Dreams and dreams are interesting facts. Sleep is fast and slow. Ex-smokers have more vivid dreams

How the brain works is extremely complex and largely unexplored. This is confirmed by the features of mental and physiological processes that manifest themselves when a person sleeps. Let's talk about some of them.

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Scientists have found that in the first five minutes after waking up, half of the content of the dream disappears from memory, and in the next five minutes - another 40% of the information. The physiological meaning of this process has not been established. But almost everyone knows about the cases of memorizing the remaining 10%: they include the image of Frankenstein, which Mary Shelley dreamed of, the periodic table of D. I. Mendeleev and a number of widely known scientific discoveries and artistic achievement.

The content of sleep can be influenced by the environment in which the sleeper is located.

Most people are also familiar with the phenomenon of merging reality and dreams. It appears when external factors as if built into the fabric of dreams. This role can be played by sounds, smells, air vibrations and changes in its temperature, even features physical condition sleeping. For example, if the body needs to replenish fluid reserves, a person sees himself in a dream looking for a spring, drinking water etc. Similarly, a hungry person sees food in a dream and eats it. Interestingly, in this case, the feeling of thirst or hunger disappears for a while, then returns and the episode of satisfying desires is repeated with the same result.

Blind people also dream

People suffering from acquired blindness see the same dreams as sighted people. If blindness is congenital, dreams are also there. They are based on other senses (olfactory, tactile, auditory), but can be very rich and emotional.

The content of dreams depends on gender and age

Mentally healthy man usually dreams about himself (something like films with himself in leading role). Such dreams appear in a child from the age of three (the smallest do not see themselves in a dream). Children very often have nightmares, but by the age of seven or eight this feature, as a rule, disappears.

Representatives of the stronger sex see dreams mainly with the participation of men. AT women's dreams women and men occur equally often.

Dreamless sleep is bad for mental health

Complete lack of dreams warning sign. It has been established that severe mental disorders manifest themselves in this way.

Another fact has been experimentally confirmed: if a person fails to experience the phase REM sleep, during which dreams come, he becomes distracted, irritable, aggressive. As the study continued, the subjects developed hallucinations and other signs of a mental disorder. At the same time, the total duration of night sleep was quite sufficient for good rest. In addition, scientists noticed that the brains of people who were given back the ability to dream normally began to make up for lost impressions: the subjects saw extremely vivid and meaningful dreams for several days after the end of the experiment, the duration of which was much longer than normal.

Dreams are not always in color

There is an opinion that color dreams indicate the presence mental disorders. This is not true. Most people see about 88% of their dreams in color. Moreover, the content of the dream is in no way connected with its color perception.

The events and people we see in a dream are partly familiar to us.

During sleep, the brain continues to process sensations and emotions experienced in reality, creating bizarre combinations of familiar situations and images. Therefore, the belief that we see strangers in a dream is not based on anything. Every face that appeared before a person in a dream was at least glimpsed by him in reality.

In life different people often find themselves in similar situations and that is why they can see dreams of the same content. Most often there are dreams in which we are in a hurry somewhere, we are late, we ride in transport, we pass exams, we catch up with someone (or run away).

sleep is one of those strange and mysterious states about which science knows almost nothing. Why do we see places and people we have never seen? Why do events occur in a dream that we were not participants in? Why do we dream about what we never thought about?

The longest awake period, 18 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes, was recorded during the competition for the longest sitting on a rocking chair. The winner escaped with hallucinations, visual impairment, speech disorders and memory lapses.

It is impossible to determine whether a person is sleeping without medical examination. People often fall asleep for a few seconds open eyes without even noticing it.

If you fall asleep in less than 5 minutes in the evening, you have a lack of sleep. perfect time, for which a person falls asleep in the evening - from 10 to 15 minutes. This time means that you are tired enough to sleep soundly at night, and at the same time do not feel sleepy during the day.

