What is Sleep Really?

[NobleGaz]

Why is there decay in this material and physical world that causes our bodies to wear, age, and requires us to "sleep"? Is sleep related to what we call "death"? Is it in fact our need to return to that which is like our real and true state, which is hyperspacial and apart from time, space, and related gravity? What happens when we sleep? We know that growth hormones are produced in sleep. We re energize, but why"? What happens when we are denied sleep? Even though we may have sufficient food and liquids, if we are denied sleep after a certain time we will nevertheless "die". But before we do we will hallucinate more and more in the effort to seperate ourselves from this "reality". Is it because this reality is really something of a facade, the "Maya" spoken of in Eastern teachings, and takes energy to maintain on our parts?

[blakdreamer]

I think it has to do with being worn out. When you sleep you don't use as much of your bodily functions thus giving them a chance to rest and heal themselves.

[LordCoreon]

During sleep your body releases several hormones that are required for growth and other basic bodily functions. without sleep your brian and body basicaly can't survive, and also like blakdreamer said it gives you a rest so so stuff like muscules can repair.

[nina]

I actually read in an article...I'll try to find it...that people don't actually physically need to sleep. Laying down for about an hour has the same effects on the body as sleeping for about an hour...and the reason that we die without sleep is that we HAVE to dream. Dreams allow us to understand things and file them away and almost "recompile" our minds everynight...and without this our minds would overload and that's why we would die without sleep. (and what causes the hallucinations when you don't get enough sleep). I've actually read this type of thing a few different places...I'm not sure if I totally believe it or whatever, just thought I'd put it out there.

[NobleGaz]

No one is really addressing the issues I brought up though. Of course we know that the body requires rest, and that several hormones, including growth hormones are produced. The question again remains, "Why?". Why don't we just produce them hormones while relaxing, but concious? And that of course we need to dream to stay healthy and alive. Then we might as well "What?", as in then what is dreaming really. I proposed the answers myself already with the questions. Reality is not what we think it is, we cannot percieve the whole of it through our limited physiology, our five senses. Physics is beginning to tell us that what is really out there is a symphony of waveform; frequencies, vibrations, resonance...that is interpreted into what we consider reality, only after it enters our sensory physiology. This is why there are both angels, and demons possible all around us, without us percieving them. I remember reading quite a while back in Yankee Magazine,about this photographer who was really into horror and paranormal fiction. He had all kinds of weird phenomena happen to him. One example; he came out the kitchen once into the living room where his son was, and saw sheer terror on his sons face. He asked what was wrong. His son told him he had just seen him walking up the stairs to the bedrooms, before he came out of the kitchen. So having had enough, he stopped reading all that stuff, and the relating phenomena stopped as well. This has to do with what we attract and repel in the Quantum Realm perhaps, by and through our perspectives, and how we live. Many of us seem to take it for granted that we all obe while sleeping, we just don't all recall it. In my own experience I can cite one example of when I was a child. I would awaken to find myself falling into my bed from high up, at about the age of 6. I'd jerk awake when I hit. I always just wrote it off as a vivid dream, I mean what else is a kid going to do. But, recently in hindsight I had to do a "wait a minute!". How can a child that young so vividly re create something like that? So again aside from what happens when we sleep, the question "Why" remains.

[blakdreamer]

Well, asking why do dreaming and sleeping exist is like asking why does the world exist or why do we exist. Sleep is just the process that we go through. There has to be something that we do to regain energy........

[Arcadia]

this is quite interesting i can only think the main reason is to stop you from going crazy and that dreaming is maybe just a mental side effect BUT a side effect we obviously being so intelligent realise is more than what it seems for instance its probably connected in some way to psychic abilities etc you know.

[yayotters]

sleeping allows ure body to fix it self(along with giving ure body mroe energy to fight off diseases or w.e) also for rebuilding muscles(protien helps with that)dreaming from wat i recall is your brain processing everything uve done in that day(although i don't see how most of my dreams have anything to do with that )

[dream-scape]

No one is addressing it directly probably because nobody knows the answer. We are far from fully understanding ourselves - and the brain, dreaming, and sleeping are no exception. We still don't completely understand or know all the reasons for sleep, dreaming, etc. This question could be addressed philosophically, but I get the feeling that perhaps you are searching for a more grounded or solid answer, but I'm sorry to tell you, such an answer does not exist.

[TheUnknown]

I think that you can go without sleep for your whole life. I believe it has been done by a few people. The whole mental thing, thats one thing thats unique, the mind can adapt to quite a bit, you've seen things like the uberman sleep cycle. This leads me to believe that you can literally adapt yourself to no sleep. I do not know the side effects of this, but I doubt death would be one (unless you die as result of mental instability during the period of adaption, something like shooting yourself could affect the process). I would wonder though, I bet some people would adapt differently then others. Some would hallucinate at set periods of the day, like REM sleep I think, others might zone out or have a need to meditate. Now, even though it would be cool to see the results, given the risk factors, noone should try this.. even under strict supervision, as it could cause harm, I am no professional, this is just my philosophy on the subject at hand. I think i heard of a man who went 60 years without sleep, I wonder if this was the cause of a brain abnormality or if he really did adapt to it, but I also heard he lived a normal life.. so you never know.

[Placebo]

Sleeping still is a very misunderstood thing, and will remain so for a while still IMO But my opinion so far, sleep is required for 1) The obvious literal answer: Physical recovery (Delta/Repair). You might argue that relaxing will cause the same effect... but I disagree. There's still way more going on if you're at all conscious on the physical level. You might also liken this to a cellphone and battery charger. If you leave your cellphone to charge, then everything recovers just fine. But if you play games at the same time, some cellphones will struggle to regain charge. Sleeping is like 'leaving the damn cellphone alone' Does this have to do with an alternative realm of existence where we recover? Who knows, but I find it unlikely. Very interesting notion though 2) Mental recovery (REM/Dreaming) - okay, this might get long... Your neurons in your head are strengthened by reuse of the same pathways. This is why you forget things if you don't repeat them after a certain amount of time. Those associative pathways need strengthening. Dreaming consists of vivid recollections and reenactments of events and thoughts that are on your mind. Recent as well as important past experiences. As well as some creative thoughts on these experiences - bringing about new 'experiences' that are difficult to understand from a conscious level. It may also be that the subconscious (which as always controls your low level control) has a mechanism to dredge up important past information for reenactment and retension What does that mean? Well it means you're repeating the associative pathways that are on your mind - thus causing a memory-strengthening effect. As well as bringing about innovative ideas around new combinations of those thoughts - causing that scenario of 'I woke up and instantly knew what the solution to my problem was' Ever had a dream that caused your memory of something to change? This occasionally is a problem, but I believe this is actually an intentional mechanism of dreaming. You rethink past experiences in terms of how you feel and what you have learnt since that experience - in order to understand and 're-index' it correctly Another point - dreaming can be seen as 'the subconscious telling you something'. While it can be used as such, it is probably not the intention of the subconscious to alert the conscious of these things. It's simply the subconscious refiling/reindexing the things that are important to you. This might include self-doubts, guilts, insecurities. And they might show in particular ways that some of us are getting good at interpreting. In short - dreaming is your subconscious rethinking, repeating and recombining thoughts and experiences that are important to you, in aid of retaining and gaining new knowledge + information from those memories.