Who ever said that sleep involves no activity? Sleep is one of the most active things a person can do! When you consider the many things that happen during sleep, you might be inclined to say that this is the busiest time of the day for our bodies and our brains.
One of the common activities that go on at night is dreaming and we often see, what is known as REM or rapid eye movement” at night when a person’s eyelids flutter about uncontrollably as they fall into a deep state of dreaming. You may have seen this in a family pet such as a dog that is sleeping at your feet. His eyes will flutter about and he will kick his feet and bark at the squirrels and other dogs he thinks he sees. He thinks he is seeing these things in his dreams but actually he is only right there at your feet! REM sleep takes place in both people and animals of many kinds. It is a definite sign that there is a great deal of activity going on when we are sleeping.
Another activity that takes place during sleep is the talking you do in your sleep. Your mouth doesn’t just run itself while you are awake. Sometimes you may have entire conversations during the night and the next day you hear about it from your family members or friends! What was that you said about being madly in love with me? This is something that proves that a lot can happen at night when you thought you were doing nothing! We may reveal our most private truths if we aren’t careful and this may happen during, what we didn’t realize is actually one of the most active times around the clock for many people. Sleep is a dynamic activity that keeps us in a perpetual state of thought and emotion. These thoughts and feeling can even translate into physical activities of the muscles and bones.
Many people have also had to contend with the common activity of sleep walking”. They get up out of bed and walk right out the bedroom door and into the kitchen for a bite to eat. Maybe they decide to have a quick conversation with the painting in the hall. Oops! It seems that they thought they were taking it easy and sleeping soundly but instead they were a lot busier than that. Apparently they still had some catching up to do with the painting in the hallway. They may even have moved out to the front yard to cut the grass or check the mail. Sleeping certainly can be a complicated activity to say the least.
Besides dreaming, talking and walking in our sleep, many people have even been known to experience intense physical pain in certain parts of their body simply because the dreams they have are translated to the pain center of their brain. This center of the brain can issue a warning signal to the part of the body that is supposed to be experiencing pain. The person may only dream that they are being kicked in the leg but they wake up and feel a strong pain right there in the muscle of their leg. This is another phenomena that takes place during sleep which shows how active our bodies and brains can be during the night. We can actually experience the entire spectrum of physical sensations during the night depending on how active out brain becomes and how lost in our dreams we may find ourselves.
Probably the most extreme cases of activity during sleep have involved people who commit actual crimes during their sleep and who have testified in court that they didn’t know what they were doing. Men have claimed to have killed their own wives while sleeping or to have stolen valuable articles from the next door neighbor. Their lawyers have had quite a time trying to convince the jury they were innocent and yet, these cases have been won in many cases because it is a proven fact that many things can happen while a person is asleep.
Sleeping is far from being an inactive experience. We all toss and turn during the night and struggle to find a comfortable position over and over. We may throw our arms against the wall or even fall out of bed entirely. Whether we sleep soundly or not, we have all certainly experienced very real nightmares where we wake up sweating and thought the whole thing was entirely real! The dynamic activity of sleep is nothing to fool around with so next time don’t say that sleep involves no activity. This may be the most active time of your life!