The most interesting facts about sleep. Interesting facts about sleep and dreams

Surprisingly, a third of your life would seem to be an integral part of existence, but why then do most people know so little about it? Everyone should study this concept, find out the most. Thus, a person will be able to better understand his body, state of mind and even his future.

Dream. What it is

Sleep is a human state, a time of rest for the whole body and brain. During this period, our consciousness is completely switched off, and life processes, on the contrary, are activated.

Sleep comes first slowly, then fast sleep. A person spends most of his time in slow-wave sleep. In this state, wasted forces are renewed, the body is restored, and consciousness relaxes. Next comes a deep state of sleep.

REM sleep is responsible for restoring the human psyche. Then the sleeper dreams. Most people don't know many of the interesting facts about sleep described in this article. Well, we will help fix this.

Difference between sleep and dream

There is a difference between the terms "sleep" and "dream". Some, however, see no difference between them. Although it is quite significant.

The first term means a normal physiological process that is necessary for a living organism: peace of mind and brain.

The second term means an inexplicable concept: pictures, images and people that a person sees during sleep.

In everyday speech, it is easier for people to say that they had a dream rather than a dream. There is nothing terrible here, but it is still worth understanding such concepts.

Why does a person see certain dreams?

Humanity knows many interesting facts about sleep. For example, why do we see a certain person, do strange things, find ourselves in strange or scary situations. These are far from mystical manifestations, but ordinary brain activity.

The brain is designed in such a way that it can control and sense the slightest disturbances and manifestations in the body. Most often, a person himself does not even know about such things. Our subconscious gives signals through sleep: what a person should pay attention to, what is bothering his body.

A person sees when his psyche is agitated. The cause may be fatty foods before bedtime, various mental problems, or a sudden change in diet.

Dreams are divided into 4 types: physiological, creative, factual, compensatory.

It is based on a certain type of process that you can learn specific interesting facts about sleep.

For example, when we are hot at night, we dream of lying in a hot bath. This is a physiological dream.

The most famous table of chemical elements, which a brilliant scientist dreamed of, can be considered a creative dream.

If in a dream a person “lives” a previously lived day, such a dream should be classified as factual.

A dream after which you don’t want to wake up, because the sleeper is experiencing the most pleasant moments of life, is called compensatory.

Prophetic dreams

From a scientific point of view, dreams that are prophetic are allowed to occur.

But there are also quite interesting facts about sleep and dreams: throughout the day a person has access to a lot of information, but the brain cannot fully “digest” most of it. And in a dream, the subconscious puts forgotten and unaccepted puzzles into a pile. Then the person receives true information, which he supposedly learns about later.

This fact is accepted by many experts and scientists.

But there is still a completely inexplicable side to prophetic dreams. For example, President Lincoln dreamed of a funeral a few days before his own death. Or Lomonosov saw his dead father in a dream, and he soon died. How could the brains of these people have previously learned such information? These facts from history are completely inexplicable.

Our ancestors said that a dream can warn about something. You just need to be able to unravel prophetic symbols.

The interesting facts about sleep that we reveal do not end there. Here's another one: more than 70% of people on Earth have at least once seen But at the same time, the concept that prophetic dreams come from Thursday to Friday is unproven and false.

Sopor

Lethargic sleep implies a state when the body is motionless and consciousness is turned off. The body's vital processes malfunction: breathing becomes barely perceptible, the pulse is almost not palpable, and the body temperature decreases.

There are two forms of such sleep: light and heavy. In the first case, this state can easily be confused with ordinary sleep. The only difference is the difficult awakening of a person.

The severe form is more frightening: during such a dream, a living person can be indistinguishable from a dead one. His skin takes on a pale tint, and his breathing is not felt at all.

It is completely impossible to control such a dream: it is unclear how long an individual can remain in such a state.

From a medical point of view, an illness in a dream that cannot be predicted and identified is a lethargic sleep. Interesting facts taken from history indicate that in the Middle Ages such a problem was already widely known.

Many suffered from the phobia of being buried alive. The scientific term for this phenomenon is taphophobia.

At that time, special coffins were made from which a person could easily escape.

