I usually wake up around 6am, sometimes 6:30am on a good day, and get ready for work. But this week I am off so I can do whatever the hell I want. And it felt gooood!
When I was in the army, we got up around 5am, sometimes we were even woken in the middle of our sleep for surprise drills. There were more than I care to have times when I was woken up around 2 or 3am.
Sleeping in until half the day is done might sound strange, and like a waste of a day. And it is usually, unless you’re a college or university kid. But once in a while – a long while – for us adults, it is okay.
I think we ought to do this at least three times per year. It helps rejuvenate the mind and body. Though I imagine I may have trouble sleeping tonight, because I’ve already done so much of it.
Scientists say you can’t catch up on missed sleep. If you don’t get a good eight hours per day, you can never catch up on the ill effects. But, if you do get a good eight hours after being burned out for a while, you feel better.
Good sleep patterns are important to a healthy lifestyle. Your body needs down time to rebuild muscles, and rest joints and bones. Your mind uses the Random Eye Movement (REM) deep sleep cycle to clean and sort your day’s events. When you dream, that is your mind actually sorting the events that you had that day into your memories.
REM sleep is really a cool thing to study. We don’t know much about how our brains work. We learn more all the time. But scientists still aren’t able to construct a new brain, should you go out and brake yours.
But scientists have found that when you dream, that is a side-effect of your mind sifting through all the experiences you went through that day. Your mind is tossing out needless thoughts, while packing away into your memories (your subconscious) all those thoughts and experiences which it feels are necessary to store for reflection later.
How your mind decides what goes and what stays remains a mystery. It’s one of those things that if they ever do figure out, then those who need a therapist would soon but their therapist out of a job in favor of a mind cleansing of the experience.
We seem to store traumatic events, horrible events, and tragic events deep within our minds. That’s why, after a major event – like a car crash, the death of a close family member or friend, or the loss of a limb – we often have nightmares, fears, anxiety and depression.
But we also store a lot of the good stuff too. Happy memories of things like your first kiss, getting what you always wanted at a birthday party, or a wedding or anniversary.
Still, how does your mind know what to keep and what to throw out?
No one knows and that is the key. If we could figure out how our minds worked – then we may solve many problems in society.
Imagine being able to cure the mentally challenged, the depressed, or even prevent or stop the mind from wandering as we get older? Might even be able to bring people out of comas, and other mind numbing states.
Of course, being able to figure out how the mind sorts information means those who can do this would know what you were thinking.
All those random thoughts you have about killing your boss, having sex with the girl next door, or playing a practical joke on your best friend would be revealed.
Maybe it is best that no one knows how the mind works?
A society of mind readers could be a dangerous one – where no one’s thoughts are truly their own. We’d be in fear of who could read our thoughts, and what they’d do with that information.
Your boss could know before you went in to quit, that you were going to quit. Or, the girl next door might just want to come over before you were ready. . .
I think I’d like that. Back to sleep!
Good night.
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Jordan, I had just spent the whole entire day thinking about dreams, and then I came online and found this entry. Weird, eh?
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