Ep 50: Why do we spend 1/3 of our lives asleep? | INNER COSMOS WITH DAVID EAGLEMAN

Ep 50: Why do we spend 1/3 of our lives asleep? | INNER COSMOS WITH DAVID EAGLEMAN

Why do we spend 1/3 of our lives in the strange doppelganger state of sleep? Can we die from a lack of sleep? How long is it possible to keep yourself awake (and why does the Guinness Book of World Records no longer track that)? Why are some people night owls and some morning larks? What does any of this have to do with lightless underground caves, or with the length of a day on Mars? Join this week's episode to learn everything you've ever wanted to know about sleep and what your brain is actually doing during this time. This is the first of a 3-parter: next week we'll dive into dreams, and the week after that into lucid dreams.

Original Air Date: March 11, 2024

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Contents:
00:00:56:18 - 7:58 - Intro
7:58 - 17:42 - Chapter 1: Brain Activity During Sleep
17:42 - 30:28 - Chapter 2: Circadian Rhythm
30:28 - 42:37 - Chapter 3: Why Do Brains Sleep? (Four Theories)
42:37 - 48:59 - Chapter 4: Sleep's Affects on Memory
48:59 - 55:49 - Chapter 5: Sleep Deprivation
55:49 - 1:09:26 - Chapter 6: Sleep Disorders
1:09:26 - 1:14:33 - Chapter 7: Wrap-Up (Kenneth Parks Case)
1:14:33 - 1:15:12 - Outro

Neuroscientist and author David Eagleman discusses how our brain interprets the world and what that means for us. Through storytelling, research, interviews, and experiments, David Eagleman tackles wild questions that illuminate new facets of our lives and our realities.

New episodes weekly on iHeartRadio.

TAGS: #DavidEagleman #InnerCosmoswithDavidEagleman #InnerCosmos #Science #Neuroscience #Neuroscientist #Eagleman

[Kiteactual]

I recommend exploring a podcast episode about lucid dreaming—it's a fascinating topic!

[richmonddoku]

Short Note;

1. Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep: Your brain is active like how it will be when it is awake. So, it is characterized predominantly by dreaming. Now, everyone dreams but some find it hard remembering it.

VLPO is responsible for arousing our sleep. When it is damaged, people get insomnia.

How much you sleep is mostly determined by what activity you did during the day.

All animals have circadian rythmn inbuilt in us. Superchaomatic nucleus in our cells is what controls the circadian rythmn.

Circadian rythmn is an approximate of 24 hours and it is influenced by light.

So if we evolved somewhere else where our light wasn't a 24 hours pattern, we could have had 72 etc.

2. Non-REM sleep

Sleep deprivation has been found to affect the mind (cognitive and affective) rather than the body. Doctors found that when they deprove themselves of sleep, they misread a lot of things.

[guillobuteler]

Great episode! Our version of the expression "to sleep on it", which I think is funnier, is "consultar con la almohada". The "darkness protection" theory seems to fail to take into account the fact that nighttime is usually significantly longer than sleep. Pleasant dreams!

[wayloncapps]

Although I don’t think I’ve ever killed anyone while sleep walking. I have cooked food. Cleaned my house and even carried a conversation

[rbspider]

Why at three thirty a.m. Am I watching this video trying to get back to sleep? I hope it bores me to sleep.

[rharpman]

Another great episode, muchos gracias

[jeanie]

I'm reminded of a sleep study I had, way back when, to measure sleep apnea or not. The appointment was at night. It was in a sleep lab with the bedroom decorated like a bedroom at home would be. I was hooked up to all kinds of gadgets with electrodes, etc. as you would imagine. EEG probably one of them. During the entire night, I never slept or so I thought. I felt like I was awake all night. However, that was not the case. I was told I slept all night. That I had REM cycles and in fact did have sleep apnea. I find it very interesting now, that I thought I was awake all night but wasn't. How many times have we felt this way? I have sometimes for sure thought I had a sleepless night. ??