The birth of a child means an average of 400-750 hours of sleep lost for the parents in the first year.

You are more likely to develop insomnia later in life if you abuse bad habits instead of sleep, awakened by your child.

Long-term studies of human sleep, which led to the discovery of the so-called. the "rapid phase" was not carried out until 1953 due to the large paper consumption of such studies.

REM sleep occurs in impulses throughout the night, up to 2 hours in total, starting on average at the 90th minute of sleep.

Dreams, which, as previously thought, we see only in fast phase sleep also take place in other phases. It is possible that a person sees dreams at any moment of sleep, but does not realize or remember them.

Dreams in the fast phase are usually strange and illogical, while in the slow phase they are repetitive and more like contemplation with a little fantasy - for example, the constant memory that you forgot something.

Certain patterns of eye movement during the REM phase correspond to certain movements in our dreams, suggesting that part of our brain is watching the dream from the side, like a movie.

No one knows if animals dream, but sleep phases have also been found in them.

Elephants sleep standing up for slow phase, and lie down on the ground during REM sleep.

Some scientists believe that we dream in order to fix the day's experiences in long-term memory. Thus, we see dreams in order to remember important information for ourselves. Others believe that we dream about things and events that we do not need in order to clear the brain of unnecessary memories and duplicates.

The dream may not carry any payload, but is simply by-product consciousness and sleep.

REM sleep can help development healthy brain. Children born ahead of time, 75% of sleep is spent in the REM phase, while their healthy brothers are only 60%. Similarly, newborn rat pups and hamsters sleep entirely in REM sleep, while newborn piglets (who are more developed from birth) do not have REM sleep at all.

Scientists can't explain a 1988 study that showed that if you shine a spot of bright light on the surface behind the knee, the rhythm of sleep and The biological clock people get lost.

The British Ministry of Defense has come up with a way to adjust the biological clock of soldiers so that they stay awake for up to 36 hours. To do this, tiny light emitters were mounted in glasses in such a way that they illuminate the edges of the retina with light close to the sun. The soldier thus had a constant feeling of early morning. Such a system was first used by American military pilots during the bombing of Kosovo.

Staying awake for 17 hours uninterruptedly reduces productivity and impairs attention, as if you had 0.05% alcohol in your blood.

The 1988 Exxon Valdez tanker disaster, the Challenger shuttle accident, and the Chernobyl disaster were all caused by human factor, which not least depends on the level of sleepiness.

International studies have shown that at least 20% of car accidents are due to fatigue and lack of sleep.

Sleeping in a noisy environment can reduce immune properties person, even if he does not wake up from the noise. The noise in the lane is especially dangerous.

vy and two last hours sleep, it can cause a complete disruption of a person's sleep pattern and natural clock.

Independent sudden awakening is caused by the release of the hormone adrenocorticotropin into the blood.

Some sleeping pills, in particular, barbiturates, suppress the stage of REM sleep, which causes long-term disturbance of the psyche and sleep patterns.

The use of sleeping pills is justified with psychological point vision only if insomnia is caused by a sense of bereavement or severe stress.

Slight light from digital electronic clock enough to disrupt sleep even if you don't realize it and continue to sleep. This light "turns off" the sleep mode in the brain and causes a decrease in the concentration of substances that stimulate sleep.

To sleep well, you need a cool place. Body temperature and sleep cycles are directly related. That's why it's hot summer night we have difficulty falling asleep and sleep little. The blood supply to the brain works best at temperatures environment 18-30 degrees. With age, this range narrows to 23-25 ​​degrees - this is one of the reasons why older people are more likely to experience sleep disorders.

If you drink a little grog (hot strong drink) before going to bed, it will help you fall asleep, but the sleep will be superficial and the healing effect of it will be negligible.

After five nights bad sleep, a glass of alcohol will act on you with such force as 2 glasses if you had a good night's sleep.

Man sleeps 3 hours less than his closest animal relatives - chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans. These primates sleep at least 10 hours a day.

