Closer To Truth: Sleep And Dreams
There is an ongoing PBS TV series (also several books and also a website) called €Closer To Truth€. It is hosted by neuroscientist Robert Lawrence Kuhn. He's featured in one-on-one interviews and panel discussions with the cream of the cream of today's cosmologists, physicists, philosophers, theologians, psychologists, etc. on all of the Big Questions surrounding a trilogy of broad topics - Cosmos; Consciousness; Meaning. The trilogy collectively dealt with reality, space and time, mind and consciousness, aliens, theology and on and on and on. Here are a few of my comments on one of the general topics covered, subjects dealing with sleep and dreams.
Why Sleep?
We sleep, we dream, we are conscious. However, that hardly makes us unique. To the best of my knowledge all mammals sleep, presumably dream (I'm sure my cats dream), and are conscious or have a state of awareness. The same might even apply to birds and even reptiles, perhaps amphibians. However, is there a point where something living requires sleep yet presumably doesn't dream and isn't conscious? Probably not since being conscious means being aware and all living things must of necessity be aware of their surroundings and the state of their own being and take appropriate actions, or invoke appropriate responses, as required. That doesn't mean they dream, although knowing that for certain is a difficult ask. Or, are there living things which don't sleep, like sharks, which have consciousness. I'd have to answer "yes" since a shark is a living thing are needs to be aware of what's going on externally (is there prey around) and internally (am I hungry). Anyway, all living things are conscious yet all living things don't sleep. Do jellyfish or sponges sleep? Micro-organisms don't sleep to the best of my knowledge yet have to have an awareness of their surroundings. In fact one could argue that we don't actually sleep since all of the cells in our body don't sleep. Our body cells are busy little cells while we saw logs. One could argue that we are not an individual organism but a colony of billions of (micro) organisms. Anyway, the bottom line seems to be that sleeping (and dreaming) aren't going to tell us squat about consciousness. As to why sleep, assuming we really sleep given the parts of our sum don't sleep, well sleep might just be one of those mysteries that make life, or at least life that sleeps, interesting.
Secrets of Sleep 1
Okay, on average more likely as not you got some sleep within the past 24 hours. The question is, what actual part of you was asleep? It clearly wasn't your heart. It clearly wasn't your lungs, or your kidneys or your digestive system. Your organ systems have to keep functioning. Now in fact you are not a single organism, or even a collection of organ systems, but a colony of organisms which we call cells. Now clearly none of your cells were asleep at the switch when you were asleep. All of your body's cells are required to be on the job 24/7/52. So if no part of your cellular structure sleeps, again I ask what part of you actually sleeps when you sleep. And what might this say about your ultimate reality?
Secrets of Sleep 2
I had a correspondent comment to me about the hypothesis that sleep could be an illusion. They said: "What is the bit of us which sleeps, it can only be our awareness; nothing physical. That all has to keep working or we'd fall off the perch.€
However that makes absolutely no sense at all! How can nothing physical undergo a physical transformation (from awareness to non-awareness), as in going to sleep? It's like saying that mathematics goes to sleep or beauty goes to sleep or time goes to sleep or Wednesday goes to sleep. How can a non-physical part of you know when to shut down without any connection to the material you? Does it operate independently of the physical you? There is no unconnected non-physical part of you. Your awareness isn't a nebulous nothing but has to be ultimately grounded around physics and chemistry and the biochemistry in and of your cells, especially your brain cells.
You are aware that you are reading this right now. Why? Light from the screen enters your eye and gets converted to electrical impulses and via the optic nerve gets carried to, and interpreted by your brain. You cannot have awareness therefore without the physics; chemistry and biochemistry all at work inside of you, therefore inside of your cells which are apparently active 24/7. That sensory awareness apparatus isn't just for external stimuli (like light) but for internal stimuli (as in I've got a headache) which also includes all of what is conscious inside your mind (I think I'd better get dinner ready).
It would appear therefore that it must be your sensory apparatus, your awareness apparatus, that sort of shuts down when you go to sleep, but not to the tune of 100% - that's not good survival strategy therefore a physical process like a very loud noise can jolt you into an awakened state again. So are we saying that all your sensory apparatus cells are 100% functional yet somehow in reduced awareness mode? How that can be achieved, and in literally seconds in that awake-asleep transition, eludes me.
