7 ms·

The simplest of slumbers

79 points by _Microft 5y ago

worik 5y ago
I do not think I have slept since 1982...
- CaveTech 5y ago
  Lucky for you, you're doing more than you think.
tantalor 5y ago
> In three other points their physiology differed strangely from ours. Their organisms did not sleep, any more than the heart of man sleeps. Since they had no extensive muscular mechanism to recuperate, that periodical extinction was unknown to them. They had little or no sense of fatigue, it would seem. On earth they could never have moved without effort, yet even to the last they kept in action. In twenty-four hours they did twenty-four hours of work, as even on earth is perhaps the case with the ants. - H. G. Wells The War of the Worlds
ozten 5y ago
Great infographic. I love how 2nd icon for "Typical sleep posture or sleep place" takes over the 3rd row as well. Seems like some design trade-offs were well served.
- saurik 5y ago
  That makes it sound like it isn't also the 3rd row... like you could have said that backwards also? I would have said "how the 2nd and 3rd icons are connected into a single design", which isn't really a "tradeoff".
fsckboy 5y ago
TL;DR there's some interesting background, but no real story here > Will the orange sponges be the next creatures to stun the sleep skeptics? Maybe not right away. Joiner and Rouse couldn’t keep their sponges healthy long enough to carry out reliable experiments. After months of fits and starts, they paused the work to rethink the set up. Then, COVID-19 hit and shut the experiment down. Joiner doesn’t have the staff to start it back up. But another sponge may step in instead to show that even the simplest animals truly sleep. In emails, Itoh coyly referred to his lab’s work on these simple creatures. Mum’s the word for now, it seems. “These are ongoing projects,” he wrote. “Please look forward to them.”
xtracto 5y ago
This made me wonder whatever happened to the non-traditional sleeping patterns that were in vogue in the early 2000s. I remember reading about polyphasic sleep and how it supposedly was great to win more time.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  I think over time it became more clear that the few people who were able to do it, enjoy it, and keep it going, were physically or genetically unusual in some way. No matter how well they described their approach, most physically can’t copy them. Biphasic sleep is still quite popular but it tends to be framed as taking a nap rather than as a 24-hour sleep regimen.
  - medstrom 5y ago
    Another valuable lesson I got from that rabbit hole is that a "segmented" night's sleep is actually nothing to get upset over. If you wake up in the middle of the night, it doesn't indicate anything is wrong, and you can spend an hour reading by candlelight before returning to sleep, and it won't affect your restedness in the morning. Unscientific source: https://www.polyphasic.net/segmented-sleep/ https://www.polyphasic.net/segmented-sleep/
  - xtracto 5y ago
    > Biphasic sleep is still quite popular but it tends to be framed as taking a nap rather than as a 24-hour sleep regimen. That's right! here in the warmer and highly humid states of Mexico (mainly in the Yucatan peninsula) the Siesta is very popular. A lot of people sleep between 3pm and 5pm (when the heat and humidity are higher) and wake up early in the morning around 5pm . I never got used to sleep siesta, as always woke up groggy.
- dbish 5y ago
  I pushed myself to try this one summer in college when I was working in a lab that needed things to be checked on at odd hours. I ended up severely sleep deprived, but it was fun to try and debunk it at least for myself.
- 5y ago
crooked-v 5y ago
I've seen some interesting arguments that 'sleep' is actually the default state of living organisms, and being 'awake' is the temporary altered state evolved on top of that.
- ed 5y ago
  > The earliest life forms were unresponsive until they evolved ways to react to their environment, he suggests, and sleep is a return to the default state. “I think we didn’t evolve sleep, we evolved wakefulness.” FTA
- scubakid 5y ago
  I've always marvelled at the huge discrepancy in sleep needs between people; many need 7-8 hrs per night, but some report 4-6 feeling optimal. Anyone care to guess if future technology/medicine might ever be able to improve rest/recovery efficiency to the point that people only need to spend 5-10% of their lifespan unconscious instead of ~30%? Or at least even the playing field so we can all rock 6 hrs and feel amazing?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - nickpeterson 5y ago
    Those 7-8 hour people have their log4j configuration set on verbose.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    I’m betting that improving measurement tools and understanding the subtler points of what sleep does and how to influence it will bring the ability for people generally to get higher quality sleep and ultimately need less.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    As far as I understand it you spend 4 hours sleeping, then your subconscious wakes up and spends 4 hours training itself based on new data acquired during the day, and then your consciousness wakes up and shuts down the training in order to execute for the next day. So I'm not sure that reducing sleep to just 4 hours would help, it is enough to survive and stay alert throughout the day but probably not optimal. Edit: I also think that this is why you get tired when you sleep too much, your subconsciousness will run exhausting mental training when your consciousness is asleep so sleeping when your subconsciousness is alert makes you more tired.
taneq 5y ago
I played around with Mutation Planet (an evolution simulator) on my old iPad and one of the interesting things was how critical the ‘nop’ instruction was to creatures’ survival. At first the faster creatures always won but as population increased and food become more scarce the balance shifted and the lazier/more efficient creatures thrived while the faster ones starved.

