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AIBU?

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Original poster

Does anyone else find the concept of sleep mental?

247 replies

vivi45 · 02/10/2025 22:58

Probably a very weird thought process but I’m just laying here, ready to go to sleep thinking how strange it is that we spend so much of our life unconscious. If I sleep from 11pm-7am which is normal for me, I will have slept the equivalent of my work day. All of the things I’ve done during the day, meals I’ve eaten, people I’ve spoken to, places I’ve been - and I’ll spend that same amount of time just laid in bed asleep. Also find it weird how the world just carries on while we are oblivious to it.

Sorry I know this is incredibly random 😂

OP posts:
GloryFades · 04/10/2025 22:55

NamelessNancy · 02/10/2025 23:06

In a heartbeat. I often wonder if I could never need or want to eat vs never need to sleep which would be better. I reckon the time gain from sleep clinches it.

Show quote history

I am definitely the opposite and would pick never eating again without a moments hesitation.

Yes you’d get a lot of time back from not sleeping but I love it SO much I could never choose to give it up. My favourite hobby is being cosy under a duvet and all snoozy and sleepy.

CrispsPlease · 04/10/2025 22:58

Sex has got to be the biggest head scratcher.

Why on earth in your right mind would you want to do that ? If it wasn't for the chemical reaction of hormones making us feel compelled to want sex to reproduce (essentially being drugged by mother nature) I mean think about it : what a weird, weird thing to do 🤔

Dontsayyouloveme · 04/10/2025 23:02

CrispsPlease · 04/10/2025 22:52

I do totally get your thought process. I often have thoughts like this.

I often catch myself at work thinking "this is all made up. These roles, this job, these qualifications. They don't actually exist. Humans have just come along and made up degrees and nurses and solicitors. None of it actually exists. It's all made up by humans. We're just dots on a tiny little globe in the universe. Us humans with our silly made up jobs and silly made up qualifications"

Pregnancy is alien too and we all pretend it's normal. You're literally harbouring a human in your midsection and can see feet poking through at times. Another human Is growing inside your body....

I find every life about life weird tbh.. it seems so futile on so many levels, the inane things we do repetitively over our lifetime…, it’s just bonkers!

Carbaddict · 04/10/2025 23:24

Its more mind boggling to me that every single person I evolved from, over 1000s upon 1000s of years, managed to survive long enough to produce a child, eventually producing me (after years of evolution) and never got attacked or eaten or [insert bad thing here] whilst sleeping in completely exposed conditions....I realise thats beyond the thread but its the idea that you just lay there incapacitated.

Airspice · 04/10/2025 23:24

I think about this often! About how weird ’being asleep’ actually is!! And don’t even get me started on dreams!!

Leilaandtheloggerheads · 04/10/2025 23:27

Yep! Very odd. And the fact we designed little beds to lay in, with pillows for our heads and covers to keep us warm 🤣

and the fact we’ve made double beds and we tend to pair up and sleep next to one another on the same bed?! Haha!

Leilaandtheloggerheads · 04/10/2025 23:30

CrispsPlease · 04/10/2025 22:52

I do totally get your thought process. I often have thoughts like this.

I often catch myself at work thinking "this is all made up. These roles, this job, these qualifications. They don't actually exist. Humans have just come along and made up degrees and nurses and solicitors. None of it actually exists. It's all made up by humans. We're just dots on a tiny little globe in the universe. Us humans with our silly made up jobs and silly made up qualifications"

Pregnancy is alien too and we all pretend it's normal. You're literally harbouring a human in your midsection and can see feet poking through at times. Another human Is growing inside your body....

I think that about the world as well. It’s all made up. Time (hours, minutes etc….) all made up. Money, society, working etc. building houses and offices, driving around in cars. What a weird little planet we are!

Carbaddict · 04/10/2025 23:31

StrawberryJangle · 02/10/2025 23:12

Like amphetamines 🤣

Sorry.

No I wouldn't use it. I love my sleep, I'm not entirely sure I love my dreams... However... For as long as I can remember, I have had continuous dreams. For example, I won't remember my previous dream all day, and then as soon as I drift into the unconscious it comes back to me and that's where that nights dreaming starts. So, both my waking and sleeping hours are just a continuous stream of whatever is being thrown at me 😂
Also if I do remember my previous nights dream then I just consciously go back there and I fall asleep pretty much straight away.

It's all hard work!!

Show quote history

But if you dont remember it during the day? How do you know that you are returning to it? Or you remember it just before you are asleep? Like in that weird half state? I think Im a lucid dreamer, meaning on most occasions, if its getting stressful or scary, my dream self is able to tell me that its a dream and Im ok.

JoBrandsCleaner · 05/10/2025 00:22

You’re right it’s such a waste of time. Also the way so much revolves around it. You need to have a house and one of the main reasons is so that you have a special room to sleep in, it has to be kept warm, it’s all money… bedding needing washed, special clothes to wear, also if you don’t manage to sleep well for a while it spoils your days.

ForQuirkyFawn · 05/10/2025 00:36

And does time exist?...we give labels and names to things that do/don't exist, baffling

LexiiRH · 05/10/2025 01:06

And the fact that we all just lay in bed pretending to be asleep before we go to sleep.

Piknik · 05/10/2025 01:08

And then when people stay at our house, or if we are on holiday in a group we ask each other 'how did you sleep?'.... When the answer is always going to be a variation of how long it took to lose consciousness, but then pretty much the same - I lay down lost consciousness...