Doctors in the Middle Ages could not distinguish lethargic sleep from death, so there are cases when a sick person was considered dead.

It is known that Nikolai Gogol is one of the most famous taphophobes. He was very afraid of being buried alive and in recent years he even slept sitting up. He warned his relatives to bury him only when they saw obvious signs of decomposition.

Many say that the writer’s greatest fear came true: he was buried asleep. After all, when his grave was reburied, they saw a skeleton in an unnatural position. But an explanation was found - supposedly due to the influence of rotten boards, the position of the skeleton was disturbed.

The main causes of this disease have not yet been found. But one of them is frequent stress and prolonged illnesses.

Sleep problems

It has been scientifically proven that you need to sleep about 8 hours a day. By violating such a law, a person increases the risk of premature death. What to do if adequate sleep is interrupted by illnesses?

There are several of them: insomnia, respiratory distress, long-haul flight illness, restless leg syndrome, and scary dreams.

It has long been believed that some amulets could protect healthy sleep and save a person from terrible dreams. These are the keepers of dreams. Interesting facts about such amulets are known from the legends of Indian tribes. It was not without reason that the amulets were made in the form of a web, because the Native Americans believed that they stuck to the web, and the good ones passed through it further.

Nowadays such amulets are also popular. You can buy them in souvenir shops or make them yourself. Dream catchers are hung at the head of the sleeping person.

A somnologist will help a person cope with other problems. This profession has become very popular in the last 5 years.

Some interesting facts about sleep have been proven by scientists. Thus, smokers are more susceptible to restless sleep. Depression affects those people who often do not get enough sleep. Our thinking doesn't work as well when we get less sleep than usual.

How to control dreams

Science has long begun to study this issue. Over the course of several decades, some scientists have managed to control their dreams. -Frederick van Eden published a manual book that describes a detailed guide to dream control. The scientist himself claimed that he brilliantly mastered this technique.

Stephen LaBerge, an American expert on lucid dreams, has published a series of manuals on the practice of dream control. Moreover, he invented miracle glasses that can make a person aware of his dreams. These glasses are commercially available and available all over the world.

Using this method, the scientist wanted to reveal the most interesting facts about human sleep, as well as teach the whole world to look differently at the usual physiological state.

So, a simple way to control sleep is to imagine what you want. If a person thinks about something for a long time, dreams, even writes down thoughts in a notebook, he will definitely dream about it. It is recommended to write down your dreams. This way they can be controlled. By describing in detail what you want to see, your subconscious will “project” what you want in a dream.

Blind people see dreams in their own way: they do not distinguish between pictures, but they feel, understand, sense everything that happens in the dream.
The fetus in the womb can also dream as early as 25 weeks of pregnancy.
Non-smokers have more vivid dreams than smokers.
In most cases, people feel déjà vu because of a dream.
Objects, events, animals can be symbols that need to be solved. In other cases, what you see in a dream is a projection of the brain onto dreams and thoughts.
A person will not see unknown people in a dream. All the heroes of his dreams are those whom he has met at least once in his life.
By the posture of a sleeping person, one can determine his psychological personality type.
A person remembers only 10% of his dreams.
When a person snores, he cannot dream.

Every night, almost all people on the planet enter into a world of adventure - they see various dreams. Most of the phenomena associated with dreams and dreams have not yet been scientifically proven. Therefore, every person plunges into the unknown at least once a day. But you shouldn’t be afraid of dreams, you just need to listen to them.

All about dreams - interesting facts about dreams. Everyone knows that many creative people in the past came up with amazing ideas in their dreams. Like everything unknown, a dream beckons, attracts and frightens. In this article we will learn interesting facts - all about dreams.

When a person is constantly tormented by the same problem and he cannot solve it, then salvation most often comes during sleep. Come on, remember - Mendeleev with his table of chemical elements, the chemist August Kekule, who dreamed of the formula of benzene, Beethoven, who composed a play in a dream, Voltaire and his poem. And Charles Dickens himself drew the plots of most of his works from his own dreams.

All this was in the past, and there is no point in dusting it (the past), because we might get a bite of something useful.

