Our dream

Sleep is an amazing state of the body, which is associated with both many myths and a number of unusual, but scientifically proven facts and phenomena.

Interesting facts about sleep

1. We spend about 25 years of our life in a dream, and we dream for six years, that is, a quarter of the entire time.
2. In a healthy person, sleep occurs cyclically, once every 24 hours. This cycle is called circadian and determines the setting of our internal clock, according to the light day. It is because of this cyclicity that it is so important to go to bed at the same time.
3. At different ages, the need for sleep is different. So, for small children, it is necessary to sleep 10-11 hours, teenagers 9-10, adults 7-8 hours, and elderly people only about 6-7 hours.
4. Some historical figures were able to sleep only 3-4 hours a day. Edison, Da Vinci, Franklin, Tesla, Churchill – they all slept much less than the recognized norm and felt quite healthy. Scientists believe that such sleep disorders are the reverse side of a great talent or genius, which is not always for the good.
5. A person can live without sleep for only a few days, however, unique cases are known to science. For example, a soldier of the Austro-Hungarian army, Paul Kern, was wounded in the head, which destroyed part of the frontal lobe of his brain. As a result, Paul stopped sleeping and feeling pain. He was repeatedly examined by Hungarian doctors, but they were unable to find the cause of such a condition or eliminate it. Paul died 40 years later, never having fallen asleep during all this time.
6. Chronic lack of sleep (less than 6 hours a day) leads to hearing and vision disorders, increased anxiety, obsessive states and nervous tics, inability to concentrate, apathy and general weakness, metabolic disorders and rapid weight gain. Complete lack of sleep for several days leads to loss of self–identification, visual and auditory hallucinations and paranoid syndrome, and subsequently to death.
7. Microson is a short-term sleep that lasts from one to several seconds and occurs unexpectedly. It is believed that its causes are a general lack of sleep at night, fatigue or depression. This condition can be very dangerous if it happens during transport management or when manipulating complex equipment that requires attention.
8. Scientific facts about human sleep indicate that the structure of sleep changes with age. Human sleep has two phases: fast and slow. In adults, they replace each other approximately every 1.5 hours, while most often a person does not even notice the transition from one cycle to another. Small children have a shortened cycle of 40 minutes, which is the main cause of sleep deprivation in the parents of infants.
9. Interestingly, the stage of rem sleep, when we are able to dream, appears in the fetus after the 28th week of pregnancy. And although the child does not yet “dream” in the sense in which we understand it, such brain activity can still be called a dream.
10. If you are concerned about the question of which night hours give you more rest, then scientists know the answer: in the middle zone, sleep between 22 and 24 hours will bring the greatest benefit, in the tropical region from 23 to one in the morning, in the Arctic circle from 21 to 23 hours.
11. Almost all people in the world have dreams, but we forget 90% of the dreams we have viewed within half an hour after we wake up. There are techniques for so-called “lucid dreaming”, when you can not only remember your dreams, but also manage them.
12. Meanwhile, scientists are still arguing about what exactly our dreams are and why they are needed at all. At the moment, there is no single universally recognized version.
13. Recent studies prove that the quality of sleep is affected by the composition of nutrition received by a person. Thus, a high-protein diet reduces the likelihood of sleep disorders, while a diet containing mainly carbohydrates can lead to insomnia.
14. There are interesting facts about sleep in animals. Scientists have found that during sleep, some mammals experience similar brain activity to humans. However, unlike humans, animal dreams are filled only with events and actions that actually happened to them. We can say that animals just continue to live their normal lives – only in a dream.
15. Almost all peoples of the world believe that dreams can be prophetic. In some traditional communities in Africa, dreams are given so much importance that decisions about marriage, justice or even war are made on their basis.
16. External factors influence our dreams. For example, a too stuffy temperature in a room will lead to nightmares associated with the closeness of the room, fire and smoke, and a draft, on the contrary, to images of ice and freezing.
17. Many scientific discoveries were made in a dream. This is due to the fact that during sleep, our brain interprets the information already embedded in it in a completely different way. It is in a dream that processing, sorting and analysis of all the data received during the day takes place. Sometimes they result in a real discovery. For example, the structure of the atom appeared to Niels Bohr in a dream, as well as the formula of benzene to the chemist Friedrich Kekula and the famous periodic table to Dmitry Mendeleev. Richard Wagner claimed that he also did not invent his creation “Tristan and Isolde” himself, but simply heard it in a dream.
18. The latest facts about sleep say that during the rem sleep phase there is an increase in the secretion of adrenal hormones and blood supply to the brain, as well as changes in the rhythm of breathing and heartbeat. During the slow sleep phase, basic memories are laid, the secretion of T-lymphocytes responsible for supporting immunity increases.
19. During sleep, metabolism accelerates towards anabolism, that is, the formation of new cells and tissues. There is a renewal of the whole organism.
20. There is a special science about sleep – somnology. It is located at the junction of neuroscience and medicine.

21. In many cultures located in warm climates, daytime sleep or siesta is common. According to recent studies, regular daytime sleep reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
22. The modern interpretation of dreams is one of the widely used methods of psychoanalysis. It is based on the interpretation of the symbolism of dreams and is used exclusively individually.
23. Since 2008, World Sleep Day has been celebrated every second Friday in March.
24. Sleep and dreams are a typical object of artistic and literary creativity. Writers, poets and artists of many countries have been inspired by this process for centuries, and William Shakespeare used the dreams of his heroes as a way of expressing their thoughts and intentions.
25. Sleepwalking or sleepwalking is a fairly rare sleep disorder in which sleeping people can walk and perform some actions in their sleep. At the same time, their brain is in a state of half-sleep-half-wakefulness. When sleepwalkers wake up, they usually don’t remember anything. Interestingly, the most frequent cases of sleepwalking occur with children who are exposed to chronic stress, as well as with people who are depressed.