What is the Right Amount of Sleep?

Sleep is a natural and normal state of bodily rest observed throughout the animal kingdom. It is a phenonemon that occurs in mammals and birds and also in many other species from the animal kingdom like many reptiles, amphibians, and aquatic creatures . In humans, other mammals, and a substantial majority of other animals which have been studied — such as fish, birds, ants, and fruit-flies, regular sleep is essential for survival. However, its purpose is only partly clear and is the subject of intense research.

What could be the right amount of sleep for a person at 40 years of age might not necessarily be the right amount of sleep for a two-month old baby. The optimum amount of sleep is of lesser consequence if the timing of sleep is not right. Hence the right amount of sleep should also be viewed in context to an individuals’ circadian rhythm. It is therefore important to get the right amount of sleep during the right time. The ideal conditions for the right amount sleep is when optimum concentration of hormone melatonin occurs and at minimum body temperature.

The National Sleep Foundation in the United States maintains that eight to nine hours of sleep for adult humans is optimal and that sufficient sleep benefits alertness, memory, problem solving skills, and overall health and at the same time reduces the risk of accidents. A widely publicized 2003 study performed at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine demonstrated that cognitive performance declines with fewer than eight hours of sleep.

However, the University of California, San Diego Psychiatry study of more than one million adults found that people who live the longest self-report sleeping for six to seven hours each night. Another study of sleep duration and mortality risk in women showed similar results. Other studies show that "sleeping more than 7 to 8 hours per day has been consistently associated with increased mortality", though this study suggests the cause is probably other factors such as depression and socio-economic status which would correlate statistically. It has been suggested that the correlation between lower sleep hours and reduced morbidity only occurs with those who wake after less sleep naturally, rather than those who use an alarm.

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Dreaming and Nightmares - What it All Means

Witch-trial records, and other early-modern writings on witchcraft, reveal that in various European societies people complained of being physically oppressed at night by witches and other supernatural beings, the victims of these nocturnal assaults describing a similar set of symptoms. Contemporary English authors termed the experience the "mare" or "nightmare." In the twentieth century, it has been identified as a manifestation of "sleep paralysis." Medical studies and surveys of the condition help us make better sense of the historical accounts, while an awareness of the historical evidence illuminates modern reports of sleep paralysis experiences.

A nightmare is a disturbing dream that causes the dreamer to wake up feeling anxious and frightened. Nightmares may be a response to real life trauma and experiences. These type of nightmares fall under a special category called post-traumatic stress nightmare (PSN). Nightmares may also occur because we have ignored or refused to accept a particular life situation. Research shows that most people who have regular nightmares have had a family history of psychiatric problems, bad drug experiences, people who have contemplated suicide, and/or rocky relationships. Nightmares are an indication of a fear that needs to be acknowledged and confronted. It is a way for our subconscious to wake up, take notice, and hence pay attention.

Nightmares are quite common in childhood because this is the time of emotional development when we all have to come to terms with raw and primitive emotions such as aggression and rage.

Nightmare is the term currently used to refer to a dream, which causes a strong unpleasant emotional response from the sleeper, typically fear or horror, or the sensations of pain, falling, drowning or death. Such dreams can be related to physical causes such as a high fever, or psychological ones such as psychological trauma or stress in the sleeper's life, or can have no apparent cause. If a person has experienced a psychologically traumatic situation in life, for example, a person who may have been captured and tortured the experience may come back to haunt them in their nightmares. Sleepers may waken in a state of distress and be unable to get back to sleep for some time.

Occasional nightmares are commonplace, but recurrent nightmares can interfere with sleep and may cause people to seek medical help. A recently proposed treatment consists of imagery rehearsal. This approach appears to reduce the effects of nightmares and other symptoms in acute stress disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Daydreams - Lucid Dreaming

Studies show that we all have the tendency to daydream at and average rate of 70-120 minutes per day. Daydreaming is classified as a level of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness. It occurs during our waking hours when we let our imagination carry us away. As our minds begin to wander and our level of awareness decreases, we lose ourselves in our imagined scenario and fantasy.

Daydream is a visionary fantasy experienced while awake, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions. There are so many different types of daydreaming that there is still no consensus definition amongst psychologists. While daydreams may include fantasies about future scenarios or plans, reminiscences about past experiences, or vivid dream-like images, are often connected with some type of emotion.

Daydreaming may take the form of a train of thought leading the daydreamer away from being aware of his or her immediate surroundings, and concentrating more and more on these new directions of thought. To an observer, they may appear to be affecting a blank stare into the distance, and only a sudden stimulus will startle the daydreamer out of their reverie.

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Memory Process - Lucid Dreaming

Scientists have shown numerous ways in which sleep is related to memory. In a study conducted by Turner, Drummond, Salamat, and Brown working memory was shown to be affected by sleep deprivation. Working memory is important because it keeps information active for further processing and supports higher-level cognitive functions such as decision making, reasoning, and episodic memory. Turner et al. allowed 18 women and 22 men to sleep only 26 minutes per night over a 4-day period. Subjects were given initial cognitive tests while well rested and then tested again twice a day during the 4 days of sleep deprivation. On the final test the average working memory span of the sleep deprived group had dropped by 38% in comparison to the control group.

Memory also seems to be affected differently by certain stages of sleep such as REM and slow-wave sleep (SWS). In one study cited in Born, Rasch, and Gais multiple groups of human subjects were used; wake control groups and sleep test groups. Sleep and wake groups were taught a task and then tested on it both on early and late nights, with the order of nights balanced across participants.

When the subjects' brains were scanned during sleep, hypnograms revealed that SWS was the dominant sleep stage during the early night representing around 23% on average for sleep stage activity. The early night test group performed 16% better on the declarative memory test than the control group. During late night sleep, REM became the most active sleep stage at about 24%, and the late night test group performed 25% better on the procedural memory test than the control group. This indicates that procedural memory benefits from late REM-rich sleep whereas declarative memory benefits from early SWS-rich sleep.

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