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Sleep, sleep
Dec. 19th, 2008 07:43 amYuuko from xxxHolic's got it right-- humans are the most fascinating creatures in the universe! The human brain is just downright weird.
I believe that every human has a very small, very specific range of time in which, if they get X hours of sleep, they will awaken fully rested. "Studies show" this, and "surveys say" that, but I think it does vary from person to person, no matter what a required minimum or average amount of sleep is.
For me, it's definitely not four hours. Of course, my sleep schedule's gone to high heaven lately-- as is wont to do on an official "winter break," with no more schoolwork to worry about. It also doesn't help that the best things on Spike TV tend to be on from 12am-4am.
Anyway, I have a dentist's appointment at 8:45am (!), which is why I'm up so early, why I set the alarm for "annoy," and so on.
To go back to sleeping and related subjects, I think that dreams are a particularly interesting facet of the human brain. Sure, other creatures "dream," but we assign MEANING to them... sometimes. I think dreams can fall into a few categories:
(1) Brain sorting through life events - not necessarily events that are real (you could have seen them on TV, imagined them while reading a book, etc.), events that happened to you (vicarious living FTW!), or events that happened recently. These dreams have distinct elements that you can recognize, even if it's something general like a particular city that you can recognize or a person you know. Often even if you have a LOT of life events, they'll be a big mish-mash of all the ones I mentioned above. That might make it harder to recognize everything. But I'd say this is just "brain process" and not necessarily anything indicative-- no "hidden messages" necessarily, any more than emptying out your trash at the end of a week reveals secrets about you.
...but it can! Especially if you stress about a particular scenario. Your brain can step in and convert that stress into images-- and then you get recurring dream types, like flying, falling, being chased, etc. Even if your dream seems as though it has no connection with whatever you may have been thinking about before you went to bed or whatever occupied your thoughts/feelings the most as of late, there's a chance that a clear-minded breakdown of the dream's elements will reveal insight.
(2) Brain doing the sorting for you - Like the above, except your brain presents things to you in a clear format. You understand your dream because your brain's broken it down for you. This is usually more one "dream source" than another-- you either dream entirely about a situation based off something you saw in a movie/on TV/read in a book/etc., or you dream entirely about something that actually happened (whether to you or not). Usually the elements won't mix unless there's a damn good reason.
I'd say fantasies fall into this category. Usually fantasies involve a certain amount of one's personal "reality" --their own appearance, daily activities, and whatnot, but after a certain point, the fantasy elements dominate. You recognize the dream as a fantasy, as something that can make you happy, because it's got all these unrealistic elements and just that one tiny thing that isn't "unrealistic" necessarily-- you.
(3) Brain generating bizarre - Because it's the brain, even if it's yours, it's not yours to control. That's why you can dream and not necessarily KNOW you are dreaming, and therefore you can lack the awareness to wake yourself up from a nightmare. This has elements of the other two types I mentioned above (like realistic things you recognize, or fantasy things that could never happen), but it's mainly a matter of your brain spewing out who the hell knows what because it can.
I would say that the dream I had this morning was of this third type.
( Well that was a whole lot of preamble for this )
I believe that every human has a very small, very specific range of time in which, if they get X hours of sleep, they will awaken fully rested. "Studies show" this, and "surveys say" that, but I think it does vary from person to person, no matter what a required minimum or average amount of sleep is.
For me, it's definitely not four hours. Of course, my sleep schedule's gone to high heaven lately-- as is wont to do on an official "winter break," with no more schoolwork to worry about. It also doesn't help that the best things on Spike TV tend to be on from 12am-4am.
Anyway, I have a dentist's appointment at 8:45am (!), which is why I'm up so early, why I set the alarm for "annoy," and so on.
To go back to sleeping and related subjects, I think that dreams are a particularly interesting facet of the human brain. Sure, other creatures "dream," but we assign MEANING to them... sometimes. I think dreams can fall into a few categories:
(1) Brain sorting through life events - not necessarily events that are real (you could have seen them on TV, imagined them while reading a book, etc.), events that happened to you (vicarious living FTW!), or events that happened recently. These dreams have distinct elements that you can recognize, even if it's something general like a particular city that you can recognize or a person you know. Often even if you have a LOT of life events, they'll be a big mish-mash of all the ones I mentioned above. That might make it harder to recognize everything. But I'd say this is just "brain process" and not necessarily anything indicative-- no "hidden messages" necessarily, any more than emptying out your trash at the end of a week reveals secrets about you.
...but it can! Especially if you stress about a particular scenario. Your brain can step in and convert that stress into images-- and then you get recurring dream types, like flying, falling, being chased, etc. Even if your dream seems as though it has no connection with whatever you may have been thinking about before you went to bed or whatever occupied your thoughts/feelings the most as of late, there's a chance that a clear-minded breakdown of the dream's elements will reveal insight.
(2) Brain doing the sorting for you - Like the above, except your brain presents things to you in a clear format. You understand your dream because your brain's broken it down for you. This is usually more one "dream source" than another-- you either dream entirely about a situation based off something you saw in a movie/on TV/read in a book/etc., or you dream entirely about something that actually happened (whether to you or not). Usually the elements won't mix unless there's a damn good reason.
I'd say fantasies fall into this category. Usually fantasies involve a certain amount of one's personal "reality" --their own appearance, daily activities, and whatnot, but after a certain point, the fantasy elements dominate. You recognize the dream as a fantasy, as something that can make you happy, because it's got all these unrealistic elements and just that one tiny thing that isn't "unrealistic" necessarily-- you.
(3) Brain generating bizarre - Because it's the brain, even if it's yours, it's not yours to control. That's why you can dream and not necessarily KNOW you are dreaming, and therefore you can lack the awareness to wake yourself up from a nightmare. This has elements of the other two types I mentioned above (like realistic things you recognize, or fantasy things that could never happen), but it's mainly a matter of your brain spewing out who the hell knows what because it can.
I would say that the dream I had this morning was of this third type.
( Well that was a whole lot of preamble for this )
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