So again, what part of you, what physical part of you, is actually asleep?
I sort of feel like the character in the movie €Close Encounters of the Third Kind€ when he's building that sculpture of the Devil's Tower but doesn't know why. €This means something. This is important.€ he says, but he doesn't know what. Well this sleep puzzlement means something too, it is important, but I haven't figured it out yet.
Sleeping is a strange thing indeed.
Secrets of Sleep 3
Here are a further set of thoughts on or about sleep.
The sleep process is decidedly a physiochemical one. There's nothing nebulous or non-physical about it. The proof of that pudding is that if you ingest too much alcohol, you end up sleeping it off. If you eat a large meal, you tend to get sleepy. You can take of course sleeping pills in order to fall asleep. If you want to prevent falling asleep there are drugs to assist you, like caffeine. Then too, you can just take a cold shower. The Internet is full of helpful advice about all of those do's and don't's to do or not to do if you want a good night of sleep.
You might drift off to sleep and gradually wake up, but that transition of awareness to non-awareness, and non-awareness to awareness is near instantaneous, which must put restraints around the actual physical processes at work.
The question keeps arising, what part of you is asleep when you are asleep? Not only don't your body cells sleep (since they are unicellular organisms in their own right - see below), but most of that which makes up the bulk of you - from tapeworms to the bacteria in your gut and the germs that infect you and that circulate in your blood stream - never sleep either.
The fact that sleep is mysterious is in itself mysterious considering that you spend roughly one-third of your brief existence here on this planet in limbo-land. Other bodily processes aren't nearly as mysterious. Eating and digestion isn't mysterious. Going to the bathroom isn't mysterious. The mechanisms behind your locomotion isn't mysterious. Reproduction isn't mysterious. The common cold and flu as well as hundreds of other afflictions aren't mysterious. Aches and pains aren't mysterious. The mechanisms behind the eye and the ear aren't mysterious. But sleep is mysterious.
So where in the animal kingdom does sleep begin? Keeping in mind by the way that there's quite a difference between sleep and rest; between being asleep and being dormant. When you're dormant you are just in a state of suspended animation awaiting the return of favorable environmental conditions before you can carry on carrying on. The distinction between sleep and hibernation isn't all that clear. Hibernation just seems to be a very long or prolonged period of sleep.
It seems pretty clear t
Why Sleep?
We sleep, we dream, we are conscious. However, that hardly makes us unique. To the best of my knowledge all mammals sleep, presumably dream (I'm sure my cats dream), and are conscious or have a state of awareness. The same might even apply to birds and even reptiles, perhaps amphibians. However, is there a point where something living requires sleep yet presumably doesn't dream and isn't conscious? Probably not since being conscious means being aware and all living things must of necessity be aware of their surroundings and the state of their own being and take appropriate actions, or invoke appropriate responses, as required. That doesn't mean they dream, although knowing that for certain is a difficult ask. Or, are there living things which don't sleep, like sharks, which have consciousness. I'd have to answer "yes" since a shark is a living thing are needs to be aware of what's going on externally (is there prey around) and internally (am I hungry). Anyway, all living things are conscious yet all living things don't sleep. Do jellyfish or sponges sleep? Micro-organisms don't sleep to the best of my knowledge yet have to have an awareness of their surroundings. In fact one could argue that we don't actually sleep since all of the cells in our body don't sleep. Our body cells are busy little cells while we saw logs. One could argue that we are not an individual organism but a colony of billions of (micro) organisms. Anyway, the bottom line seems to be that sleeping (and dreaming) aren't going to tell us squat about consciousness. As to why sleep, assuming we really sleep given the parts of our sum don't sleep, well sleep might just be one of those mysteries that make life, or at least life that sleeps, interesting.
Secrets of Sleep 1
Okay, on average more likely as not you got some sleep within the past 24 hours. The question is, what actual part of you was asleep? It clearly wasn't your heart. It clearly wasn't your lungs, or your kidneys or your digestive system. Your organ systems have to keep functioning. Now in fact you are not a single organism, or even a collection of organ systems, but a colony of organisms which we call cells. Now clearly none of your cells were asleep at the switch when you were asleep. All of your body's cells are required to be on the job 24/7/52. So if no part of your cellular structure sleeps, again I ask what part of you actually sleeps when you sleep. And what might this say about your ultimate reality?
