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Dreaming About Answers

Searching for a possible answer, let's look again to the only state of alternative consciousness that we, humans currently experience, the state of sleep.

Sleep is defined "as a naturally recurring state characterized by relative inhibition of the sensory activity and nearly all voluntary muscles actions and also, by altered consciousness."

We, humans, spend as much as one third of our biological life sleeping, which, if you think about it, it is a very long time.

For what purpose? What is the real scope of sleep?

Though science has dedicated substantial resources for its research and studying, so far the purposes and the mechanisms of sleep are far from being clear.

The commune perception is that every living being sleeps in order to conserve and restore energy, but recent studies showed that during sleep the metabolism decreases only by about 5 to 10%.

If the purpose of the sleep would have been exclusively related to optimizing the energy management of the living being, then our bodies could have addressed more efficient ways to achieve. One of which would be the hypo-metabolic state of hibernation.

Curiously enough, it has been observed that hypo-metabolic hibernating mammals require sleep, which circumstance is actually a net loss of energy. Even more intriguing, in order for those animal to sleep, their bodies have to return from hypothermia to euthermia in order to sleep which undermines the argument of the saving energy as reason to sleep.

Could the real purpose of sleep be related more to our consciousness than our body?

Sciences studying the human brains include the sleep in what is generally known as Altered States of Consciousness.

There is a general consensus among psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, etc that our consciousness during sleep is "altered".

In medicine an altered consciousness is defined as "any of various states of awareness (as dreaming sleep, a drug-induced hallucinogenic state, or a trance) that deviate from and are usually clearly demarcated from ordinary waking consciousness.

So, medically speaking, the state of our consciousness while asleep is perceived as a disorder or as a deviation from the normal consciousness state when awaken, or simpler said like an illness.

Can this be true? Can normal, healthy animals, including humans, spend one third of their lives experiencing a dysfunctional mental state?

It doesn't sound right!

Could we have wrongly associated the physical state of our body, as lethargic during sleep with the state of our consciousness and assumed "altered", not fully functional?

Is our consciousness really altered during sleep?

Recent researches and studies have shown quite the opposite; while asleep the human brain can perform tasks with high degree of sophistication requiring considerable processing capacity.

In her book "The Secret World of Sleep: The Surprising Science of the Mind at Rest", Penelope Lewis, who directs the Sleep and Memory Lab at the University of Manchester in England, talks about the amazing activities our brains are undertaking while we are asleep.

Thus, sleep helps our memories get stronger as well as help us refine skills of our awaken activities such as playing an instrument, performing a sport or learn a foreign language.
One could go to sleep tired and wake up realizing they can play a piano piece more smoothly, their golf swing has straightened out or the words in the new language come more easily.

So, if while asleep our brain can be so amazingly efficient, is it logical to assume that when it comes to our dreaming consciousness, that to be altered to a lesser level than that when we are awaken?