Sleep, can you do without it?

Sleep is a biologically needed intermitant state of the body becoming inactive and unconscious, and, awakening can happen spontaneously or by sensory stimuli. The brain needs it for a rebuilding time. Dreams may occur with it, but not always, and they aren't always remembered. The biologic clock suggests that you follow a circadian rythm and that you retire at night and stay awake during the day. Or, what is the interpretation of jetlag?

I came across an article once that inferred that pilots on international flights flighing north and south live slightly longer than those flying east and west. In short, regular timed unconsciousness is important. By your own experience you are aware that arousal is easier sometimes than other times. And, along with that it has been noted that the brain waves on electroencephalograms change during the full unconscious cycle. In Journals five such stages are ascribed by EEG patterns. The initial stages are four EEG patterns and all stages are non rapid eye movement (NREM), and the last stage, stage five is the rapid eye movement stage (REM). You might not go through all five stages every night. It is possible to function reasonably well with less than the ideal rest, and with it broken up as short naps. But, apparently the body will backlog some of the late stage rest losses and require that such shortage be made up later. This longer napping after deprivation might be noted after a long trip, or in the student during the weekend.

Biologically body building and recovery are emphasized during sleep. Notably the infant needs the most such rest and this need is gradually lessened through the growing years to adult age. The infant will wake at night to feed and will nap during much of the day. In the senior years the nap wake cycles tend to both shorten. Dreams, are they important? I have them infrequently, and sometimes an inadvertent incident has reminded me of one that would not otherwise have come to memory. Some of the literature indicates we only dream in the end stage, stage IV or V (some only give 4 stages), which is the REM sleep. Experiments support that breaking up the rest into shorter nap periods so as to prevent REM rest reduces the resting to less than full potential benefits. Deep sleep improves the memory function too. Some writers interpret that dreams occur from random neural activity in the cerebral cortex and at the sub cortical level a story is created and on waking it is remembered. Some of us may have made a trip for which we set an alarm and, lo, you wake up about the time the alarm was set for, or the alarm failed and you still woke up. Sometimes a precursory dream is associated with the stimulus to visit the bathroom. It is also known that a person can have repeat dreams on a recurring theme. These latter are suitable for a psychological interpretation of the subconcious, that is, a Freudian analysis. I infer that all dreams are not equal, and, possibly, they occur at more than just near the end of unconsciousness stage. It appears likely that the brain is more receptive to clairvoyance in the early or alpha sleep. As a case in point consider the story of Daniel. The King's dream disturbed him, he couldn't remember it, and he demanded from the wise that he be told what it had been and what it meant. The Chaldean wise did not come forth with the answer (though their lives were at stake), so Daniel, who with his three friends was also on the hook, approached his friends and together they pleaded to their God for mercy. The solution given to Daniel was not given in broad daylight as through a divine messenger, and not by dream, but by a vision at night. I infer the experience came to him in an early sleep stage. There are other events in history recorded as, aha!, or eureka! experiences, where the person working on a problem gets a possibly correct answer to the problem pop into their mind while not activly working on the problem. In short the subconscious mind has a curious functionality.

There are many things that may interfere with a sound nightly rest, and I won't enumerate the possible problems here. Except, to submit that your bed can affect how well you sleep. And, too, chemicals, pharmaceutical and natural ones, may alter a night's rest. Here is a site that discusses amongst other information that melatrol may be a help to better rest.