Interesting Sleeping Facts
We all do it, we feel terrible without it, we don't understand a massive amount about it, but it's clearly imperative to our survival, here are 10 interesting facts about sleeping.
Despite it looking the freakiest thing known to man, It is indeed possible to fall asleep with your eyes open, it tends to be common in the very young or very old, especially during nap times.
It's believed we remeber less than 90% of what we dream, it's also been considered that when we're asleep we constantly dream. The general belief used to be that we only dreamt during periods of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, though this is not likely to be the case.
Us humans, in general, sleep approximately 3 hours less than our primate 'brethren', most monkeys and chimps sleep for an average of 10 hours
Elephants are one of the few mammals that can sleep standing up
The longest a person has ever gone without sleep is 18 day, 21 hours and 40 minutes, it caused serious, albeit temporary, pyschological issues, including halucination, memory loss, paranoia and blurred vision.
People vary hugely on the amount of sleep they require to function properly from 2 hours to over 10 hours.
Ducks are able to remain 'half asleep', they effectivley 'switch off' half of their brain whist sleeping, the other half remains available to sense predators.
Virtually everything scientists know about sleep has be learnt in the past 25 years
A number of studies have suggested that women may require 1 hour sleep more than men
Your body requires less sleep as you age, a teenager needs around 10 hours, whereas a 65+ year old, should only need around 6 hours
You can only dream about faces that you've already seen at some point, it doesn't make a difference whether you remember seeng the faces or not
The phrase 'counting sheep' was first used in 1854, it's from Seba Smith's Way down east; or portraitures of Yankee life
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