Why do humans actually need to sleep

ya but the guy who doesn't sleep is true well idk if its the same guy your thinking of but i read about a farmer in some asian country i think who never sleeps

edit-Vietnam latest news - Thanh Nien Daily

well he used to sleep but not for 33 years i guess

I don't know if it's that particular Vietnamese guy, but I did hear about a guy who had a medical condition that didn't allow him to sleep. He kept sane and functional by practicing meditation several hours a day, which has already been proven to work as a substitute for sleep. Buddha himself only slept 2 hours a night, plus 2 hours sitting meditation, and 2 hours walking meditation.

I read in a book about a marathon biker who deprived himself of sleep. He started waving at mailboxes thinking they were people. Then his follow crew forced him to stop when he was unable to stay out of traffic. He was hallucinating so badly he thought his crew were aleins. Read about it in Sleep Thieves.

A trucker in the desert fell asleep while driving and lost the road and went onto a salt flat where he drove 60 miles. He decided to go to sleep when he got out of his truck and realized he was lost. An airplane discovered him in the morning and had a highway trooper check it out.

Not sure why we need sleep but sleep is great. You can have the weirdest and coolest thoughts in your sleep, worst thing is hearing an alarm clock go off and realising you have to get up.
*shivers*

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gandalf_The_Grey

To use a computer analogy, sleeping and particularily REM is your brain's way of running a defrag program. All the information your mind has collected or created is organized.
Also, sleep is your brain's time to balance out it's serotonin levels and replenish its serotonin. Serotonin is very important for mood regulation, several forms of cognition and memory, and digestion.

So essentially, without sleep you'd go nucking futs.

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heh funny..we prolbaby read teh same psyc txtbook hahaha

but yeahh, i remember hearing from ym gr9 science teacher that he doesnt know why we havent evolved passed sleeping. Its been quite a few years, but i remember him saying something about how we sleep casue in nature, we sleep so that we can keep the natural order of things, eg: food chain, so like animals sleep so they can be hunted...it sounds fucked up, but if you think about it, he makes a good point..If you think about it, when you're K.O'd n someone wakes you up, you snap outta your sleep startled, n probably a bit of an adrenaline rush...sooo yeah, i guess waht he was saying is since we've clearly segregated outselves from nature, then why do we still need sleep? why havent our bodies found a new way of repairing?

sorry if it was a rant, im kinda baked lol

Ive gone for 7 days without sleep on two different occassions. I fell asleep standing up in church at the end of those weeks both times lol.

I

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I sleep, on average, about 2-4 hours a day. I have for pretty much my entire life.

you need sleep to preocess information, recharge and rebuild. most people shrink around 1=4 cm a day because the spines compresses due to gravity. sleeping helps straighten this out.

it is important for the brain and helps development. also during formative years it is the time we do the most growing.

i used to have fucked up sleeping patterns where i would stay awake for 2-3 days normanly tweaked and high adn then crash for 20 - 48 hrs. the most i have ever done is 5 days and its a nightmare.

you hallucinate, things are really hard to do. your whole body feels heavy. your mind plays so many tricks on you and things dont make sense.

i can easily go a couple of days, but it is ultimately bad for your health.

the body is like anything it needs its rest.

people who claim to not sleep are attention seeking bullshiters. like this bloke i saw on telly who claimed to live off nothing but air, sun and fruit juices. BOLLOXs

snowbind

The actual reason for sleeping is mainly for our brain. It works by firing synapses which, is how our brain does most of its work. Our brain can only be firing large amounts of synapses for so long before it needs a break. While we sleep, our brain dosnt shut down, it just slows down. Less synapses are fired, and allow it to fire more in a few hours. Thats why we fall asleep, our brain says "hey, give it a rest will ya!"

hmm interesting, but the only thing i dont really get is how "slowed" down the brain really is..its been awhile since ive had psyc, but i remember something like dreams are created by random synapses firing inside your head, so how "rested" could the brain really be?