Everyone dreams

Some will say that he has no dreams. You can safely enter into an argument with him, since everyone has dreams, but not everyone is able to remember them.

We dream before we are born

We have already written about this. It is only worth noting that dreams are very different from the dreams of an adult. But they exist!

I slept - I forgot

Half of us forget 75 percent of the dream within fifteen minutes of waking up.

Only old information

Often in dreams we see strangers who supposedly do not exist. In fact, we saw these people, once and somewhere, but we didn’t remember their faces. And the brain remembers everything and then plays it back, like a DVD. But this is not entirely a fact, and it must be verified.

Colorful dreams are not fun for everyone

About 12 percent of those people who have vision can only dream in black and white. Although there were many more such people before. This is due to the advent of color television.

Dreams by gender

Men most often dream of other men, oddly enough. But for women, both men and women can act equally well. Therefore, women's dreams are usually kinder than men's.

Your sleep can be controlled

As soon as we smell any smell in reality during sleep, the plot of the dream immediately changes.

The earlier the better

Those who write down dreams after their logical completion, that is, upon awakening, remember them with difficulty. But if you wake up late at night, in the middle of a dream, you can write a whole book in the smallest detail.

Prophetic dreams

Research results showed that approximately 18% to 38% of people had a prophetic dream even once in their lives, and most of them experienced deja vu. Many of us believe in such dreams.

Two hours to sleep

During the night, a person sees from two to seven dreams, which in total amounts to up to two hours of sleep.

Negative emotions

Fear, worry and anxiety are the most “popular” emotions in dreams.

Women - sleep more

During sleep, we calm down and leave many problems behind us. And since women are more sensitive creatures, they need to sleep more, at least for an hour.

Sleep paralysis

In sleep we are paralyzed. This is how the body enters a state of rest and recovery.

Blind and deaf people also dream

They just have different dreams, like their lives - they feel touches, smells. Those organs that are still functioning are involved.

Orgasm in a dream

In a dream, you can not only have sex, but also get a full-fledged orgasm from it. Moreover, sensations in a dream are stronger than sexual sensations in real life.

Experts believe that every night we dream for two hours, and in a lifetime of 70 years a person spends 50 thousand hours (about 6 years) watching dreams.

In the Old Testament, Jacob dreamed of a ladder to heaven, and Joseph worked as an interpreter of Pharaoh's dreams.

In fact, for many centuries, it was a great way to make a living. In some communities, shamans use dreams to determine human illnesses, expose unfaithful spouses, predict pregnancy and weather, and determine the location of animals for hunting.

Influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud, psychiatry became an important part of the 20th century, and many people who come to see a psychotherapist spend the entire time allotted to them recounting their dreams. Nowadays, with the advent of short-term therapy and antidepressants, less attention is paid to dreams. However, dreams and sleep itself remain largely a mystery.

We will try to answer the most common questions about dreams.

Do dreams disrupt sleep? It often happens that I sleep, and the next morning I wake up broken.

No, it’s an integral part of sleep. Everyone dreams (whether they remember them or not), even those with severe brain damage. The dream has four phases. During the first phase, the eyes are closed but continue to move. Experts believe that dreams occur not only in this phase, but also when the eyes stop moving. However, dreams in the first phase are the most vivid and imaginative. These are the dreams we remember, especially if we wake up shortly after. In a dream, we go through four phases, each lasting 90–100 minutes. These cycles help us relax during sleep. But a person who has nightmares just before waking up may not feel rested.

Why do we have dreams?

There are many theories about this. Freud began the modern study of dreams; he believed that they represent unrealized desires rooted in uncorrected, repressed childhood traumas and fears. Carl Jung, another famous dream researcher, believed that dreams are a small hidden door into the most intimate depths of the soul.

But the ideas of modern researchers are more prosaic. Many people believe that dreams are "meaningless biology" and view them as repeated bursts of electrical activity from primitive, randomly selected stimuli that the brain processes into images.

Another idea that frightens many scientists is that it is simply psychological garbage, fragments of what the brain needs to get rid of. According to this theory, dreams have no function: after all, if they are significant for us, why don’t we remember most of them? There is an opinion that dreams are a legacy of the primitive past, when fear and horror seen in a dream were regarded as a sign that one needed to prepare for battle, etc.

