Adak

A couple important things happen to us when we sleep, at least.

1) We "replay" mentally, the events of the day, and important info is made into long-term memory storage, in our neurons. Relationships that were not available to us before, become suddenly there. If already there, they may become stronger (or weaker).

2) Certain hormones are released. Melatonin and seratonin amongst others. Seratonin (amongst others), makes us feel good about ourselves, enjoy life, etc., Melatonin, iirc, is an anti-oxidant and general helper for our immune system.

Weirdly, it's very sensitive to light: especially blue or white light. One candle at 10 feet or less, and production stops. Night lights should be low in lumens or watts, and tend toward the red spectrum, not blue or white.

Women who work night shift always have a significantly higher breast cancer rate, because of this. Effects on men have not yet been studied well, but the general association of more debilitating diseases with night shift work is well known.

Testosterone also reaches it's highest point after several hours of sleep.

Naturally, there's a ton of other stuff going on as we sleep as well, our bod's are VERY complex indeed. One example, they've found it takes some 26 distinct steps to change good calcium we eat, into calcium on our bones.

Long term severe sleep deprivation is fatal. Usually from heart arrythmia's. There are some diseases which cause severe sleep deprivation - and it's haunting to see the pic's of the face of a victim.

Of course, this is VERY severe deprivation, indeed. Not the kind of thing a college student would try while cramming for exams.


Adak

Arevos

I once read about some interesting research on artificial neural networks (ANNs) that is relevant to the subject of dreaming. One can imagine a dynamically learning ANN as a heavy cannon ball rolling across a landscape of soft turf. The initial position and force applied to the cannon ball represents the problem; the position at which the cannon ball comes to rest represents the ANN's solution. As the cannon ball moves across the landscape, it makes grooves in the earth, which represents how the ANN reinforces positive behavior.

Researchers found that large dynamically learning neural networks would often get "stuck" on a problem if run for a considerable length of time. The cannon ball would dig a groove deep enough that it would inevitably flow toward the same solution each time. The research team got around this by introducing a randomisation process at regular intervals, altering the entire landscape (or rather the ANN matrix) by a number of random factors. This "jiggling" of the landscape allows the neural network to find different, more efficient paths, and effectively prevented it becoming stuck.

This chaotic mixing up process seems rather similar to the process of dreaming in humans and other complex animals.

Mocker

.. I work night shift. Now, even though I try for 6-8 hours I sleep 3-4 because it is just plain hard to sleep during the day. It is bright, noisy, and hot as hades I'm used to not sleeping much so oh well

__________________
#programmingforums relay - http://thegupstudio.com/cgi-bin/pforelay.cgi
freelance scripts - http://ryanguthrie.com/index.html

melbolt

believe me, 7 hours is not sleep deprivation lol. I've had times at college where i'd go on 3-4 hours a night for weeks at a time.

__________________
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. -Mark Twain-

Xbox live gamertag: melbolt

52Degrees

I have obstructive sleep apnea. Before it was diagnosed and treated I used to have a lot of problems falling asleep while driving.

Learning also slowed greatly. I'm normally pretty sharp, but if I can't sleep right, I can be pretty dense.

During a time that I was especially sleep deprived, I lit a gas tank on fire using a micro-torch to melt the wax seal on the fuel sender (older Chevy Suburban). No-one was hurt, and I got the fire out before any damage was done.
In my mind, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution. I went home (didn't get fired) and told my wife what was going on. She kept the baby away from me that night, so I got some decent sleep. In the morning I woke up in utter disbelief regarding the stupidity of what I had attempted.

Pizentios

4 hours here.

__________________
Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand.

Check out my Blog <---updated Nov 30 2007!

zorin

4-5 hours if im not busy. If I have assignment deadlines I usually don't sleep at all, I think my records 29 hours without sleep (not that its a competition)

java_roshan

More than 8 hours and less than 10 hours. (It varies everyday)
Sleep should bring the body to rest, though the brain would be still working. But it is something like that the brain is now on "Stand by" feature as in computers.
Those who work in night shift definitely sleep during the day, to make up. (deprivation). It completely depends on every person, how much he/she would sleep.

__________________
Visit: http://www.somaiya.edu

King

I get 4-5 a night... maybe a bit more on weekends

__________________
I am Addicted to Linux!

Prm753

Same here. I generally go to bed (in the summer) around 1am, and don't get up till 10 or 11am. If I get up eariler than that, I'm like a zombie for the rest of the day...

__________________
The world's first athletic computer geek!
The home of PrProgramsStudios
How not to post a question: <-- Please don't reply