Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!dsinc!netnews.upenn.edu!pender.ee.upenn.edu!rowe From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe) Newsgroups: sci.bio Subject: Re: Why sleep? (was: Re: Echidnas & REM sleep) Message-ID: <42352@netnews.upenn.edu> Date: 1 May 91 05:58:05 GMT References: <42176@netnews.upenn.edu> <11612@uwm.edu> Sender: news@netnews.upenn.edu Reply-To: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe) Organization: University of Pennsylvania Lines: 34 Nntp-Posting-Host: pender.ee.upenn.edu In article <11612@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes: >I slept 11 hours last night, You blew it again, buddy; Data doesn't sleep (apologies to the non talk.origins readers...) >So, on the basis of continuing personal experience, it appears to me >that the primary function of REM sleep is to periodically purge the brain >of parasitic modes by washing it out with random noise. This is basically what I was getting at with my reference to Francis Crick. >Of course, your conscious mind catches some of this noise and weaves all >kinds of stories around it to make it consistent ... thus: dreams. I'm >acutely aware of it, if I happen to be awake when it starts... And this is what J. Allan Hobson would say. However, the reality seems to be that you remember your dreams if you wake up while they are occurring, which would be the end rather than the beginning. But since we're almost there (and I'm almost asleep :) Richard Feynman claimed that he was able to induce lucid dreaming (a state in which you are aware that you are dreaming while you are still asleep, and are thus able to modify your dreams and fly or do whatever you'd like to do in your dreams) by thinking about what he was thinking as he fell asleep. Eventually his thoughts got more chaotic as he began to drift, so that he would have thoughts without knowing where they came from (or rather not quite seeing how the bizarre connections seemed to be made) and then he would be asleep and lucidly dreaming. I think I'll go try that now... Mickey Rowe (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)