No one knows the truth about why we see dreams and whether they have any function. Dreams are the stories we tell ourselves at night. This is more of a guess than a scientific statement, but who knows...

How can I remember my dreams?

Some people almost always remember their dreams and can retell them. But most of us forget the things we dreamed about at night—and you don't have to work hard to remember them. Unless you want that, of course. If so, tell yourself before going to bed that you want to remember the dream you have. Place a notepad and pen next to your bed and write everything down as soon as you wake up. Writing down the day's events in a diary before bed can help. These recommendations are given to people who want to remember their dreams, but this, of course, does not provide a 100% guarantee. Moreover, when you remember and retell a dream, you tend to make it more reasonable and meaningful. You create and correct your dream yourself, filling in the gaps. There is no way to capture a dream while you are having it.

What is a nightmare?

Both adults and children have nightmares. Over 10% of people have nightmares at least once a month. Stress in real life - or the death of relatives - can cause a nightmare. High fever, illness, or medications can cause bad dreams. If you wake up in horror, you can tell someone about your dream, this will help you overcome fear and negative emotions. Get up and walk around if it helps. Do not scold yourself if in a dream you did not appear in the best light. Dreams do not predict your future actions, but reveal your deepest desires, fears, or describe your past. As mentioned above, dreams are still a mystery.

1. Sleep Fact - When we sleep, we are paralyzed.
Believe it or not, our body is practically paralyzed during sleep, mainly to prevent the body from repeating the movements that occur during sleep.

2. Sleep Fact - External stimuli affect our dreams
Each of us has experienced this at least once: the subconscious makes the physical sensation that we experience at the moment part of the dream. To people who are thirsty, the subconscious “throws” the image of glasses of water. They try to get drunk (in a dream, of course), feel thirsty again, see a glass of water again, and so on - until they wake up and realize that they are really thirsty and get drunk in the real world. Thus, the subconscious “tells” that you need to wake up.
3. Sleep Fact - Ex-smokers have more vivid dreams
Former smokers have more intense and real dreams than other people. Most often they dream that they have started smoking again and feel guilty about it.

4. Dream Fact - Dreams are not literal
Our subconscious uses the language of signs and symbols. Therefore, you should not take every dream, even the most logical and rich plot, literally. The subconscious sends us signals, not clear images.
5. Dream Fact - Not everyone can dream in color.
About 12% of sighted people only dream in black and white. Others dream in color. There are several typical groups of dreams that everyone sees without exception: situations at school or at work, an attempt to escape from persecution, falling from a height, the death of a person, teeth falling out, flying, failing exams, accidents, etc.
6. Dream Fact - We only dream what we have seen.
In our dreams we often see strangers, but we have no idea that our consciousness is not inventing their faces. These are the faces of real people, those whom we saw during our lives, but did not remember.
7. Sleep Fact - Dreams Prevent Psychosis
Recently, scientists conducted an experiment: subjects were given the required 8 hours of sleep, but were woken up in the initial phase of each sleep. After three days, all participants in the experiment, without exception, experienced difficulty concentrating, hallucinations, unexplained irritability and the first signs of psychosis. When the subjects were finally given the opportunity to dream, scientists noticed that the brain compensated for the lack of dreams in the previous days by spending the body longer than usual in the REM sleep phase.
8. Fact about sleep - Everyone without exception dreams.

All people (except those with severe mental disorders) dream, but men and women dream differently. Men mostly dream of representatives of their own sex, while women in their dreams see representatives of both sexes in approximately equal proportions.
9. Sleep Fact - We forget 90% of our dreams
Five minutes after waking up, we no longer remember half of our dreams, and after ten minutes we can hardly remember 10% of them. There are cases when poets, writers, and scientists had dreams in which they wrote poetry, prose, or came up with a new scientific theory. Lucky were those who thought of leaving a pen and paper at the head of the bed. It is to dreams that Samuel Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan”, the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, as well as the famous periodic system of elements, also known as the periodic table, owe their birth.
10. Fact about sleep - Blind people “see” dreams
People who are blind after birth can see dreams in the form of pictures. People who are blind from birth do not see pictures, but their dreams are filled with sounds, smells and tactile sensations.
Some more facts about dreams:
1. A person does not dream at the moment when he snores.
2. Young children do not see themselves in dreams until they are 3 years old. From 3 to 8 years old, children have more nightmares than adults do in their entire lives.
3. If you are awakened during REM sleep, you will remember your dream down to the smallest detail.
Human sleep is one of the strange and mysterious states about which science knows almost nothing. Why do we see places and people we have never seen? Why do events happen in dreams that we were not participants in? Why do we dream about things we haven’t thought about at all? I would like to bring to your attention 38 facts about sleep that you may know, and most likely, some of them will be a discovery for you

