AIBU to think it's fascinating that humans NEED sleep, and

[bbcessex]

To wonder what life would be like if we didn't?

I love my bed but often wonder what an alternative life spent round the clock would feel like!!

. Thats hilarious that we're the only ones that have a settling for sleep routine.

I am imagining birds just falling out the sky as they didn't recognise when they were getting tired and needing a sleep

Animals take themselves off to bed and have their set routines. Anyone seen elephanta doing their bed thing, or apes gathering bedding for the night and making a nice steong comfy bower for the night then finding things to sleep under aswell.

I’ve also stayed awake for 3 days to write a 5,000 word research report (I did get a 2h nap in the middle).
It was horrible, and like being really drunk. I couldn’t see properly and hallucinated ‘things’ in my peripheral vision. I heard buzzing. My complexion was a weird sort of pale but also flushed... like I was ill but also with a rash.
I was having lots of ‘microsleeps’ where one minute it was 3am and the next minute 3:30 because my brain sort of shut off for a while. That’s partly what stopped me getting the report done quicker. Law of diminishing returns! Never again.

It is fascinating.

I find it interesting how some people are early birds and other night owls.

I am a night owl. I love going to bed around 2.00am and waking up at 10.00am. When I have to be up early I go to bed earlier and I lie there awake until around 1-2am. It pisses me off because no matter how tired I am my body does not want to sleep.

I have just started a job where I have to get up at 7.00am every morning. It will be interesting to see if my body ever gets used to going to bed before the early hours of the morning. I think this week I have been lucky to get 4-5 hours of sleep a night.

Rowena when I was a student, I did plenty of late night essay writing but always stopped to get some sleep at about 4am and, if I did that, could wake up at 7am and finish the essay. Three hours seemed to be my minimum to function. But I was a night owl for many, many years..

If you dream while you are awake, isn’t it just a hallucination?

This has been a fascinating thread :) i am bipolar (2, rapid cycling), and i go without sleep for two days and nights in a row with alarming regularity..... I'm usually high as a kite and full of energy for the whole period but at the same time i ache all over, to my bones. I am SO tired sometimes but my brain refuses to switch off. And then..... I crash..... And sleep round the clock but wake up unrefreshed and hurting all over.

Sleep is fascinating....

So interesting.

Two things that's I wonder about;
Why isn't more crime committed at night? Statically (I think) more is done in the day time but surely nights would be better. Do burglars stick to being either a daytime one or a night time one?

Also the thing about we pretend go to sleep to actually go to sleep, and closing our eyes is a massive part of this. Do blind people have the same experience? If you lose your sight does it mean you have to learn a new way to switch off?

I was having lots of ‘microsleeps’ where one minute it was 3am and the next minute 3:30 because my brain sort of shut off for a while. That’s partly what stopped me getting the report done quicker. Law of diminishing returns! Never again.

Those aren't microsleeps those are naps.

Microsleeps are a lot shorter. I once did a driving job. Same route every day. Boring as hell. Two days on the trot I found myself waking up at exactly the same spot in the road - going downhill towards a dangerous curve. I had fallen asleep at the wheel. Not lost my concentration or being unattentive. I had fallen asleep at the wheel. And It can't have been for more than a few seconds because there is no way I would have been able to negotiate the junction I had just passed while unconscious.

The first time was alarming the second time scared the crap out of me.

I changed my routine.

I love to sleep, I’m an owl. I can sleep anywhere and just drop off.

I’ll lend you my toddler for a few —weeks— years, and you can find out what it’s like to be awake around the clock and report back

I love this subject and give it a lot of thought!
Another weird thing:

When you are asleep, you can wake up at any point during the night and you are aware that time has passed since you fell asleep (and some people can guess almost the exact time, I am good at that as I don't wear a watch and am somehow always aware of what time it is) - but even during sleep your body seems to keep track of time.

However, if you have general anaesthetic, when you wake up there is no concept of this at all - you feel like you have woken up at the precise time that you were knocked out - there is no concept of a passing of time like when you are asleep.

I find this really fascinating.

I have always also wondered how humans don't have the ability to instantly fall asleep say like dogs do - why does it take us so long compared to them.

I have always also wondered how humans don't have the ability to instantly fall asleep say like dogs do

I think that if we could sleep as and when we please, then we would be the same. But humans are often bound to strict routines where they have to be up at a certain time so go to bed accordingly, tired or not. How many of us have laid there fretting at 3am thinking "i have to be up for work in 3 hours". Animals don't have that stress!

