Sleep Sleep is an altered state of consciousness. It is also part of our circadian rhythm (24 hour cycle). During REM sleep is the only time that your body fully heals itself and replaces used neurotransmitter. People are often not fully aware of how tired they are. They fall asleep while doing activities. Using drugs that encourage sleep, actually cut down or stop REM sleep from occurring (alcohol) Without natural daylight, or body goes to a 25 hour cycle

How “awake” we feel largely depends on our body temperature (which also helps to wake us up). When your body temperature peaks, you are at your most awake. Young people have their body temperatures peak after 12:00pm. This means that it is possible for them to work late into the evening and not feel too tired. Young people have a much harder time (relatively) getting up early. They are called “Owls.” Older people do NOT need less sleep , but their body temperature tends to peak before 12:00pm. Therefore older people can get up earlier, be more alert earlier than young people. However, as the day goes on, older people feel much more tired earlier in the evening than young one. They are called “Larks”

Dreams No one really knows what dreams really are. But there are three ideas: Dreams are a way to consciously process information from the day (week) that we didn’t get to during that time. It is process and integrated into our memory and may be easier to access the next day. Dreams are unconscious processes that we do not want to think about during the day and they only come out to play when our defenses are down. These things play on our fears and joys. Dreams are the result of random neural firing of parts of the brain stem. The brain tries it’s best to make sense of these random impulses and in trying to make sense of the information it’s getting, the brain creates a story around the information that it’s getting

Dream interpretation While there is no one single way to interpret dreams, almost all psychologists believe that dreams play an important role in understanding a person. Often times dreams are largely symbolic and can’t be interpreted literally. The better you know the person, the better you can be at interpreting dream symbols.

In total, sleep has five stages: Awake - Alpha waves Stage 1 sleep – Brainwaves slow (irregular) Stage 2 sleep – Sleep spindles may begin Stage 3 sleep – Delta waves begin Stage 4 sleep – Delta waves, deep biological sleep During stage 1 sleep (and sometimes just before) people can hallucinate. R.E.M. Sleep seems to occur around stage 1 or 2. Night Terrors and Sleep walking occur (oddly) only during stage 4 sleep – when no movement or dreaming should be occurring.

A person dreams about 100 minutes a night. Genital arousal happens only during REM sleep During REM sleep a neuroleptic paralyzes the muscles so that we cannot move. In some people, this neuroleptic doesn’t wear off fast enough and people may awake and still be paralyzed. It is very easy for people to get confused about what is real and what isn’t upon first waking up. You may dream that you woke up and got out of bed, only to awake and find that you are still in bed. Memories of what you did yesterday, may initially cloud your awareness of what you have been doing today (in the morning).

There is no set amount of sleep that we need There is no set amount of sleep that we need. Most people sleep about 8-10 hours. Very young people need more sleep than older ones. If you get less sleep than you need, your immune system lowers and your performance level will go down. Sleep debt. If you lose too much sleep over a few days, one “good night’s sleep” will not be enough to make you as healthy as you were before. When the time changes and we lose an hour, industrial accidents increase by 7%. When we gain that hour back again, industrial accidents drop by 7%. Most major accidents occur just after midnight.

Sleep Animals who graze and who have no place to hide during the night tend to sleep less. Animals that hunt and have the ability to hide during the night tend to sleep more. When humans are awake, we produce a chemical called Adenosine (drowsy). The more that builds up in the blood, the more we are likely to want to sleep. During our sleep, the adenosine is filtered out of the blood and we feel “refreshed” when we wake up. During sleep growth hormone is released (but only when an organism is growing).