Also - we have special outfits to sleep in.

Nickynackynoooo · 05/10/2025 01:43

cakedup · 02/10/2025 23:29

Yes I think about this too, sleep is weird weird!

I don't understand when people say they love sleep though....maybe the lying down and relaxing bit but otherwise how can you love something you're not even conscious of??

Another thought just occurred to me, when I was in my 20s I went through a bout of terrible depression and I slept loads....I couldn't cope with life so I just slept for hours so i didnt have to deal with anything or feel depressed, it was like opting out.

This 🙂

ChewbaccasMrs · 05/10/2025 02:32

I think about this as well and the thing I find the strangest about sleep is that were completely unaware whilst we're asleep and most of us are comfortable with that and we never question it.

Another thing I find really strange about sleep is our body's ability to move around so much without waking up,that may be just a me thing though because sometimes I wake up like a sodding starfish in the morning,other mornings 1 leg will be completely out of the bed.😐

HughGrantsfurrysquirrel · 05/10/2025 03:01

Floranan · 02/10/2025 23:11

So I’ve got in my comfy clothes snuggled under my duvet fluffed my pillows and just flicking through MN to “switch off”

only now like everyone else who’ve read this post, I’m going to lay here for hours thinking about it ! 😂

night night everyone get a good one

Edited

I'm doing exactly the same - except I can't bear to wear clothes in bed.
It's 3am, and I enjoy winding down with a few MN tidbits.
Damn - now my mind is once again racing 😆

mjf981 · 05/10/2025 03:57

My 'this is mental' thoughts are more...existential.

We go through life worried about hundreds of things every day, rushing around, working, organising, planning. Then one day it's all over and there is just...nothing. We are then quickly forgotten and our whole lives and all the daily struggles and joys we went through don't matter at all. All the billions of people who came before us and nobody even remembers they even existed.

I try not to think about it too much as it can really mess with your head!

Thefsm · 05/10/2025 04:08

I sleep from 2am till 12.30pm most days. I’d gladly sleep 22 hours a day like a koala if I could.

CanadianJohn · 05/10/2025 04:40

If you think sleeping is weird, what do you think of hibernating? Some animals hibernate for months.

mathanxiety · 05/10/2025 04:40

MajesticWhine · 02/10/2025 23:03

Imagine if someone invented an infusion or medicine or something that could mean you don’t need to sleep at all. Would you use it?

It's called meth. They used to hand it out to soldiers in WW2.

PosterPoser · 05/10/2025 07:44

CrispsPlease · 04/10/2025 22:52

I do totally get your thought process. I often have thoughts like this.

I often catch myself at work thinking "this is all made up. These roles, this job, these qualifications. They don't actually exist. Humans have just come along and made up degrees and nurses and solicitors. None of it actually exists. It's all made up by humans. We're just dots on a tiny little globe in the universe. Us humans with our silly made up jobs and silly made up qualifications"

Pregnancy is alien too and we all pretend it's normal. You're literally harbouring a human in your midsection and can see feet poking through at times. Another human Is growing inside your body....

Absolutely! And a part of you is wired to dislike it hence why you get sickness, nausea, insomnia, and ultimately eject it. But the same part of you is trying to protect it, hence why you get sickness, nausea, (making you aware) insomnia (primal instinct to be awake while predators were around) and ultimately eject it once it's ready.... madness!!

PosterPoser · 05/10/2025 07:45

CanadianJohn · 05/10/2025 04:40

If you think sleeping is weird, what do you think of hibernating? Some animals hibernate for months.

finding out bears give birth while in hibernation is wild

hanka · 05/10/2025 07:48

Leilaandtheloggerheads · 04/10/2025 23:27

Yep! Very odd. And the fact we designed little beds to lay in, with pillows for our heads and covers to keep us warm 🤣

and the fact we’ve made double beds and we tend to pair up and sleep next to one another on the same bed?! Haha!

What about bunk beds then😁😁😁

myglowupera · 05/10/2025 08:07

I find it mind blowing that I had no awareness of my existence when I was under general anaesthetic. No dreams or anything, it was just a nothingness. And then all of a sudden noise came out of nowhere and I was conscious again. It was a very different experience to normal sleep.

rainingeveryday · 05/10/2025 08:13

Money is strange, and the value of things.

I remember having an argument once at the station when I lost my (paper) annual season ticket for the second time and they said I had to buy another one. It cost a fortune. I said it was a piece of paper, not an expensive leather jacket. Why couldn’t they give me another piece of paper?

Luckily another member of staff interrupted, arriving with my ticket that someone had handed in.

Other things that are weird: laughing and crying. Why when we are sad do our eyes start leaking? Why when we find something funny do we make weird noises? And why when we are happy do the corners of our mouth turn up?

Needspaceforlego · 05/10/2025 08:45

SalamiSammich · 04/10/2025 22:49

I find it weird that we sleep next to our partners because we feel a primal reflex of safety in a group... but we put our kids in a totally different room alone!

Like, it's obviously fine, but also weird when you stop and think about it like an animal instinct!

I hadn't thought about the couple bit but it certainly crossed my mind that putting babies in their own rooms just wasn't natural.

And its a fairly recent thing too. Go back 100-150 years houses would have been a couple of rooms pull out beds, and seen as cramped by today's standards.
Yet MN has a perception that modern houses are small.

No animal would put their baby's to sleep away from them although they would leave them to get dinner.