To sleep or not to sleep?

Lack of sleep is very poorly tolerated by most people. Torture waking used in ancient Rome.
It was used in the Middle Ages in order to force him to confess to crimes they did not commit, for the "expulsion of the demons." And applies it at a later time in Germany, in the dungeons of the Gestapo prison in the Soviet Union in the 30s of XX century.
People sometimes themselves deprived of sleep for some lofty purpose. For example, Gilgamesch, the hero of the epic of ancient Mesopotamia, was unable to sleep for six days and six nights to become immortal. But sleep overcame him, and he remained among mortals. We watch and those who tried to get a deeper introspection. In monasteries, monks of the Middle East was not supposed to sleep more than 3-4 hours, as the evening service ended well after midnight and the morning started early as 4 am.
Many philosophers have extolled the ascetic struggle with sleep, as we consider the time spent in sleep is lost, wasted nothing. To achieve their goal, they are, for example, enclosed under head stones instead of pillows. A certain Peter of Alcantara, who during the rest put his head on a sharp stake, never slept more than six hours a day, and so for forty years. At the end of the XVIII century German poet and mystic, but Valis praised insomnia, believing that "the less we sleep, the more we approach the perfection».

Experiments with sleep deprivation - a unique opportunity for modern researchers to penetrate the secrets of regulatory mechanisms and functions of sleep. They were first held in the 80-ies of the XIX century Russian physiologist MM Manassein puppy. Their repeated several times later. The most remarkable world record proved to put 17-year-old student from California Randy Gardner in 1965. Most of the time he spent in the company of two of his friends, they keep trying (with increasing difficulty) kept him awake.

In the 4-5 th day Randy became irritable and suspicious. He appeared hallucinations and memory loss. It is especially difficult to maintain wakefulness at night - he was having pain and heaviness in the eyelids, he began to lose interest in continuing the experiment. By the end of the experience of the press and television warmed him this interest, and 11 days after beginning of the experiment, Randy held his last press conference at which he was able to cut a charming figure of wood.

When asked how he managed to set a new world record for the lack of sleep, he said: "It was a victory of the spirit over matter." He had not slept 264 hours 12 minutes and then plunged into a deep sleep in the laboratory for the study of sleep Naval Hospital in San Diego. After sleeping 14 hours and 40 minutes, he was practically healthy.

Randy Gardner has lost almost 90 hours of sleep, but after the experience he had slept only 7 hours longer than usual. Due to some phases of sleep happened is remarkably effective remedy? This question was answered even in 1959, exploring different champion.

One of the first champions of the complete absence of sleep under experimental conditions was a radio commentator from New York Peter Tripp. In 1959, he had not slept for eight days - 201 hours. After the third sleepless nights he chased nightmares and memory lapses were observed. Ink stains and reflections of light on the desk he took for insects, and the studio seemed to him to be entirely filled with rabbits.

After a hundred hours without sleep Tripp was on the verge of madness. He forgot his name, his profession and the place where he was. He thought of the desk drawers pulled out the flames, and the doctor, which was a corduroy suit, seemed to him plastered with hairy caterpillars. He got rid of his nightmares only after slept for 13 hours straight. The total duration of REM sleep compared to the duration of his dream in the usual tripled.

The duration of deep REM sleep time by almost doubled - he increases the intensity of sleep. When the subjects were deprived of selective REM sleep, the brain is the recovery period as it sought to make up for his previous absence. But that was not all, and may have been due to the peculiarities of the individual subjects.

Selectively deprive a person of slow wave sleep is impossible - too large a percentage of sleep time it takes.

When you read about people with little or no need in a dream, it is difficult to believe that this "civilization stole their 16 hours of sleep a night." We know that Peter, Faraday, Napoleon, Bekhterev and many other great and famous all slept 4-5 hours a day, saving a tremendous performance.

Margaret Thatcher, as Prime Minister, slept only 4 hours. The same amount spent on sleep Mstislav Rostropovich. The famous traveler Fyodor Konyukhov in extreme conditions exceeded all records wakefulness. During the world tour lone sailors decided to experiment «Sleep study, whose task was to determine the minimum sleep, without which a person can not be in those situations when you need full-time commitment and maximum focus.