Ducks in the presence of danger are able to sleep with one half of the brain, while the other vigilantly monitors the surroundings.

Ten percent of people who snore have a sleep disorder called apnorea. With this disease, a person a short time stops breathing about 300 times a night, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

A person only snores during slow-wave sleep.

Teenagers need sleep just like small children; about 10 hours a day. Older people need 6 hours of sleep. For a middle aged person optimal duration sleep 8 hours.

Some studies show that women need an extra hour of sleep compared to men due to their tendency to depression and psychosis.

Records from the Victorian era show that people slept an average of 10 hours per night, with the sleep schedule shifting depending on the daylight hours.

Most of the information about the state of sleep scientists have learned in the last 25 years.

Sleepy young people are less productive than older people.

Many experts point out that one of the main causes of sleep disorders is round-the-clock Internet access.

A dream is a second reality in which we live a different life, not like the real one. In a dream, we can fly, breathe underwater, perform dizzying stunts ... But this is far from all! What happens to your body during sleep is more incredible than you think! Read our article about dreams carefully, and you can learn more about decoding dreams from the dream book.

Scientists have discovered that a person can learn new knowledge during the REM phase, during which the brain is very active. And the longer this stage lasts, the more information we can learn in a dream.

Dreams can make you happier

People who can control their dreams are usually happier than those who don't know how to control their dreams or don't remember dreams at all. And those who for a long time sees the same dream about desired events in the future, more often achieve the realization of their dream than those who are not able to see it in a dream.

There is nothing supernatural in this: just when we experience positive emotions, even in a dream, brain cells begin to work more efficiently. In addition, after good night we get up more cheerful and determined to win.

In a dream you can rediscover lost memories

At a deep restful sleep the body and brain calm down, and what was previously closed under a layer of everyday husks rises to the surface. Therefore, if you are painfully trying to remember important information for you, go to bed.

It is best if you are alone in bed, and extraneous noise does not penetrate into the room - then your body will calm down faster, and the necessary memories with more likely will pop up in your memory.

The one who has learned to control dreams and set their plots according to own will, sometimes begin to experience a painful attachment to dreams, not wanting to return from them to real life.

This is another type of addiction, along with alcoholism or gambling, although, fortunately, it does not occur very often. His treatment is carried out by specialists-psychotherapists.

Most often, nightmares are associated with bad memories or troubles that we experience in real life.
To get rid of them, you should, first of all, understand what exactly brought unpleasant dreams to life, and take at least some steps to solve this problem.

If you are having nightmares for no reason, it may be enough not to fill up at night and not watch films with a tense plot before bed, not to mention horror films.

You can learn the technique of lucid dreaming

You are quite capable of learning to dream on your own order. To do this, start simple: as soon as you wake up, write down the plots of your dreams, separately noticing what is connected with reality in them, and what is entirely related to the fantasy world.

This will teach you not only to remember dreams better, but also to control them. After a while, you will be able to see the ordered dream if you carefully imagine its desired plot before going to bed.

Some people have had dreams that predicted exactly what they were to experience in the future. So, President Abraham Lincoln saw his own death in a dream, and Mark Twain was told a dream about the impending death of his brother.

Several people saw the Titanic catastrophe in a dream even before it happened in reality. Scientists have not yet found an explanation for this phenomenon, but even the most sober-minded of them do not deny its existence.

Therefore, if you dreamed of something important, and at the same time the dream seemed surprisingly realistic to you, take what you saw as information for reflection.

If you really want to do something, then you will find a solution. If you don't really want something, you'll find an excuse.

You and I have already tried to improve our lives in many ways: we treated VVD, prayed for housing and for improving our business, and even tried to get rid of life black stripe. Today let's turn our eyes towards the most mysterious part of our life - sleep.

