NY Times Article: What happens when we sleep

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/he...=3&ref=science

A brilliant article summarising current thinking on why we dream.
Well worth a read.

I think people get frustrated with the answer to the question, "Why do we sleep?" The answer sounds evasive, "It's complicated... There are several reasons that we know of." Seems like a defensive way of saying, "We don't really know."

The truth is, we do know several reasons we sleep, and we still don't know everything. Sleep takes up a huge portion of our lives. From an evolutionary standpoint, there must be an extremely good reason why we sleep. Or according to the current understanding, several good reasons. There is not a single, easy answer.

I think this article does a good job of summarizing some of the current theories. I also think it is important to remember that there are multiple reasons. Just because we have a new study that shows something important about why we sleep, does not mean the old ideas are disproven. We just have a new reason to throw on the pile.

Awesome read. But I only got to page 3, and now it won't let me read the last page...

Bookmarked and am going to read later, but the little bit I read looks interesting.