Secrets of Sleep 2
I had a correspondent comment to me about the hypothesis that sleep could be an illusion. They said: "What is the bit of us which sleeps, it can only be our awareness; nothing physical. That all has to keep working or we'd fall off the perch.€
However that makes absolutely no sense at all! How can nothing physical undergo a physical transformation (from awareness to non-awareness), as in going to sleep? It's like saying that mathematics goes to sleep or beauty goes to sleep or time goes to sleep or Wednesday goes to sleep. How can a non-physical part of you know when to shut down without any connection to the material you? Does it operate independently of the physical you? There is no unconnected non-physical part of you. Your awareness isn't a nebulous nothing but has to be ultimately grounded around physics and chemistry and the biochemistry in and of your cells, especially your brain cells.
You are aware that you are reading this right now. Why? Light from the screen enters your eye and gets converted to electrical impulses and via the optic nerve gets carried to, and interpreted by your brain. You cannot have awareness therefore without the physics; chemistry and biochemistry all at work inside of you, therefore inside of your cells which are apparently active 24/7. That sensory awareness apparatus isn't just for external stimuli (like light) but for internal stimuli (as in I've got a headache) which also includes all of what is conscious inside your mind (I think I'd better get dinner ready).
It would appear therefore that it must be your sensory apparatus, your awareness apparatus, that sort of shuts down when you go to sleep, but not to the tune of 100% - that's not good survival strategy therefore a physical process like a very loud noise can jolt you into an awakened state again. So are we saying that all your sensory apparatus cells are 100% functional yet somehow in reduced awareness mode? How that can be achieved, and in literally seconds in that awake-asleep transition, eludes me.
So again, what part of you, what physical part of you, is actually asleep?
I sort of feel like the character in the movie €Close Encounters of the Third Kind€ when he's building that sculpture of the Devil's Tower but doesn't know why. €This means something. This is important.€ he says, but he doesn't know what. Well this sleep puzzlement means something too, it is important, but I haven't figured it out yet.
Sleeping is a strange thing indeed.
Secrets of Sleep 3
Here are a further set of thoughts on or about sleep.
The sleep process is decidedly a physiochemical one. There's nothing nebulous or non-physical about it. The proof of that pudding is that if you ingest too much alcohol, you end up sleeping it off. If you eat a large meal, you tend to get sleepy. You can take of course sleeping pills in order to fall asleep. If you want to prevent falling asleep there are drugs to assist you, like caffeine. Then too, you can just take a cold shower. The Internet is full of helpful advice about all of those do's and don't's to do or not to do if you want a good night of sleep.
You might drift off to sleep and gradually wake up, but that transition of awareness to non-awareness, and non-awareness to awareness is near instantaneous, which must put restraints around the actual physical processes at work.
The question keeps arising, what part of you is asleep when you are asleep? Not only don't your body cells sleep (since they are unicellular organisms in their own right - see below), but most of that which makes up the bulk of you - from tapeworms to the bacteria in your gut and the germs that infect you and that circulate in your blood stream - never sleep either.
The fact that sleep is mysterious is in itself mysterious considering that you spend roughly one-third of your brief existence here on this planet in limbo-land. Other bodily processes aren't nearly as mysterious. Eating and digestion isn't mysterious. Going to the bathroom isn't mysterious. The mechanisms behind your locomotion isn't mysterious. Reproduction isn't mysterious. The common cold and flu as well as hundreds of other afflictions aren't mysterious. Aches and pains aren't mysterious. The mechanisms behind the eye and the ear aren't mysterious. But sleep is mysterious.
So where in the animal kingdom does sleep begin? Keeping in mind by the way that there's quite a difference between sleep and rest; between being asleep and being dormant. When you're dormant you are just in a state of suspended animation awaiting the return of favorable environmental conditions before you can carry on carrying on. The distinction between sleep and hibernation isn't all that clear. Hibernation just seems to be a very long or prolonged period of sleep.
It seems pretty clear t
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