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From: kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: The importance of a good night's sleep
Message-ID: <674@hounx.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 10:42:22 EST
Article-I.D.: hounx.674
Posted: Tue Mar 11 10:42:22 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Mar-86 06:50:51 EST
References: <1563@decwrl.DEC.COM>, <1301@lll-crg.ARpA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 23

Elaine Richard's has pointed out that a good night's sleep
is important to maintaining one's sanity.

During the day, when the senses are turned on, lot's of information
comes flowing in from the outside world.  Some of it even makes sense
and can be processed on the spot (or in real time, if you like
computer jargon).  But much of it comes in like randomly arriving
pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, and these have to be buffered and sorted
and processed offline (or in imaginary time, if you like mathematical
jargon).  During sleep, when the senses are mostly shut down, the
combinatorial processor starts juggling all the leftover pieces
of sensory data, trying to fit the jigsaw puzzle together.  Our
dreams frequently replay the events of the day, and our imaginations
try to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle.  Sleep is the time
of model-building, looking for the linkages, the cause and effect
chains, the sorting and filing, the pattern recognizing.  All the
cognitive processes that got pre-empted by all those annoying
interupts on the sensory input channels finally get a chance to
complete their tasks.

"To sleep.  Perchance to dream."  --Shakespeare

--Barry Kort  ...ihnp4!hounx!kort