Brain disconnects during deep sleep, UW study says

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ^ | Sept. 29, 2005 | JOHN FAUBER

[Obadiah]

As we slip into deep sleep, higher regions of our brains take a vacation from each other, disconnecting so much that consciousness is snuffed out and a once highly integrated organ becomes separated, according to a groundbreaking experiment by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.

[cripplecreek]

I would really like to understand why my dreaming brain can dredge up faces from my distant past. Not only that, why those faces are people who never really played a major part in my life but I find myself talking to them as old friends?

[Junior]

Science ping.

[Celtic Conservative]

Explains how all the libs I know sleep until noon.

Bloodsucking vampires are accustomed to sleeping during the day anyways.

CC

[Roccus]

I've always done my best work before lunch. Of course lunch often came at 3PM. };^)

[AD from SpringBay]

Been there. I'm going to be thinking about horseradish all day.

[Terabitten]

I would really like to understand why my dreaming brain can dredge up faces from my distant past. Not only that, why those faces are people who never really played a major part in my life but I find myself talking to them as old friends?

Yanno, I've wondered the same thing. I had a dream the other night about a girl who went to high school with me. I don't think I said ten words to her in four years of high school, but in the dream, like you say, we were old friends.

[PatrickHenry]

Serious article about consciousness.

SciencePing

An elite subset of the Evolution list. See the list's explanation at my freeper homepage. Then FReepmail to be added or dropped.

[cripplecreek]

That's the way my dream was last night. I knew the girl from school and knew her for the better part of twenty years but we were never friends and I never felt any attraction for her. Suddenly last night I find myself sitting in my great grandmothers livingroom of all places talking to this girl like we've been friends all along.

I woke up in the middle of the night thinking "what the...."

[SalukiLawyer]

"It advances our understanding," Steriade said. "Non-scientists should care about this research because it relates to what makes us humans."

I thought animals had brains, slept and dreamed, too. Does that mean that... oh, yeah, I get it!

[ExtremeUnction]

That is why sleep is called the Little Death

My doctor once told me that the reason you sometimes wake up with a start just as you fall asleep is that the brain is reacting to what it senses as impending death. He said going to sleep and dying are not that far apart (as far as what your brain senses).

[SeaBiscuit]

The 'disconnect' period is permanent feature of Liberals.

[Dick Bachert]

Liberal mind, like "liberal thinking," is a major oxymoron.

[Freedom_Fighter_2001]

Overstock.com??

[Doctor Stochastic]

I once dreamed that I was teaching a class; I woke up, and sure enough, I was.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

It works different in my mother-in-law and my totally worthless brother-in-law (if you know him he probably owes you money). The brain automaticly disconnects the instant the mouth flys open.

[STD]

If this was done in Madison; it makes perfect sense.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[GOPJ]

saganite made a good point - a few more words would be nice...

[spunkets]

" "reconnect" "

synchronize

[GSlob]

Hmmm... I am about as troglodytic as they come [thus no librul], but I am an extreme "owl" and prefer to keep vampire hours and to sleep till 3pm if I only could do so. The best ideas usually come to me between 8-9pm and 4am.