Passage Five Sleep Sleep is one of those funny things about being a human being-you just have to do it. Have you ever wondered why And what about the crazy dreams, like the one where a bad person is chasing you and you can’t run or yell. Does that make any sense lf you have ever wondered about why people have to sleep or what causes dreams, then read on. In this article, you’ll find out all about sleep and what it does for you. Characteristics of Sleep We all know how sleep looks-when we see someone sleeping, we recognize the following characteristics: · If possible, the person will lie down to go to sleep. · The person’s eyes are closed. · The person doesn’t hear anything unless it is a loud noise. · The person breathes in a slow, rhythmic pattern. · The person’s muscles are completely relaxed. If sitting up, the person may fall out of his or her chair as sleep deepens. · During sleep, the person occasionally rolls over or rearranges his or her body. This happens approximately once or twice an hour. This may be the body’s way of making sure that no part of the body or skin has its circulation cut offfor too long a period of time. In addition to these outward signs, the heart slows down and the brain does some pretty funky things (we’ll get to this later). In other words, a sleeping person is unconscious of most things happening in the environment. The biggest difference between someone who is asleep and someone who has fainted or gone into a coma is the fact that a sleeping person can be aroused if the stimulus is strong enough. If you shake the person, yell loudly or flash a bright light, a sleeping person will wake up. For any animal living in the wild, it just doesn’t seem very smart to design in a mandatory(强制的) eight-hour period of near-total unconsciousness every day. Yet that is exactly what evolution has done. So there must be a pretty good reason for it! Who Sleeps Reptiles, birds and mammals all sleep. That is, they become unconscious of their surroundings for periods of time. Some fish and amphibians(两栖动物) reduce their awareness but do not ever become unconscious like the higher vertebrates do. Insects do not appear to sleep, although they may become inactive in daylight or darkness. By studying brainwaves, it is known that reptiles do not dream. Birds dream a little. Mammals all dream during sleep. Different animals sleep in different ways. Some animals, like humans, prefer to sleep in one long session. Other animals (dogs, for example) like to sleep in many short bursts. Some sleep at night, while others sleep during the day. Sleep and the Brain If you attach an electroencephalograph (脑电图仪) to a person’s head, you can record the person’s brainwave activity. An awake and relaxed person generates alpha waves, which are consistent oscillations at about 10 cycles per second. An alert person generates beta waves, which are about twice as fast. During sleep, two slower patterns called theta waves and delta waves take over. Theta waves have oscillations in the range of 3.5 to 7 cycles per second, and delta waves have oscillations of less than 3.5 cycles per second. As a person falls asleep and sleep deepens, the brainwave patterns slow down. The slower the brainwave patterns, the deeper the sleep-a person deep in delta wave sleep is hardest to wake up. Why Sleep No one really knows why we sleep. But, there are all kinds of theories, including these: · Sleep gives the body a chance to repair muscles and other tissues, replace aging or dead cells, etc. · Sleep gives the brain a chance to organize and archive memories. Dreams are thought by some to be part of this process. · Sleep lowers our energy consumption, so we need three meals a day rather than four or five. Since we can’t do anything in the dark anyway, we might as well "turn off" and save the energy. According to Science News Online: Napless cats awaken interest in adenosine, sleep may be a way of recharging the brain, using adenosine(腺苷) as a signal that the brain needs to rest: "Since adenosine secretion reflects brain cell activity, rising concentrations of this chemical may be how the organ gauges that it has been burning up its energy reserves and needs to shut down for a while." Adenosine levels in the brain rise during wakefulness and decline during sleep. What we all know is that, with a good night’s sleep, everything looks and feels better in the morning. Both the brain and the body are refreshed and ready for a new day. Dreams Why do we have such crazy, kooky dreams Why do we dream at all for that matter According to Joel Achenbach in his book Why Things Are: The brain creates dreams through random electrical activity. Random is the key word here. About every 90 minutes the brain stem sends electrical impulses throughout the brain, in no particular order or fashion. The analytic portion of the brain-the forebrain-then desperately tries to make sense of these signals. It is like looking at a Rorschach test, a random splash of ink on paper. The only way of comprehending it is by viewing the dream (or the inkblot) metaphorically, symbolically, since there’s no literal message. This doesn’t mean that dreams are meaningless or should be ignored. How our forebrains choose to "analyze" the random and discontinuous images may tell us something about ourselves, just as what we see in an inkblot can be revelatory. And perhaps there is a purpose to the craziness: Our minds may be working on deep-seated problems through these circuitous and less threatening metaphorical dreams. Here are some other things you may have noticed about your dreams: · Dreams tell a story. They are like a TV show, with scenes, characters and props. · Dreams are egocentric. They almost always involve you. · Dreams incorporate things that have happened to you recently. They can also incorporate deep wishes and fears. A noise in the environment is often worked in to a dream in some way, giving some credibility to the idea that dreams are simply the brain’s response to random impulses. You usually cannot control a dream-in fact, many dreams emphasize your lack of control by making it impossible to mn or yell. ( However, proponents of lucid dreaming try to help you gain control. ) Dreaming is important. In sleep experiments where a person is woken up every time he/she enters REM sleep, the person becomes increasingly impatient and uncomfortable over time. which kind of animals do NOT dream during sleep