The Falling Asleep Process
During the day when we are awake, our body and mind are working tirelessly to run our bodies, and as they do so they slowly degrade at the cellular level. A person will gradually tire from this physical disorder, as sleep gives us the opportunity to build and replace cells and resolve homeostatic imbalances at the end of our day.
If you have not slept for a while, the decrease in the efficiency and effectiveness of the body begins to tell, and you will begin to feel sleepy as less energy is available to you. The longer we stay up the more likely we will fall asleep.
If certain conditions prevail, like a state of inactivity or relaxing in a warm dry place, there is a higher chance of us falling asleep due to the preferable conditions for us to do so.
is sleeping
When we fall asleep, our metabolic rate slows down, as does almost every other function across the board, effectively putting us into what appears to be “hibernation” mode. Adrenaline levels in our body, promoting alertness, are reduced and somatotrophin, which controls tissue repair, is more abundant. This healing process of sleep effectively revives us.
Synaptic nerve connections containing memories of the last day are also strengthened, so when you wake up you realize what you did yesterday. This local area of memory is what contains many of our dreams, our past memories of that day. You may have dreamed something twice, and the second time, it was only because you thought about that first dream the day before you had the second dream. When you see it this way, it confirms the reason why you had the same dream, your conscious thought of it reaches that part of the brain thus ‘remembering’ it at night. .
Dreams that tell the future?
Some people believe that dreams tell the future. But, when 6 billion people dream every night, when trillions of dreams happen every year, there is bound to be a coincidence. People who have dreamed of winning the lottery are one of the many.
There is no scientific evidence to explain the apparent ability to tell the future. However, it can be a sign of intelligence, the mind interpreting future possibilities from knowledge of past events. This would be perfectly feasible as it would be a matter of the mind ‘adapting’ to its future environment and preparing you for the possible future.
REM
REM stands for rapid eye movement and is the time during sleep where dreams occur. They occur after periods of deep sleep.
As suggested, REM involves rapid eye movements, while the body is in a state of paralysis.
In fact, our brain transports us to a virtual reality of our thoughts while it constantly repairs itself for the next day. The most vivid and vivid dreams occur in the inter-REM periods, while in a drowsy state, most lucid dreams occur in the REM stages.
Our environment beyond sleep
Have you ever had a dream where someone in the house is playing music, and the music is seamlessly woven into your dream? This is your body trying to reduce your chances of waking up while it heals itself.
However, sleep-deprived people go into a very deep sleep, and may not detect such sounds. The key point here is that sleep is essential to the body, and that our normal behavior (such as paralysis) is compensated for by enabling our body to do the things it needs to do for itself.
Sleep problems
The older we get, the less sleep we need. Adolescents resist the tendencies to need the most sleep of all of us, due to the growth during puberty that involves a large turnover of materials and energy.
Newborns can sleep up to 60% of the day.
Adults need at least 7 hours.
With aging, the amount needed decreases due to the gradual degeneration of body parts that cannot be repaired.
Some drugs are available to induce sleep, but most are addictive and require controlled and responsible use. The next tutorial looks at the works of famous neurologists of the past such as Carl Gustav Jung and Sigmund Freud, who both actively pursued the path we envision as a career in neurology.
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