We know everything about sleep, and at the same time, sleep remains one of the most mysterious topics for us. And yet, whatever one may say, but without a healthy one, sound sleep- will not go well in any of the areas of our life - judge for yourself

IF YOU DON'T SLEEP

• First two days: fatigue, drowsiness, nervousness, chemical processes take over the psyche
• Farther: confused thinking due to disruption of connections between brain neurons, changes in hormonal levels
• Depending on the body for 3-5 days of lack of sleep: paranoia and hallucinations begin, symptoms appear as in Alzheimer's disease
• For 6 - 7 days: slurred, incomprehensible speech appears, detachment, hands tremble
• Everyone has a different timeframe. man falls asleep or dies

For me, for example, if I didn’t get enough sleep, then the day, almost always, will go down the drain.

• And since this blog helps to improve your life in all directions, then let's try to improve the quality of our sleep, improve falling asleep and understand all these near-sleep issues. And since this topic is very extensive and relevant, I created a whole menu item dedicated to the topic of insomnia, sleep and everything connected with it. And that's not all - for those who care about the topic of dreams, I invite you to discuss it in which I also created the same near-drowsy section.

• Young children do not see themselves in their dreams until they are 3 years old.
• No dreams while snoring
• People blind from birth do not dream in pictures, but their dreams are filled with sounds, smells and tactile sensations.
• Dreams prevent psychosis
• If in a dream you saw an unfamiliar face, then you already saw it in reality, although you forgot about it
• About 12% of sighted people see only black and white dreams.
• From 3-8 years old, a child has more nightmares than an adult for the rest of his life.

Sleep and our health

As you already understood, sleep is directly related to our health, intellectual capabilities and even luck. Even if you just don’t fill up the prescribed hours, or if healthy cycle sleep, you can earn a whole bunch of diseases, such as: cardiovascular, endocrine, psychological, oncological and even gastrointestinal.

It was so invented by God that we all should rest and no daytime sleep will not replace a good night's sleep. Why is that? Yes, because everything in our body obeys the laws of biorhythms and any deviation from them causes an unfavorable response in the body.

For example, the healthy work of biorhythms in the evening and at night:

22-00 The human immune system conducts an audit of the entire body, which causes the number of leukocytes in the body to double

23-00 The whole body relaxes, prepares for sleep, the recovery process begins in the body

24-00 The brain processes the experiences of the day, while we see colorful dreams.

1-00 Light sleep time

2-00 All organs except the liver are at rest. The liver cleanses the body of accumulated toxins

3-00 The body is as relaxed as possible, the pressure drops

4-00 The brain with minimal blood supply, but hearing at this time is extremely sensitive. Many people at this time (in the area from 3-00 to 4-00) wake up and cannot to fall asleep until morning.

5-00 The body is still dormant, but ready to wake up at any moment.

6-00 Pressure rises as the adrenal glands inject adrenaline and norepinephrine into the blood

7-00 Peak immune system, time to wake up. Best time to take medication, if needed.

Melatonin is the sleep hormone that controls the sleep-wake cycle.

In addition, sleep itself, as a physiological process, can be divided into two phases: REM and non-REM sleep.

REM sleep is the time of dreams, vegetative storms, erections in men and erotic dreams. This phase occupies a quarter of all sleep, and despite its short duration, it is at this time that our psyche and nervous system gets unloaded.

The phase of slow sleep is complete rest, relaxation and physical unloading. At this time, the memories of dreams are erased, which were just seen in the REM phase. The one who claims that he does not see dreams - he wakes up in the phase of slow sleep.

Everyone sees dreams!

Depending on who gets up at what time and how activity is distributed throughout the day, all people can be divided into three types:

• Larks - lovers to get up early, but also to go to bed early

• Owls - who are active in the evenings, but get up later

• And doves are a cross between larks and owls

So my short introductory post on the topic of sleep comes to an end, but this is only the beginning of a series of posts on the topics: insomnia, sleep prevention, lucid dreaming, insomnia remedies, sleep and children, sleep management.

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