Can you be awake and asleep at the same time? - Masako Tamaki

Discover the phenomenon known as asymmetrical sleep, where parts of an animal's brain are asleep while other areas remain active.

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Many animals need sleep. But all of the threats and demands animals face don’t just go away when it’s time to doze. That’s why a range of birds, mammals, and even humans experience some degree of asymmetrical sleep, where parts of the brain are asleep and other areas are more active. So, how does it work? Masako Tamaki explores how animals' brains remain vigilant even at their most vulnerable.

Lesson by Masako Tamaki, directed by Biljana Labović.
Animated by Iva Ćirić, designed by Manja Ćirić.

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Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Mark Byers, Avinash Amarnath, Xuebicoco, Rare Media, Rayo, Po Foon Kwong, NinjaBoffin, Jesse Jurman, Josue Perez Miranda, Scott Markley, Elija Peterson, Ovidiu Mrd, Xavier dupont, paul g mohney, Aravind Battaje, Nathan Giusti, Helen Lee, Anthony Benedict, Karthik Balsubramanian, John Hong, Annastasshia Ames, Amy Lopez, Vinh-Thuy Nguyen, Liz Candee, Kathryn Vacha, Ugur Doga Sezgin, Anthony Arcis, Chung Wah Gnapp, Karmi Nguyen, Yelena Baykova, Harshita Jagdish Sahijwani, Nick Johnson, Carlos H. Costa, Roberto Patrick, Les Howard, Jennifer Kurkoski, Ryan B Harvey, Abhishek Bansal, Akinola Emmanuel, Jose Arcadio Valdes Franco, Karl Laius, JY Kang, Heidi Stolt, Alexis Hevia, Christina Salvatore, Karlee Finch, Michael Goldberg, Denise A Pitts, Doug Henry and Kristiyan Bonev.

[FinancialShinanigan]

Me: Time for bed
Brain: Let's replay that embarrassing moment from your childhood

[sun-san]

Can you be awake and asleep at the same time?

Me during class lecture: uhm.

[faarez_official]

Can you be awake and asleep at the same time?

**Schrödinger: hold my cat**

[sahanaramachandran]

the animation- *chef's kiss*
the narrator's voice- *chef's kiss*
the content- *chef's kiss*
the video- *CHEF'S KISS*

[rajamouryasimhareddy]

Can you please make a video on maladaptive daydreaming, or daydreaming in general.

[rociogallegossanchez]

I guess this is what happens when you're a deep sleeper, but when you know you have to wake up early for something very very important the next morning, you will still wake up on your own several times before the alarm starts ringing, and be ready to get up at any second

[deepasrivastava]

2:49 " *Frigatebirds suggest a great tolerance for sleep deprivation"*
Never knew that you knew me personally Ted-ed.

[rushilpatel]

Can we appreciate the staggeringly amazing job the animators did on this one?
Like who can even imagine a walnut falling from the tree symbolising the brain!?
Somebody call Robert Langdon

[frogg]

Can you be awake and asleep at the same time?

Short Answer: *Sleep paralysis*
Long Answer: *Ｓｌｅｅｐ　ｐａｒａｌｙｓｉｓ＊

[nitrogenjutsu]

TED-Ed: humans are more vigilante when asleep in new environments

Me, a deep sleeper: ok but like that doesn't change the fact that you can still kill me in my sleep

[katrinkasanfranciscobayare]

This video is right on so many levels.

After having two in-home invasions and always having the fear of my daughter getting injured, I found that I was sleeping with one ear open, so to speak, since 1999.
Now that my daughter is away at college and I'm semi-retired....
I'm now sleeping a lot.
I honestly feel like I'm making up for lost time.

[tonybaston]

This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Sleep with one eye open"

[emilnavod]

I'm both asleep and awake during classes, so yeah we do asymmetric sleeping

[fiend-off-the-grid]

Another way humans can sleep with one part of their brain more active than the rest is in lucid dreaming, during which they are aware of the fact that they are dreaming and can actively interact with its elements

[puddincup]

I learned more about animals sleeping than humans… bit of a let down, but very informative!

[Sabarok]

I've always considered myself a light sleeper and easy to wake. One thing I always found strange was how often I would wake up a few minutes before getting woken up. About 2 years ago, I got woken up by a noise outside, but I still managed to wake up about a minute before that. That's when a realization hit me. I think part of my brain is always awake, processing sounds, but it's short term, so it's all forgotten. When I get startled awake, those memories are still there, and they get processed and it feels like I've been awake for a few minutes because I have a few minutes of memories being processed.

I think that counts as being awake and asleep at the same time.

[jengomez]

This is probably the explanation behind my experience before. Years ago, I spent most of my lunch breaks taking naps. Nothing unusual, right? However, I noticed something weird. I was asleep but I could still hear and even follow the conversations around me. I knew I was asleep because I was dreaming at the same time. Like I would suddenly wake up and say “whoah! I just had a dream about this, etc”… people would give me this look that implied “of course you had a dream because you were asleep”. But I couldn’t explain to them that I was asleep and even dreaming but how come I know what they were talking about while I was sleeping. This video finally gave me the explanation that I’ve been looking for. For years I thought I was just hallucinating. 😉

[chanbricks]

Where I live, we call being half awake and asleep "fishing" or 钓鱼. This is due to the fact that your head bops up and down trying to stay awake but your too tired for Calculus at 8.00am in the morning

[GraveUypo]

i hate when i'm almost falling in deep sleep, then something comes into my mind and i go "no, noooo! don't think about it, don't think about real life!" and i think about it and TADA! Fully awake.

[IvarDaigon]

fascinating. this explains why I find it easier to go back to sleep when I get out of bed with only one eye open. I didn't realize that to so many other animals did this too.