[ramin]

One of my professors started a sleeping pattern from 12-6 around when he was 26. Then, he decreased his sleeping time by five minutes exactly every week, the first adjustment being 12:05 to 6am. He did this for a long time and now he sleeps very healthy for 2 hours each night. He "tricked" his body into a 22 hour day! Supposedly, this takes a few years off your life, but it might be worth having more hours in your younger life than when you are 60ish.

[Crash]

There are many different theorys to suggest what sleep is for but there is no actual 'reason' for it that we know of, it could be a collection of all the ideas people have put foward or it could none. I suggest a read of time magazines article on sleep it is very interesting and goes into quite alot of detail, like how neurons are weakened during sleep (supposed to reduce the energy expendeture of your body as they dont have to maintain supporting unused neurons) for example, well worth the read.

[Peels]

ramin said:

One of my professors started a sleeping pattern from 12-6 around when he was 26. Then, he decreased his sleeping time by five minutes exactly every week, the first adjustment being 12:05 to 6am. He did this for a long time and now he sleeps very healthy for 2 hours each night. He "tricked" his body into a 22 hour day! Supposedly, this takes a few years off your life, but it might be worth having more hours in your younger life than when you are 60ish.

Hi ramin, is your prof still doing that? If so, he should sleep only 1.5 hour tonight, and 0 hour in another three weeks or so. I really think he is just kidding. :eek:

I can sleep 2~3 hours during weekday, but have to catch up the lost sleep during the weekend. :-)

[rakuenso]

ramin said:

One of my professors started a sleeping pattern from 12-6 around when he was 26. Then, he decreased his sleeping time by five minutes exactly every week, the first adjustment being 12:05 to 6am. He did this for a long time and now he sleeps very healthy for 2 hours each night. He "tricked" his body into a 22 hour day! Supposedly, this takes a few years off your life, but it might be worth having more hours in your younger life than when you are 60ish.

his body's circadian clock should be bitching like hell

[ramin]

Quote

Hi ramin, is your prof still doing that? If so, he should sleep only 1.5 hour tonight, and 0 hour in another three weeks or so. I really think he is just kidding. :eek:

I can sleep 2~3 hours during weekday, but have to catch up the lost sleep during the weekend. :-)

He's up to 4 hours now, but a healthy lad. And no, he wasn't joking. It was 2 hours for a while... Pretty impressive.

[Peels]

Quote

What's the purpose of sleep?

:confused:
Question: What is sleep?
Maharishi: How can you know sleep when you are awake? The answer is to go to sleep and find out what it is.
Question: But I cannot know it in this way.
Maharishi: This question must be raised in sleep.
Question: But I cannot raise the question then.
Maharishi: So that is sleep.
:cool:
---Sri Ramana Maharishi

[Aardvark]

Quote

:confused:
Question: What is sleep?
Maharishi: How can you know sleep when you are awake? The answer is to go to sleep and find out what it is.
Question: But I cannot know it in this way.
Maharishi: This question must be raised in sleep.
Question: But I cannot raise the question then.
Maharishi: So that is sleep.
:cool:
---Sri Ramana Maharishi

And people look to Eastern philosophies for enlightenment? :confused:

[reverse]

Sleep.

A few months back I read everything I could get hold of about sleep.

I was interested in this different state of consciousness, comparing it to awake and other states of consciousness.

as you are aware there are several depths or layers of sleep, characterised by different wave forms.

children do not have the same forms as adults and the lengths of the cycles alter as we age.

I found myself speculating on the unusual concept that sleep is actually "proto awareness" and what our evolutionary ancestors considered to be a state of awake.
we may require this to complete some forms of thought not directly connected to reason.

[Peels]

Based on my understanding, our consciousness are always functioning from birth until death. Some people are suspicious of this continuation, and believe that we are not conscious while asleep. I think that this feeling is caused by "amnesia", since our brain could not "burn" any new memory that happened during sleep.

Well, from the consciousness point of view, the only difference between awake and asleep is that we remember what happened while awake and forget what happened while asleep. That's only my opinion.

As to the question of "what is sleep?", I like the theory that I found from the Journal of Theoretics (vol.6-6): to process memory.

[Sayonara³]

Aardvark said:

And people look to Eastern philosophies for enlightenment? :confused:

The problem with that particular argument is that the entire premise is wrong. Fun, isn't it?

I suppose some people are quite happy to stop thinking once they get that 'answer'.

[Peels]

Quote

The problem with that particular argument is that the entire premise is wrong. Fun, isn't it?

I agree with you.
:-)
The purpose of that Q/A was posted, is to add some spices to the forum. I personally believe that the puzzle of "what is sleep?" can only be answered while awake. ;)