Thread: Is sleep really needed?

There are a lot of physical, mental, and emotional reasons to sleep. But, is there any reasons why some organisms don't have to completely sleep, while others have to completely sleep? When I say completely sleep, I mean that most of the brain is not active. An example is when a human is in "deep sleep" and how most of it's brain is not active. The shark on the other hand, doesn't have to completely sleep. In fact, it turns half of it brain "off" while it keeps the other half "on" so it can stay alive. This gives it the ability to stay awake 24/7.

The title of this post, "Is sleep really needed?", is also questioning, do humans need sleep? Most of our body is active while we sleep so we stay alive. Also, if you look back at the other Kingdoms, you will see that onle the animal kingdom holds organisms that sleep; the others don't. If humans don't need sleep, then what makes us want to go to sleep. What caused a change in our evolution to make us need to sleep while others don't need this "necessity"? And is it possible for humans to evolve so we don't need sleep? Or any other mammal for that matter?

For nick55matt. Welcome to Science Forum. Do not place too much confidence in my warm welcome as other members of Science Forum are still keeping their eye on me. Just stick to the ground rules, ie: American members have difficulty coming to grips with an Australians sense of humour, but mostly they take in good part. Afterall, I love Their Musicals, especially "" Annie get yoour Gun"" and West Side Story. Also it pays to show some common sense, and, if possible, if you have an analytical mind, display this early by making intelligent, ligitament Thread Postings. Your Thread today is OK. My post is to not only welcome you, but to add something of interest to this Human sleep situation. My exaggeration is kept to about 9% on all my posts. As true as I care to remember I am a one to three hour night sleeper. This has been the case for40/45 years. I seldom manage sleep during daylight hours. It matters not the time I go to bed, how tired I am. How much work I have been performing. Normally for me, no sleep before 0230/0330hrs. Various reasons have been brought forwards for this. The popular one, some childhood incident that immediately went deep into my Scychotic memory, the fear of sleeping---maybe thats when I'm going to die---or worse. My explanation, damaged lower back, spinal and Hip Adhesion tears, due to some heavy falls when young. It happens, more than you think. The pain, dull as it is, is sufficient to keep me from dropping off to sleep. Sheer exhaustion then takes over, plus the usual sedatives etc. Am I alert when I wake up? What does that mean? Now, nick55matt, I know this is not strictly what you are asking in a more general way, but I will make one point from personal experience. Several times I have remained without sleep for over 96 hours. I am then at the point of callapse. So my answer to the Thread"" do humans need sleep "" is yes, yes, yes, the more the better, westwind.

Originally Posted by westwind

American members have difficulty coming to grips with an Australians sense of humour

That might just be you rather than Australians in general

So my answer to the Thread"" do humans need sleep "" is yes, yes, yes, the more the better

I agree completely. There is another thread that discusses the importance of sleep: Modern science at its lowest.

p.s. Westwind: pssst... "paragraphs" ... look it up

For Strange. Well, you could have a point there. ( sense of humour ). I always think I am being clever and rollicking around in the moment. In truth I'm probably being a pain in the Arse. Still. if you show a little forebearance, I promise you I'll be by your side when the going gets tough. westwind.

For Strange. Yep, you are right. I'm letting the side down. I'm normally a sticker for Punctuation, Paragraphing, not ending on a preposition or an adverb. More Senior members of the Human Race, well me anyway, tend to ramble a little. Trying to think on my feet so to speak. MW sussed this straight away. There just maybe a Pearl in one of my oysters, having to open so many oysters seeking this pearl certainly could be off--putting. ( there, a preposition ).
However, your pleas are taken on board, It is up to me to justify your tolerance of many of my Posts. Please keep up the interest, as I feel Í'll lay you in the aisle one of these days. westwind.

Yes, it allows synapses to function properly: If you don't snooze, do you lose? Wake-sleep patterns affect brain synapses during adolescence

I can tell you from personal experience that a night without sleep impairs my intelect slightly and increases the odds i get sick, while 2nd night without sleep causes greater impairment dozong off and virtually garantees i will get a cold, flu etc. My immune system is apparently greatly dependant on sleep for optimal function.

As for using half the brain, i would like to point out that sharks (or dolphins) dont create works of art, design blueprints for bridges that hold tons of vehicles, and dont talk about oscar nominations to a passenger while driving a car on a metropolitain express lane steering with the left hand adjusting temperature with the right hand while switching between pedals with the right foot (and pressing the clut h with the left foot for manual cars), if they can swim around on half a brain it doesnt mean we can seamlessly do what we do on half a brain.

Icewendigo, that driving thing was funny. It chilled me a bit to think of all the time I've woke from a dazed zoning out reallizing I'd driving miles down a country road on "autopilot." Fatigue makes it even worse--when you start missing your driveway Twice!

It chilled me a bit to think of all the time I've woke from a dazed zoning out reallizing I'd driving miles down a country road

Oh lordy, don't remind me. My husband was working in the country 3 hours drive away from the city a couple of years ago. It always seems different when you start out in bare countryside. (The north of South Australia might better be described as 'stark'.) I'd be much more 'zoned out' by the time I arrived at the town where I usually stopped off for snack, drink and walk around than when driving the other direction, a little bit further, from the city. Probably got something to do with no need to change speed and not too many other vehicles on those particular roads. I'd even forget the names of the towns en route even though I'd been through them a couple of times in the previous 3 or 4 days.

Loss of sleep will make you more likely to be a fat stupid bastard- so if you are okay with that, by all means burn the candle at both ends. That being said, this "early to bed, early to rise stuff" is hard to put into practice for yours truly- must be living in the wrong time zone. Time for a nap...

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Loss of sleep will make you more likely to be a fat stupid bastard- so if you are okay with that, by all means burn the candle at both ends. That being said, this "early to bed, early to rise stuff" is hard to put into practice for yours truly- must be living in the wrong time zone. Time for a nap...

A few years ago I remember reading a study about our cycles being somewhat dependent on age as a common trait in my primitive cultures. Most interesting is it found nearly the same thing among other social primates--such as baboons. The old would go to bed/nest early and wake early . The "teenagers" would raise hell half the night and get up late. The effect was there were some part of the tribe awake nearly all the time like a hard-wired rotating guard force to detect predators.

For Arthur Angler, ( HE HE HE ), Your've been reading my birth certificate again. No, this is serious shit. Immune systems, ( something that I would really like to know a lot more about ), probably call for all kinds of sleep. Do not dismiss or forget what I have posted already on this Thread. To overcome the inability to sleep has proved an ongoing problem for me. A life time problem. I am a hard case that investigative Science would do well to be aware of. ( preposition ). How have I adapted to my situation? Don't think '' TELL SOMEONE WHO CARES . I care. Enough to post to this thread. Well, as far as adaptation goes, you do your best. Your social Life is normally a disaster. Do it yourself projects around the house take a little longer then average. Car Driving? Especially when you are not young anymore.? No medication 18 hours before long drives. Utmost concentration. Very little conversation. Pull over, can't sleep, but can re-boot for another 20 kms etcetc. I am an excellent driver, especially handling anything over 110 kms per hour. Stuffed the next day though. Just one more thing, why is my brain still working when it shouldn't be? average the extra hours I am awake and more or less thinking, reading, working out conceptions and theories, planning, etc. In waking hours my time on this Planet equals half my life span added on to my present age, lets say I am, in waking hours, 110 years old. As compared to someone who sleeps 8 hours a night. I cannot run 100 yards in 9'5 seconds, takes me 11.0 seconds. westwind.

Brain needs time to rest and recover...Probably animals with little bitty brains don't need to sleep because they are not really using it much