Sleep
“Altered State of concisouness: sleep, dream, hypnosis
Stages
Activities captured by EEG changes systematically in sleep.
- Light sleep. high frequency, low amplitude. Occasional muscle twitches.
- Breathing and heart rate slow down.
- Deep sleep.
- Very deep sleep. Muscle paralysis. Brain produces delta waves (low frequency, high amplitude)
- Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Dreaming. Muscle paralysis. Intense brain activity (high freq. low amplitude)
- As night continues, less time spent in deep sleep, more time in dreaming. 夜长 梦多
Benefits
- Why do we spend a third of our time sleeping?
- Simple motor tasks are not affected by sleep. Sleep quality before the race is not predictive of marathon runners’ performance.
- Complex recognition tasks are significantly affected.
- Sleep helps memory. Consolidation process.
- Deep sleep consolidates information (declarative memory)
- Dreaming consolidates skills (procedural memory)
Disorders
Insomnia
- Best way to avoid insomnia: have a structured life, wake up at the same time, go to bed at the same time.
- Insomnia may lead to addiction to sleep medications (Michael Jackson)
Parasomnia
- Muscles are not paralyzed “correctly”.
- Don’t wake people at sleep-walking, put them back to bed instead.