Great article, this is the type of interesting stuff that keeps me coming back. The author suggests an interesting hypothesis in the end: "Memory processing se

Great article, this is the type of interesting stuff that keeps me coming back. The author suggests an interesting hypothesis in the end: "Memory processing seems to be the only function of sleep that actually requires an organism to truly sleep--that is, to become unaware of its surroundings and stop processing incoming sensory signals. This unconscious cognition appears to demand the same brain resources used for processing incoming signals when awake. The brain, therefore, might have to shut off external inputs to get this job done. In contrast, although other functions such as immune system regulation might be more readily performed when an organism is inactive, there does not seem to be any reason why the organism would need to lose awareness. Thus, it may be these other functions that have been added to take advantage of the sleep that had already evolved for memory."