Some people, especially energetic, active and purposeful people, ask such questions: “Why do I need sleep, why waste eight hours a day doing nothing? After all, this is a third of life! How much useful can be done during this time! Is it possible to do without sleep, resting, for example, in parts?
Recently, there are even those from among workaholics who begin to use pharmaceuticals to eliminate sleep.
But in nature, it turns out, nothing unnecessary happens! We cannot live without sleep! Sleep plays a very important role in our life.
True, there are people who do not sleep for weeks, months. But they suffer from this and would like to get rid of their mental anomaly. In addition, during their sleepless time, they usually do not advance in anything.
What specific functions does our sleep perform? There are several of them:
1. Energy recovery. At our will, we can provide rest to any part of the body, but not to consciousness. And consciousness turns off only in sleep. When it works, we never stop thinking about something: we plan upcoming actions, analyze the past, process current information, make decisions, including volitional decisions, etc. etc. In a word, consciously manage yourself. This management activity consumes energy that must be periodically restored.
2. Stabilization. Man is a flexible, unstable creature, our behavior can easily deviate in any undesirable direction from the "correct" one. Therefore, we constantly need some kind of limiters and guides. Of course, during the period of growing up and further mature, conscious life we gain wisdom, but it is not enough. It turns out that in addition to the individually acquired experience, the human psyche also contains ancient common human experience. It is postponed in the form of archetypes, algorithms, innate, unconscious attitudes, etc.
In a state of wakefulness, this experience usually does not manifest itself, except in moments of severe stress. But in a dream, he awakens and corrects our behavior, but already at an unconscious level.
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3. Cognitive. Our dream is complicated. It consists of two phases - NREM sleep and REM sleep or REM sleep. During slow wave sleep, a significant part of our brain rests. But in the process of fast, the brain works intensively, including performing cognitive tasks. Those problems, over which we intensely think during the day, by inertia are put into sleep and continue to be solved there. But already in conditions of a much larger amount of information extracted from the depths of the psyche. True, sleepy thoughts are chaotic, disorganized, even bizarre, but they are distinguished by originality.
Our sleep resembles the dream of dolphins, which alternately sleep with the left and right hemispheres of the brain. On the one hand, they need it in order not to drown. On the other hand, this is, apparently, the specificity of the rest of all higher beings.
4. Predictive. Our sleep is usually accompanied by dreams. More precisely, sleepy sensations, because in a dream we not only see (from the back side), but also hear, feel pain, smells, tastes, the state of flight. Dreams are sometimes prophetic, prophetic, or - scientifically - predictive. Sometimes it happens: we dream of some event, and in a day, two, three it happens in reality, in real life, in reality. It is not difficult to explain this phenomenon. Daytime prognostic, anticipatory activity brought into sleep produces much better results. Therefore, nighttime thoughts are more accurate than daytime ones.
5. Adaptation. In the evening before going to bed, we usually reflect on our plans for tomorrow. All this is recorded in a state of sleep and, willy-nilly, mobilizes our body and psyche for a more efficient implementation of daily activities.
6. Alarming and signaling. Almost all living beings, when they find themselves in a difficult situation or trouble, strive to inform their relatives about it. Thus, to some extent, they warn them that the same can happen to them. Alarms are transmitted in a variety of ways.
It happens that a mother suddenly wakes up in the middle of the night very alarmed, agitated by a dream she had, as if something had happened to her son, who serves thousands of kilometers from home. Indeed, the next day she receives a message from the hospital.
Previously, such stories were considered myths. However, today, due to advances in the psychology of the unconscious, they are considered scientifically reliable facts.
Why does a person become more sensitive to even the weakest signals during sleep? Because in this state, all other sensory (receiving) channels are disabled and do not interfere with the operation of the "panic button", which, apparently, should only work in sleep.
Something similar exists in practical human activity, for example, in nautical affairs.
Thus, sleep is by no means a useless vegetation; as we see, it is necessary for us.