People say that you'll die / faster than without water

May 14, 2007 5:01 AM

No one really knows exactly why we need so much sleep, but it seems obvious that many of us aren't getting enough. Tu veux coucher avec moi? I'm bushed.
posted by chuckdarwin (29 comments total)

Previously
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:01 AM on May 14, 2007

I like the suggestion that sleep may be used by the brain to forget stuff.
posted by three blind mice at 5:11 AM on May 14, 2007

I think it's good to practice being unconscious a lot so that we'll be really great at it when we die.
posted by hermitosis at 5:49 AM on May 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

I think we're all probably equally good at that, hermitosis.
posted by Malor at 5:49 AM on May 14, 2007

I think it should be "Veux-tu coucher avec moi?"

Sorry, I'm cranky, not enough sleep.
posted by nasreddin at 6:05 AM on May 14, 2007

Nice Arcade Fire reference.
posted by chlorus at 6:18 AM on May 14, 2007

I think it should be "Veux-tu coucher avec moi?"

Or "Est-ce que tu veux coucher avec moi?"

Ditto on the sleep.
posted by dreamsign at 6:24 AM on May 14, 2007

Thanks for the reminder. Good post. Wish I could go back to bed now.
posted by tarheelcoxn at 6:38 AM on May 14, 2007

I got the French from a wiki page. That was probably my first mistake.

Sadly six years of French in HS/college did little to actually teach me French.
posted by chuckdarwin at 6:43 AM on May 14, 2007

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Huh? Oh, wait... what?
posted by miss lynnster at 6:59 AM on May 14, 2007

Shakespeare said it best, through the soon to be sleep-deprived Macbeth:

"Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care,
The death of each day's lfe, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."
posted by kozad at 7:05 AM on May 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Eyes in the dark. One moon circles." I can't sleep, that's all I know..."Eyes in the dark. One moon circles.
posted by Gungho at 7:29 AM on May 14, 2007

My baby slept through the night for the first time last night (happy Mothers' Day!). I got a solid six hours of uninterrupted sleep -- by far the best sleep I've had in over a year. That's right, I'm bragging about how much I slept last night. Uh-huh.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:19 AM on May 14, 2007

I think it should be "Veux-tu coucher avec moi?"

Or "Est-ce que tu veux coucher avec moi?"

These are both correct, but saying "Tu veux coucher avec moi?" with the proper inflection is no more confusing to Jacques Doe than saying, "You're going to sleep with me?" would be to John Doe.
posted by TypographicalError at 8:22 AM on May 14, 2007

Or, rather, "You want to sleep with me?"

Too early. grumblegrumble
posted by TypographicalError at 8:23 AM on May 14, 2007

We sleep approximately 1/3 of our lives. Therefore, I motion that 1/3 of MeFi should now be devoted to talkiNG ABOUT SLEep.
posted by jmd82 at 8:30 AM on May 14, 2007

your French is fine - that's a standard question formation.

Sleep is nice.
posted by altolinguistic at 8:43 AM on May 14, 2007

Our brains are the most complex computational devices in the world, but they have worse uptime figures than Windows ME. It's probably good that they do all their indexing during downtime, imagine how stupider we would be if we indexed in realtime?
posted by parallax7d at 8:59 AM on May 14, 2007

Idle Theory, survival of the idlest.
posted by jefgodesky at 8:59 AM on May 14, 2007

Tu veux coucher avec moi?

Gitcha gitcha ya-ya mama. Gitcha gitcha ya-ya here.
posted by jonp72 at 9:06 AM on May 14, 2007

As a finely unemployed citizen, I just want to let you all know I just slept around 14 hours.
posted by iamck at 10:13 AM on May 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

As a finely unemployed citizen, I just want to suggest popping a caffeine pill when your alarm goes off. Getting up at the same time each day is a great habit to have.
posted by parallax7d at 10:26 AM on May 14, 2007

without amphetamines, no one has ever stated awake for more than 11 days.

another page claims its 18 days, but this is unsubstantiated.

its funny that humans have such a fundamental, and overlooked, limitation such as the need for sleep
posted by sponge at 10:50 AM on May 14, 2007

Didnt someone write about how sleep may be the default state for animals and wakefulness is an aberration we need to do such things as find shelter, eat, etc? I believe so. I love this idea because now we can honestly ask "How many hours of wakefulness do I need?" as opposed to 'How many hours of sleep do I need?"
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:56 AM on May 14, 2007

I recently read a research press release about "big picture" learning (maybe even linked up there: nope, don't see it). The gist was that details could be learned in a day, but connections and big picture stuff were better understood after studying the details and parts, and sleeping on it.

I've been trying this out over the last couple weeks, as I'm studying a lot. And it really works. I understand how all of the concepts I'm learning link together and relate, the next sleep cycle after I really grokked the smaller-scale concept.

It's a fascinating thing, this sleep.

Oh, here is the link. I knew those web clippings in DevonNote would come in handy at some point.
posted by teece at 11:07 AM on May 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

Fortunately, my cat understands the need for sleep.

Well, his, anyway. In the morning he understands the need for breakfast.
posted by dhartung at 11:15 AM on May 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

Excellent link, teece.
posted by chuckdarwin at 12:27 PM on May 14, 2007

"This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go."*
posted by Haruspex at 3:33 PM on May 14, 2007

Teece: Same here, much profiting from similar paper I read (different study making people learn stuff, the people who got enough sleep could remember more next day) ...

Sorry, no Notes app, lost bookmarks, no link.
The DevonNotes website, behind a link called "You use a Windows PC but you want to run our applications?" is telling me I ought to buy a Mac and Windows emulator ---

By the way, anybody else find that seriously packed e.g. academic, philosophical, .. type writing gives you kind of "decompressing data..." type power naps? (Yeah... No, I'm not talking about Escapist naps...Sheesh.)
posted by yoHighness at 7:32 PM on May 14, 2007