79 points by _Microft 5y ago

worik 5y ago

I do not think I have slept since 1982...

CaveTech 5y ago
Lucky for you, you're doing more than you think.

tantalor 5y ago

> In three other points their physiology differed strangely from ours. Their organisms did not sleep, any more than the heart of man sleeps. Since they had no extensive muscular mechanism to recuperate, that periodical extinction was unknown to them. They had little or no sense of fatigue, it would seem. On earth they could never have moved without effort, yet even to the last they kept in action. In twenty-four hours they did twenty-four hours of work, as even on earth is perhaps the case with the ants. - H. G. Wells The War of the Worlds

ozten 5y ago

Great infographic. I love how 2nd icon for "Typical sleep posture or sleep place" takes over the 3rd row as well. Seems like some design trade-offs were well served.

saurik 5y ago
That makes it sound like it isn't also the 3rd row... like you could have said that backwards also? I would have said "how the 2nd and 3rd icons are connected into a single design", which isn't really a "tradeoff".

fsckboy 5y ago

TL;DR there's some interesting background, but no real story here > Will the orange sponges be the next creatures to stun the sleep skeptics? Maybe not right away. Joiner and Rouse couldn’t keep their sponges healthy long enough to carry out reliable experiments. After months of fits and starts, they paused the work to rethink the set up. Then, COVID-19 hit and shut the experiment down. Joiner doesn’t have the staff to start it back up. But another sponge may step in instead to show that even the simplest animals truly sleep. In emails, Itoh coyly referred to his lab’s work on these simple creatures. Mum’s the word for now, it seems. “These are ongoing projects,” he wrote. “Please look forward to them.”

xtracto 5y ago

This made me wonder whatever happened to the non-traditional sleeping patterns that were in vogue in the early 2000s. I remember reading about polyphasic sleep and how it supposedly was great to win more time.

1123581321 5y ago
I think over time it became more clear that the few people who were able to do it, enjoy it, and keep it going, were physically or genetically unusual in some way. No matter how well they described their approach, most physically can’t copy them. Biphasic sleep is still quite popular but it tends to be framed as taking a nap rather than as a 24-hour sleep regimen.
- medstrom 5y ago
  Another valuable lesson I got from that rabbit hole is that a "segmented" night's sleep is actually nothing to get upset over. If you wake up in the middle of the night, it doesn't indicate anything is wrong, and you can spend an hour reading by candlelight before returning to sleep, and it won't affect your restedness in the morning. Unscientific source: https://www.polyphasic.net/segmented-sleep/ https://www.polyphasic.net/segmented-sleep/
- xtracto 5y ago
  > Biphasic sleep is still quite popular but it tends to be framed as taking a nap rather than as a 24-hour sleep regimen. That's right! here in the warmer and highly humid states of Mexico (mainly in the Yucatan peninsula) the Siesta is very popular. A lot of people sleep between 3pm and 5pm (when the heat and humidity are higher) and wake up early in the morning around 5pm . I never got used to sleep siesta, as always woke up groggy.
dbish 5y ago
I pushed myself to try this one summer in college when I was working in a lab that needed things to be checked on at odd hours. I ended up severely sleep deprived, but it was fun to try and debunk it at least for myself.
5y ago

crooked-v 5y ago

I've seen some interesting arguments that 'sleep' is actually the default state of living organisms, and being 'awake' is the temporary altered state evolved on top of that.

ed 5y ago
> The earliest life forms were unresponsive until they evolved ways to react to their environment, he suggests, and sleep is a return to the default state. “I think we didn’t evolve sleep, we evolved wakefulness.” FTA
scubakid 5y ago
I've always marvelled at the huge discrepancy in sleep needs between people; many need 7-8 hrs per night, but some report 4-6 feeling optimal. Anyone care to guess if future technology/medicine might ever be able to improve rest/recovery efficiency to the point that people only need to spend 5-10% of their lifespan unconscious instead of ~30%? Or at least even the playing field so we can all rock 6 hrs and feel amazing?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- nickpeterson 5y ago
  Those 7-8 hour people have their log4j configuration set on verbose.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  I’m betting that improving measurement tools and understanding the subtler points of what sleep does and how to influence it will bring the ability for people generally to get higher quality sleep and ultimately need less.
- Jensson 5y ago
  As far as I understand it you spend 4 hours sleeping, then your subconscious wakes up and spends 4 hours training itself based on new data acquired during the day, and then your consciousness wakes up and shuts down the training in order to execute for the next day. So I'm not sure that reducing sleep to just 4 hours would help, it is enough to survive and stay alert throughout the day but probably not optimal. Edit: I also think that this is why you get tired when you sleep too much, your subconsciousness will run exhausting mental training when your consciousness is asleep so sleeping when your subconsciousness is alert makes you more tired.

taneq 5y ago

I played around with Mutation Planet (an evolution simulator) on my old iPad and one of the interesting things was how critical the ‘nop’ instruction was to creatures’ survival. At first the faster creatures always won but as population increased and food become more scarce the balance shifted and the lazier/more efficient creatures thrived while the faster ones starved.