[_TravelWithLove]

Thank you very much for sharing your insights and knowledge filled videos !! Professional and scientific !! Outstanding and exemplary !!

Greetings from California … I wish you and folks and all good health, success and happiness !! Much Love ✌️😎💕

[andanssas]

58:15 "to never sleep again" I wonder if someone invested on it after knowing that family's case. Amazing that mad cow disease brain lesions were similar... Thank you ❤

[TheStobb]

When I was a truck driver I developed the ability to sleep on demand 20 years later and I can still do it the human brain is fascinating

[Samhenrycurtis]

Can’t wait to see you in SLC in April!

[jeanie]

This is very interesting but you're sharing so much information, I'm not zoning into all of it. In fact, I'm zoning out thinking about what you said a moment ago and missing what you're saying now. What is this called? Information overload? Maybe its me. I can't concentrate on too much new information at once. Now, I'm wondering how I ever made it through college classes. I took meticulous notes and enjoyed the heck out of the lectures. I'm off topic. Just popped in my mind and thought I'd share.

[aderitosilvachannel]

That's very interesting! I'm a music producer, and when I'm working on a new song, the melody and the core of the song are often made in the first day. In the first day, I may have to listen to the same melody literally hundreds of times. However, if I go do something else for an hour or two, I forget the melody, and only remember the main characteristics of it. If I listen to the melody again in the same day, it is if I am listening to a melody I never heard before. But, after I sleep through the night, in the next day I listen to the melody again, just once, and boom, it gets stuck in my head and I never forget it again.

I've been making music for more than 20 years and I noticed this pattern occurring. I even rely on it for making my songs — I need to make the melody in the first day, or else it gets stuck in my head and my judgement of it gets biased by the fact that it sounds "familiar". So, whatever happens when I sleep, I'm pretty sure it messes with my memorization.

[krissyr]

Harvard sleep researcher William Dement.. name says it all

[MelonMasher]

You should do a study on a business that runs 24/7 and the employees that works 12 hours shifts. I work in the petrochemical industry for 30 years and all these employees have social and family issues due to the irregular schedules that switch between day and night shifts and then working during time scheduled off due to operational needs (overtime).

[danwool]

Is there any benefit, however small, from micro-sleeps?

[criscris]

Espectacular. I remain a little afraid

[OnilMarteNavarroza]

We had a kid neighbour who just stood up and ran around catching chicken babies while in the middle of his afternoon nap.

[Naidu-km]

People who actually sleep as much as a third of their lives are those who have fixed lifestyles as well provided by thier societies. Many of the hard-working ones cant afford it during most of their working lives. How do you figure them into your ideology

[callmeishmael]

My mother-in-law, who passed away, would have nightmares every night, making noises, but even when you woke her up in the middle of them, she wouldn’t remember them, at all. She was in her room in the house at the end of the hall and my office was in a room in the middle of the hall. I’m a night owl and am up until 4am, at least, most nights, while everyone else in the house is asleep. Almost every night between 2am and 4am, I’d hear what sounded like footsteps going down the hallway. When I’d go to check who had gotten up, there was no one. The house would be totally dark, and no, no one was sleepwalking. My mother-in-law was Japanese, so we got a Buddhist priest to come bless the house. He mentioned the spirits of the dead are maybe coming to visit her. While awake, for brief moments in the past, she had seen dead relatives in the house right after they had passed away—before she had learned of their passing. My sister, who is a bit of a psychic, also thought that the dead were probably visiting, and said that my mother-in-law’s numerology made her a “22, ” which is supposed to be a very high spiritual being, which is why the dead came to visit her, so that’s what she was doing while asleep. I, myself, pretty much argue as a materialist, but here’s the kicker. After my mother-in-law passed away, the footsteps in the middle of the night completely stopped. I haven’t heard them since, and it’s been years since she passed away.