Ever wondered why we need sleep, how much sleep is normal or whether dogs dream? Well you've come to the right place! Find out the answers to these sleepy musings and more, with our weird and wonderful sleep facts.
Man on the moon
As well as being the name of a famous band, REM stands for "rapid eye movement", so called because our eyes can be seen to move under our eyelids.
During REM sleep we are almost totally paralysed. Only the heart, diaphragm and muscles of the intestines, blood and eyes are not affected by this paralysis.
REM sleep is so called because our eyes can be seen to move under our eyelids.
REM is a very deep kind of sleep and we are usually difficult to wake in this phase. However, some light sleepers can be woken with the slightest of sounds even during this kind of sleep.
REM sleep starts about 90 minutes after we fall asleep and occurs in bursts throughout the night, adding up to around 2 hours per night in total.
Dream a Little Dream...
We dream in any stage of sleep; probably continuously.
REM dreams are usually fantastic or bizarre, whereas non REM dreams are more mundane and will often relate to everyday worries or thoughts (such as where you left your keys).
Some scientists believe that our eye movement during REM sleep relates to what we are "seeing" in our dreams.
It might be that we dream to remember important memories or to clear our minds of unimportant information. Or it might be that dreams serve no purpose at all and are simply an effect of sleep and consciousness.
Creatures of the Night
Elephants sleep lying down during REM sleep but stand up during non-REM sleep!
It's not known for sure which animals besides humans dream, if any.
Monkeys, chimps and other primates all sleep for about 10 hours a night and on average we humans sleep three hours less than this. Apart from teenagers that is, who also tend to sleep for 10 hours.
Both dolphins and ducks can keep one half of the brain awake while the other half sleeps; so that they are always prepared for predators.
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