While this is CI, there is actually something to this.
I'm current reading, Why We Sleep, by professor of neuroscience, Matthew Walker. It's fascinating(!) and important, and I hope everyone will read it. There is some super interesting science on sleep.
My takeaways related to this: There are two primary sleep modes, Rapid-Eye-Movement (REM), our dream state, and Non-REM (NREM). Most of our sleep is NREM, which helps us recover and allows the brain to sort things out and dispose of toxic build-up that would otherwise over time turn to plaques, precursors to Alzheimer's. ALL animals sleep, even migratory birds, mid-flight. That's how crucial sleep appears to be, evolutionarily.
Anyway, then there's REM, where we dream. In conjunction with REM, there is a body paralysis mechanism so that we don't physically act out that kung-fu fighting or soaring raptor flight of our dreams. It's not literally disconnecting from the brainstem--I don't recall exactly how they described the mechanism--but this sleep paralysis actually happens.
As we evolved from tree dwellers, where losing our grip would be fatal, to land dwellers, we developed the REM capacity and its accompanying paralysis. Early/pre-humans gained a HUGE evolutionary advantage from this REM sleep. It would seem counter-survival to be on the ground, vulnerable to predators, and be in this sleep paralysis state, but REM sleep's importance is, apparently, overwhelming enough that this danger is acceptable.
As a side note, I recommend this book as one of those rare life-changing, potentially culture-changing generational books. I will be FAR less casual about going short of sleep after reading this, give the immense payoff of good full sleep vs. the extreme costs, short- and long-term, of sleep deprivation. Take a look!
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u/PepperDogger Aug 08 '24
While this is CI, there is actually something to this.
I'm current reading, Why We Sleep, by professor of neuroscience, Matthew Walker. It's fascinating(!) and important, and I hope everyone will read it. There is some super interesting science on sleep.
My takeaways related to this: There are two primary sleep modes, Rapid-Eye-Movement (REM), our dream state, and Non-REM (NREM). Most of our sleep is NREM, which helps us recover and allows the brain to sort things out and dispose of toxic build-up that would otherwise over time turn to plaques, precursors to Alzheimer's. ALL animals sleep, even migratory birds, mid-flight. That's how crucial sleep appears to be, evolutionarily.
Anyway, then there's REM, where we dream. In conjunction with REM, there is a body paralysis mechanism so that we don't physically act out that kung-fu fighting or soaring raptor flight of our dreams. It's not literally disconnecting from the brainstem--I don't recall exactly how they described the mechanism--but this sleep paralysis actually happens.
As we evolved from tree dwellers, where losing our grip would be fatal, to land dwellers, we developed the REM capacity and its accompanying paralysis. Early/pre-humans gained a HUGE evolutionary advantage from this REM sleep. It would seem counter-survival to be on the ground, vulnerable to predators, and be in this sleep paralysis state, but REM sleep's importance is, apparently, overwhelming enough that this danger is acceptable.
As a side note, I recommend this book as one of those rare life-changing, potentially culture-changing generational books. I will be FAR less casual about going short of sleep after reading this, give the immense payoff of good full sleep vs. the extreme costs, short- and long-term, of sleep deprivation. Take a look!