The longest period of wakefulness, 18 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes, was recorded during the competition for the longest time sitting on a rocking chair (sic!). The winner escaped with hallucinations, visual impairment, speech disorders and memory loss.

It is impossible to determine whether a person is sleeping without a medical examination. People often fall asleep for a few seconds with their eyes open without even noticing it.

If you fall asleep in less than 5 minutes in the evening, you are sleep deprived. The ideal time for a person to fall asleep in the evening is from 10 to 15 minutes. This time means that you are tired enough to sleep soundly at night, but at the same time you do not feel drowsy during the day.

Having a baby means an average of 400-750 hours of sleep lost for parents in the first year.

Most likely, you will develop insomnia later in life if you abuse bad habits instead of sleep, awakened by your child.

Long-term studies of human sleep, which led to the discovery of the so-called. The "fast phase" studies were not carried out until 1953 due to the high paper consumption of such studies.

REM sleep occurs in bursts throughout the night, up to 2 hours in total, starting on average at the 90th minute of sleep.

Dreams, which were previously thought to only occur during REM sleep, also occur in other stages. It is possible that a person sees dreams at any moment of sleep, but is not aware of them or does not remember them.

Dreams in the fast phase are usually strange and illogical, and in the slow phase they are repetitive and more like thoughts with a small amount of fantasy - for example, a constant memory that you forgot something.

Certain patterns of eye movement during the rapid phase correspond to certain movements in our dreams, which indicates that part of our brain looks at the dream from the outside, like a movie.

No one knows whether animals dream, but sleep phases have also been discovered in them.

Elephants sleep standing up during non-REM sleep and lie down on the ground during REM sleep.

Some scientists believe that we dream to record our daytime experiences in long-term memory. Thus, we dream to remember information that is important to us. Others believe that we dream about things and events that we do not need in order to clear our brains of unnecessary memories and duplicates.

A dream may not have any useful purpose, but is simply a by-product of consciousness and sleep.

REM sleep can help develop a healthy brain. Children born prematurely spend 75% of their sleep in the REM phase, while their healthy brothers spend only 60%. Likewise, newborn rats and hamsters sleep entirely in REM sleep, while newborn piglets (which are more developed from birth) have no REM sleep at all.

Scientists can't explain a 1988 study that showed that shining a bright light onto the back of the knee disrupted a person's sleep rhythm and body clock.

The British Ministry of Defense has come up with a way to adjust the biological clock of soldiers so that they stay awake for up to 36 hours. To do this, tiny light emitters were mounted in glasses so that they illuminated the edges of the retina with light close to that of the sun. Thus, the soldier had a constant feeling of early morning. This system was first used by American military pilots during the bombing of Kosovo.

Staying awake continuously for 17 hours reduces productivity and impairs attention, as if you had 0.05% blood alcohol.

The Exxon Valdez disaster in 1988, the Challenger shuttle accident and the Chernobyl disaster were caused by human factors, which not least depend on the level of sleepiness.

International studies have shown that at least 20% of car accidents occur due to fatigue and lack of sleep.

Sleeping in a noisy room can reduce a person's immune function, even if they are not awakened by the noise. Noise is especially dangerous in the first and last two hours of sleep; it can cause complete disruption of a person’s sleep pattern and natural clock.

Self-sudden awakening is caused by the release of the hormone adrenocorticotropin into the blood.

Some sleeping pills, in particular barbiturates, suppress the stage of REM sleep, which causes long-term disruption of the psyche and sleep patterns.

