

sleep feels good

This should have been John Lennon's lyric.

For anyone who thinks they don't dream, keep a dream journal by your bed and try to record them as soon as you wake up. I went from not remembering anything to recalling up to two or three or dreams a night.

It's true that rats die when deprived of sleep due to autonomic problems, but it's not true that humans do - there has never been a documented case of a healthy human dying from lack of sleep. There is a genetic disorder called fatal familial insomnia but the insomnia is a symptom and not the cause of death.
Best research indicates that yes, there is a lot of bodily restoration timed to coincide with sleep, but its primary purpose is to overhaul and update the connectivity of the brain: consolidating new learning and scaling back excess connectivity so that the brain retains a well selected "fighting set" of knowledge about the world based on experience. 8 hours every night in a block is not necessarily the desirable norm - there's some evidence we have socially regularised around this pattern in the industrial era, and that several shorter sleep periods may be more natural to some people.
And everybody dreams every night. It's how we learn and create lasting memories. Recall of dreams is highly variable but the dreaming state recurs every 90 minutes unless you have a serious abnormality in sleep patterns.
Bombastic source: I teach the neuroscience of sleep and have done for about 15 years, so I read a lot of the research.

Hey MatthewK, have you done any research on substances that seem to enhance the length of time in dreaming state? Like in my experience nicotine patches and rhodiola rosea have that effect on me.

No but it’s a cool question, will check it out.
Aside from “cheese dreams” obv.