<p>I hear all of you guys/gals talk of ‘sleep’ but I don’t really understand what that means? I looked it up on the most reliable source of definitions I know, Urban Dictionary, and I got the definition ‘You have been awake for 18 hours and are now viewing this useless definition of sleep. You are very tired and your brain is not functioning at its normal capacity. The bags under your eyes are starting to weigh you down. It’s 1:30am and you have to get up at 6:30am for work. Another coffee wont help you now…’ but I don’t really understand the definition. How are you only awake for 18 hours? I don’t understand. Please help.</p>
<p>Wut</p>
<p>@bpearlman97 pls halp</p>
<p>Sleep: a condition of body and mind such as that which typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is relatively inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended.</p>
<p>interesting…</p>
<p>Wut</p>
<p>I honestly don’t know what to say…</p>
<p>So,…</p>
<p>Wut</p>
<p>@17angel I dont understand @BPEARLMAN97 PLEASE</p>
<p>@BPearlman97 </p>
<p>I think he’s referring to the phenomenon where some humans have the mentally ill conception that it is normal to be unconscious for an average of 8 hours every 24 hour Earthly rotation. </p>
<p>Being unconscious… like on purpose?</p>
<p>@17Angel I believe so</p>
<p>@ThatOneWeirdGuy ummmmmmm, yeah nope, never heard of that one…</p>
<p>Okay, upon further research it is something people do on a daily basis
and It helps maintain cognitive skills and plays a big role in brain development</p>
<p>I dont know still sounds like a waste of time to me</p>
<p>Sleep is everybody’s life dream.</p>
<p>Pun on pun. That’s essentially the definition. You don’t need to know what sleep actually is; you just need to know that it’s your goal in life.</p>
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<p>It’s gotten to the point where I consider 1:30 AM to be an early bedtime (typing this at 2:02 AM :])</p>
<p>sleep is something I never thought I’d miss.</p>
<p>last year, if the clock said 2 a.m. THAT WAS EARLY. (I agree with Yakisoba!)</p>
<p>I didn’t sleep for five days straight once, it wasn’t pretty. I’m not sure If it’s my imagination, but I have memory lapses now, and it’s really really bad. And if I stop taking notes or doing work for around 5 minutes I fall asleep. When a teacher stops to take some time to tell a joke, I FALL ASLEEP. Like how I always do when I watch instruction videos about physics or something on Youtube.</p>
<p>so treasure this thing called “sleep.” It’s precious. You don’t have to understand what it is. Just do it and love it while you can.</p>
<p>In animals, sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, and inhibition of nearly all voluntary muscles.[1] It is distinguished from wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and it is more easily reversible than being in hibernation or a coma.</p>
<p>During sleep, most systems in an animal are in a heightened anabolic state, accentuating the growth and rejuvenation of the immune, nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems. Sleep in non-human animals is observed in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and in some form in insects and even in simpler animals such as nematodes, suggesting that sleep is universal in the animal kingdom.</p>
<p>The purposes and mechanisms of sleep are only partially clear and the subject of substantial ongoing research.[2] Sleep is sometimes thought to help conserve energy, though this theory is not fully adequate as it only decreases metabolism by about 5–10%.[3][4] Additionally it is observed that mammals require sleep even during the hypometabolic state of hibernation, in which circumstance it is actually a net loss of energy as the animal returns from hypothermia to euthermia in order to sleep.[5]</p>
<p>In most societies people sleep during the night, but in very hot climates they may sleep during the day.[6] During Ramadan, many Muslims sleep during the day rather than at night[7] and people working nights try to sleep in the daytime. Humans may suffer from a number of sleep disorders. These include dyssomnias (such as insomnia, hypersomnia, and sleep apnea), parasomnias (such as sleepwalking and REM behavior disorder), and the circadian rhythm sleep disorders.</p>
<p>This is a “high school” forum - not a graduate-level electrical engineering forum or the like. Only then will you be asking what “sleep” is. :)</p>
<p>@MITer94 Oh god, I’m so sorry for you haha. I’m averaging 4 or so hours a night of sleep, so it isn’t too bad :P</p>
<p>Haha, I’m not actually a grad student, nor majoring in electrical engineering (I’m studying math w/ CS). Even then I still get my 8 hours of sleep.</p>
<p>You guys need to get more sleep. I still manage to get at least 5 hours a night. I always hear people at my school complaining that they only got 1-2 hours of sleep…how do they even function? I fall asleep around 11 and wake up at 5:30, but at around 9 I get sleepy so I don’t know how you continue to do schoolwork in the nighttime. However, when I’m actually in bed I have to read a book to distract me from my thoughts or I won’t be able to fall asleep.</p>
<p>@dsi411 after getting low amounts of sleep for a while, you get used to it. My friend and I, among others, function improperly if we get more than 6 hours due to it messes with our schedule. It depends on the person. - Me at 12:30 AM on a Friday night doing homework</p>