The use of sleeping pills is justified from a psychological point of view only if insomnia is caused by a feeling of bereavement or severe stress.

A little light from a digital watch is enough to disrupt your sleep patterns, even if you don't realize it and continue to sleep. This light “turns off” the sleep pattern in the brain and causes a decrease in the concentration of sleep-promoting substances.

To sleep well, you need a cool place. Body temperature and sleep cycles are directly related. That is why on a hot summer night we have difficulty falling asleep and sleep little. The blood supply to the brain works best at ambient temperatures of 18-30 degrees. With age, this range narrows to 23-25 degrees - this is one of the reasons why older people are more likely to experience sleep disorders.

If you drink a little grog (a hot strong drink) before bed, it will help you fall asleep, but the sleep will be superficial and the healing effect will be insignificant.

After five nights of poor sleep, a glass of alcohol will have the same effect on you as two drinks would if you had a good night's sleep.

A person sleeps 3 hours less than his closest animal relatives - chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans. These primates sleep at least 10 hours a day.

In the presence of danger, ducks know how to sleep with one half of their brain, while the other vigilantly monitors their surroundings.

Ten percent of people who snore have a sleep disorder called apnorea. With this disease, a person stops breathing for short periods about 300 times per night, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

A person snores only during the slow phase of sleep.

Teenagers need sleep just like small children, i.e. about 10 hours a day. For older people, 6 hours of sleep is enough. For a middle-aged person, the optimal sleep duration is 8 hours.

Some studies show that women need an extra hour of sleep compared to men, which is caused by their tendency to depression and psychosis.

Victorian records show that people slept an average of 10 hours a night, with sleep schedules shifting depending on daylight hours.

Scientists have learned most of the information about sleep status in the last 25 years.

Sleep-deprived young people are less productive than older people.

Many experts point out that one of the main causes of sleep disorders is 24/7 Internet access.

I wish you to sleep well, stay productive and be healthy!

Human sleep is one of the strange and mysterious states about which science knows almost nothing. Why do we see places and people we have never seen? Why do events happen in dreams that we were not participants in? Why do we dream about things we haven’t thought about at all?

A few facts about sleep (I think some of them you will hear for the first time)

1. We are paralyzed during sleep.

Believe it or not, our body is practically paralyzed during sleep, mainly to prevent the body from repeating the movements that occur during sleep.

2. Children's sleep

Young children do not dream about themselves until they are 3 years old. From 3 to 8 years old, children have more nightmares than adults do in their entire lives.

3. Ex-smokers have more vivid dreams.

Former smokers have more intense and real dreams than other people. Most often they dream that they have started smoking again and feel guilty about it.

4. Dreams are never literal.

Our subconscious uses the language of signs and symbols. Therefore, you should not take every dream, even the most logical and rich plot, literally. The subconscious sends us signals, not clear images.

5. Not everyone can dream in color.

About 12% of sighted people only dream in black and white. Others dream in color. There are several typical groups of dreams that everyone sees without exception: situations at school or at work, an attempt to escape from persecution, falling from a height, the death of a person, teeth falling out, flying, failing exams, accidents, etc.

6. We only dream what we saw.

In our dreams we often see strangers, but we have no idea that our consciousness is not inventing their faces. These are the faces of real people, those whom we saw during our lives, but did not remember.

7. Dreams prevent psychosis

Recently, scientists conducted an experiment: subjects were given the required 8 hours of sleep, but were woken up in the initial phase of each sleep. After three days, all participants in the experiment, without exception, experienced difficulty concentrating, hallucinations, unexplained irritability and the first signs of psychosis. When the subjects were finally given the opportunity to dream, scientists noticed that the brain compensated for the lack of dreams in the previous days by spending the body longer than usual in the REM sleep phase.

8. Everyone without exception sees dreams.

All people, with the exception of patients with severe mental disorders, dream. However, men and women dream differently. Men mostly dream of representatives of their own sex, while women in their dreams see representatives of both sexes in approximately equal proportions.