I don’t think we need as much sleep as we have been told we do. In the old days it was (and in some places still is) quite common to go to sleep as soon as it gets dark (usually 6pm) and then wake up later in the night to pray / eat / socialise) before going back to sleep until sunrise. The people who live lifestyles like this tend to be the most rested people I have ever seen and they probably only sleep in blocks of 3-4 hours in one go.

I find it interesting how people are so different. My friends/husband can just fall asleep in front of the TV, on the train or in a lecture. I can't fall asleep unless it's night time, pitch black, dead silent, bedtime and I'm horizontal. First nights sleep in a new place is crap. But in my own bed on a weekend, I can sleep for 12+ hours in a row, and any less than 7, I feel like total shit.

Other people seem to be fine on 7 hours sleep and find lie-ins "boring" I think my 12 hour sleeps are making up for the fact I can never just "nod off" in front of a film or have a nap.

My most proud moment was sleeping in till 3pm when I was a teenager!

However, if you have general anaesthetic, when you wake up there is no concept of this at all - you feel like you have woken up at the precise time that you were knocked out - there is no concept of a passing of time like when you are asleep.

When I've had a general anaesthetic I've not had that, I have felt like time has passed. Maybe I'm odd?

As someone who finds it depressingly difficult to sleep, or to sleep well, who has hallucinated from lack of sleep and who has had many, many experiences with sleep paralysis (some with hallucinations just for some extra fun) I am insanely jealous of my cat's ability to sleep as and when she wishes.

I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Japan and people’s capacity there for grabbing 40 winks on a train or in a cafe astounds me. My DS then got a job there and on our last Skype chat told me how he’d fallen asleep on the train but luckily he lives at the last stop on the line so just got woken up by the guard. But he seems to have adopted the habit so easily. I’d love to be able to sleep like that.

I find the bodyclock fascinating.

When I can be awake at whatever time I need to be in the morning. So if I need to wake at half 6 to get out the door for qtr past 7, thats when I wake.

Its normally one minute before my alarm goes!

I keep track of things although asleep too. Something I developed once a mum, and its never gone. Like half an ear to noises.

@DrMadeline I read a book about the Venetian family with fatal familial insomnia. It was horrific to me, worse than being buried alive!

I've found my sleep habits have completely changed as I've aged. But the 'falling asleep on a rainy Sunday with nothing else to do' sleeps are the best!

I have to say that even 5/6 hours straight is way better than 8 hours of broken sleep, 2 hours here, 2 hours there.

There is absolutely nothing like a full night's sleep (it's probably more satisfying than a really good meal) and I don't think there's many parents of small children who would disagree.

Another one with bipolar. Sleep deprivation when the DCs were little tipped me over the edge and I became psychotic.
I do everything I can now to protect my sleep and I know that if I have even one night where I don't pass out in 5 minutes then I need to take more antipsychotic medication because it's the first sign of my mood getting too high.
It's a great excuse for a guilt free nap 😀

I sat for a good 15 minutes the other day and thought how strange/funny it is that we (mostly) go to bed every night and go to sleep. Like every single day we need to sleep. I wondered what it would be like if we were to say sleep every second day instead

@AnyMinuteNow
I am imagining birds just falling out the sky as they didn't recognise when they were getting tired and needing a sleep

Sort of on the same topic, but isn’t this what humans experience when they have hypnic jerks (I don’t know if everybody gets them, I get them all the time), when you’re about to fall to sleep and your body jerks you back awake to stop you from falling, even if you’re lying down. It mostly happens to me when I’m half dreaming and I trip over something in the dream and my body jerks me back awake to “save” myself (I hate it, it’s bloody horrible and keeps me awake for ages afterwards in a panic).

Also, does anyone else experience this? Say if you’re on a train or the tube and you’re tired, so, so tired and you literally can’t keep your eyes open and keep nodding off every few seconds even when trying to fight it very hard (I pinch myself but it doesn’t work) but when it’s your stop, even if your eyes are closed you are aware of it and suddenly become magically wide awake and perfectly fine (or is that just weirdo me - probably because I get about 3 hours of sleep a night and have been reading stuff on here since 3:30am)?

We went to northern Norway in midsummer this year. One hotel had particularly thin curtains. So odd to wake up at 2 a.m and wander round looking at the sun. Somehow we managed to sleep.
I can't imagine it now when the daylight is getting less and less all the time.

Also dh and I are retired now and we regularly sleep till 8 a.m which we could never do when at work. We're still going to bed at the same time, I wonder if we're now getting the sleep we need. Dh always used to fall asleep mid evening before, obviously really tired from work, now he doesn't so much.
So how much does modern life interfere.? Electric lights, TV etc? Should we all sit with candlelight at 7pm and go to bed really early rather than staying up watching TV?