At the start, in the port of Charleston (South Carolina) on the arm of each sailor was assigned to a sensor chip in the form of a wristwatch. After the first stage of the race of 16 yachts left 9. Among them - two of our ship: Fedor Konyukhov and Victor Iazykov. During the second stage of the race Cape Town (South Africa) - Auckland (New Zealand) 7000 nautical miles. Sailors slept no more than 5-6 hours per day, but no one could not even come close to the record Konyukhov, throughout the regatta sleeping for 10-15 minutes every 2 hours. In total sleep he took day 3-3, 5:00. After the tour, he was in good shape.

People are divided into those who remember their dreams and who do not remember. Among the memories are also those who saw in a dream that does not sleep. They are considered false suffering from insomnia. There have been many such cases, and the most difficult one of the researchers said the pathology of sleep - Peter Hori, head of the sleep laboratory Dartmouth in Hanover (New Hampshire). One student from Dartmouth slept every night for 8 hours, but during all periods of REM sleep, he dreamed that he was awake. In the morning he got up quite frustrated.

Another case. In the lab turned woman of 70 years, he says that in his life did not sleep more than 4 hours per night. It turned out that this woman sleep extraordinarily productive. Her mind quickly reached stages 3 and 4 NREM sleep. Then, after about a half hour, the brain immediately on foot in a short period of REM sleep. Then again - a deep REM sleep and it - fast. And awakening. Since her brain like lightning "slipped" preliminary stages 1 and 2, it did not need more than 4 hours of sleep. She was perfectly healthy.

Sometimes a person does not sleep well for many years, although the reasons behind his insomnia, long gone. This - "functionally autonomous" insomnia. At one time, for reasons of psychological or organic nature of man with difficulty falling asleep. As a result of the night for him was a torment, with its onset, he was afraid to stay awake and not sleep because it was afraid. The bed, pillow, night-light and other items associated bedroom he did not sleep, but with tension and fear. Such sufferers sleep well in unfamiliar surroundings.

There are a great many reasons that prevent sleep. They say that many men - so many varieties of insomnia. I did not sleep because the brain learns bad serotonin, the "soporific nectar" and possibly violated the formation of serotonin from tryptophan, a substance found in milk, cheese, meat. Entering the food into the body, tryptophan is absorbed into the blood and in the brain is converted into serotonin. Everyone knows that hunger interferes with sleep, and the well-fed sleepy. But if you managed to sleep hungry, the national observation claims that someone is sleeping - the lunch, since some time dream drowns hungry ...

It happens that in the period preceding the transition into REM sleep, there is involuntary wince, "knees to chin jump" and then sleep, "flies", and then long vzbodrenny WinCE can not sleep.
Insomnia can be caused by persistent pain or psychological reasons. "Young children are not allowed to sleep, and from large did not fall asleep." Who are the parents of adult children do not know? Or when the unfortunate, lishivshemusya sleep include the words of the poet A. Apukhtina:

Black thoughts like flies all night do not give me peace,
They sting yazvyat and circling over my poor head!
Just banish one, and even in the heart dug another, -
All remember the life, so barren lived in dreams!

Then nothing else to do but to resort to sleeping pills. And they tend to suppress one or another phase of sleep (natural sleeping pills is because have not yet established).

Whether to believe reports about people, not sleeping at all? If they exist, they are few, very few in the world. At the time, I had to read two well-documented cases where people do not need sleep. One - Italian peasant, the other - a resident of Australia. They were tested in a sleep laboratory and were convinced that they had never really sleep.

There were also reports about the unique mathematical abilities in low- or no sleeping. For example, to the Belgians Mazyui Jorge, 30 seconds in the mind of the root extracts forty-seventh degree. This typically takes 10-12 hours. When he was 38 years old, he began to sleep badly and held night mathematical exercises. The next 30 years he slept for 2 hours a day. He was an employee of Customs.

At the end of 1960 and also reported on the Yugoslav peasant, received a childhood head injury, after she stopped sleeping and showed great aptitude for mathematics.

The magazine "Russian Antiquity" 1886 described the approximate Empress Elizabeth, who was awake all night round at her apartment in time to warn of the danger. Day 10-15 minute nap in a quiet corner of his forces returned ...