9. We forget 90% of dreams

Five minutes after waking up, we no longer remember half of our dreams, and after ten minutes we can hardly remember 10% of them. There are cases when poets, writers, and scientists had dreams in which they wrote poetry, prose, or came up with a new scientific theory. Lucky were those who thought of leaving a pen and paper at the head of the bed. It is to dreams that Samuel Coleridge's poem “Kubla Khan”, the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as well as the famous periodic system of elements - the periodic table, owe their birth.

10. Blind people “see” dreams

People who are blind after birth can see dreams in the form of pictures. People who are blind from birth do not see pictures, but their dreams are filled with sounds, smells and tactile sensations.

11. It is impossible to determine whether a person is sleeping without a medical examination.

People often fall asleep for a few seconds with their eyes open without even noticing it.

12. Internal stimuli affect our dreams

Each of us has experienced this at least once: the subconscious makes the physical sensation that we experience at the moment part of the dream. To people who are thirsty, the subconscious “throws” the image of glasses of water. They try to get drunk (in a dream, of course), feel thirsty again, see a glass of water again, and so on - until they wake up and realize that they are really thirsty and get drunk in the real world. Thus, the subconscious “tells” that you need to wake up.

13. The influence of external stimuli on sleep

14. REM sleep can help develop a healthy brain

Children born prematurely spend 75% of their sleep in the REM phase, while their brothers, those born on term, spend only 60%.

15. The influence of lunar phases on human sleep

According to research, people sleep better during the new moon than during the full moon.

16. Use of sleeping pills

Some sleeping pills, in particular barbiturates, suppress the stage of REM sleep, which causes long-term disruption of the psyche and sleep patterns.

The use of sleeping pills is justified from a psychological point of view only if insomnia is caused by a feeling of bereavement or severe stress.

17. The effect of alcohol on sleep

If you drink a little grog (a hot strong drink) before bed, it will help you fall asleep, but the sleep will be superficial and the healing effect will be insignificant.

After five nights of poor sleep, a glass of alcohol will have the same effect on you as two drinks would if you had a good night's sleep.

18. Sleep in people who snore

A person snores only during the slow phase of sleep. A person does not dream at the moment when he snores.

19. Sleep and the hormone adrecorticotropin

Self-sudden awakening is caused by the release of the hormone adrenocorticotropin into the blood.

20. Lack of sleep is a recipe for weight gain.

Lack of sleep in just a week can cause a person to gain more than 0.9 kg in weight.

21. Can’t wake up for a long time in the morning?

Dysania is a rare disorder, as a result of which a person is unable to wake up in the morning and quickly begin normal activities.

22. Gesticulation in dreams

Some deaf people gesture while they sleep.

23. Physiological feature of a person

Scientists have proven that a person cannot sneeze while sleeping.

24. Profession for early risers

Before the first alarm clock was invented (in the 1920s), in Great Britain and Ireland there were special workers who would knock on customers' windows with long sticks to wake them up.

If you are awakened during REM sleep, you will remember your dream down to the smallest detail.

REM sleep occurs in bursts throughout the night, up to 2 hours in total, starting on average at the 90th minute of sleep.

Certain patterns of eye movement during the rapid phase correspond to certain movements in our dreams, which indicates that part of our brain looks at the dream from the outside, like a movie.

Some scientists believe that we dream to record our daytime experiences in long-term memory. Thus, we dream to remember information that is important to us. Others believe that we dream about things and events that are unnecessary to us in order to clear our brains of unnecessary memories.

A person sleeps 3 hours less than his closest animal relatives - chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans. These primates sleep at least 10 hours a day.

No one knows whether animals dream, but sleep phases have also been discovered in them.

Elephants sleep standing up during non-REM sleep and lie down on the ground during REM sleep.

During dolphin sleep, half of the brain remains active. This way the animal can monitor possible attacks from predators.

Ducks have the same feature. When there is danger, ducks sleep with one half of their brain, while the other vigilantly monitors their surroundings.

Snails are animals that can sleep for up to 3 years.

Sea otters hold their paws while sleeping to stay close to each other.

Cats spend 70% of their lives sleeping.

Newborn rats and hamsters sleep entirely in REM sleep, while newborn piglets (which are more developed from birth) have no REM sleep at all.