Someone said that when we sleep we (well at least most of us) do not know that we sleep and when we wake up we do not know if what we have dreamed about was a sleep or reality. Others would add that we truly do not know which reality is true one – the one we experience while sleeping or the one we perceive as real.

The fact is that we definitely need sleep. Without it we are un-organized, nervous, sad or depressed, frustrated etc. – we could go through a whole list of negative side effects. Sleep depravation is the worse thing we can do to ourselves, that’s why it is often used as a torturing method.

Our mind and body rests mostly during a deep sleep faze. Young people have less sleep cycles per night, but they are longer with also much longer deep sleep periods, hence their sleep allows them to rest better. The older we become, the shorter our sleep cycles become, therefore we experience shorter periods of deep sleep. So, for example, young people will have 4 cycles, during which they will rest better due to longer deep sleep time, while older people will have, in the same time, 6 cycles, with all together shorter deep sleep time, so they wake up tired. Studies show that young adults wake up briefly about five times a night. Some people over age 60, however, may briefly wake up as many as 150 times each night. In effect they need to “catch up” during the day with naps from time to time. As we all know there is no way to really catch up on sleep, but at least we try to rest. Some of us have problems with either falling asleep or sleeping in general. It is referred to as insomnia - considered one of the most dangerous conditions to humans sanity.

What is the most interesting fact about sleep is that we do wake up even though we do not remember doing so. If we wake up, and the duration of our awaken time is shorter then 3 minutes, our brain – however recognizes it – does not remember it in the morning. Those “wake ups” happen always regardless of which faze of sleep we are in. However – if someone wakes up from a deep sleep faze, they may be experiencing sleepwalking. Somnambulist’s brain though does not record any activity from the break in sleep time even though it is mostly much longer then three minutes. That is a very serious health condition, which is very difficult to treat.

What is interesting to me is that those short, up to 3 minutes sleeping breaks are practically un-noticed by our brains. Sometimes we wake up 4 or 5 times per night for up to 3 minutes. What do we do then? Are we thinking? Are we planning our future? Are we “day-dreaming” and creating high purpose goals? Or maybe we deal with our past and make some examination of conscience? Four times three minutes is in total 12 minutes; quite a long and seemingly important period of time, which we do not neither have recollection of nor control over. What happens then is a mystery. Although there are many sleep clinics around the world, who perform a variety of very detailed studies, there is no official data record of what our brain is doing during that time. They may detect detect and record only the emotions you felt and how they have effected you (i.e. you were upset, sad or happy) based on the heart rate, limb and eye movement to mention just a few. However, according to today’s science there is no way to find out how your brain has truly spent this time. Will we ever be able to find out?

I do not know about you, but I would love to know… I would also like to have influence on it and – maybe – use it the way I desire.