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Nearly every animal sleeps in some way.  It is evident that sleep performs some important function for the nervous system.

Many theories have been suggested, but the most practical seems to be the one put forward by Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick.  He claims that the purpose of sleep is to allow the brain to ‘take out the trash’ – to undo daily events that don’t need to be stored for long-term memory.  Basically, as humans we need to get rid of unimportant mental items clogging our brains and recharge during sleep so that nerve cells can be re-engaged the next day to face a new set of tasks.

Experiments in sleep deprivation have shown that it is not lack of sleep that causes people to be disturbed, but ‘dream’ deprivation.  Dreams are likely to be the result of the brain sorting through its short-term memory of the day’s events, storing some in the long-term memory and getting rid of the rest.

Who Dreams?

Science tells us that everyone dreams even nimals and birds.  Some of us can dream ibn vibrant colors and recall every detail the next morning, while a few claim they never dream at all.  There are also those of us who dream some of the time and can remember the dream in sketchy detail.

Did you know that we spend one third of our lives sleeping?  Not only that, but we spend two to three hours per night dreaming.  That means that by the time we’re 75, we have slept for 25 years and dreamed for about 10!

So, when do we dream? There are four stages of sleep:

Stage 1:  The first stage of sleep is a very light sleep.  You can easily be woken and might deny having been asleep on awakening.  Ever heard someone say, ‘I wasn’t asleep!  I only had my eyes closed’?

That’s because the brainwaves are going from a waking frequency (beta) to a more relaxed phase, known as alpha state.  this is when the body temperature, heart and pulse rate drop slightly and eyes begin to roll.  Drifiting thoughts and floating sensations, as well as vivid pictures flow throu the brain.  Stage 1 may last for five to 10 minutes.