We all do it, some of us do it more than others,
and most of us cherish it. During those heavenly hours when we go into
sleep mode, some weird and wonderful things happen to us…Sleep is the final frontier,
a place where dreams burst into life, but also a place where strange and sometimes dangerous
things happen. As you’ll find out today, there’s a lot
more to sleeping than you think, and it’s only really in the last few decades that we’ve
begun to understand the importance of having a good slumber. Without further ado, welcome to the sleep
zone. 50. If you go without sleep it’s called sleep
deprivation, and you can start to feel cranky and anxious if you go just 24 hours without
a doze. Go 48 hours, and you will become very fatigued. At this point you might have something called
“micro-sleeps”, which means dropping off without even knowing it for just a second
or two. Go 72 hours, and it’s likely you have difficulty
concentrating and might start to get paranoid – ask any methamphetamine fiend what happens
to them after a few days insufflating crystals. After the three day mark, there’s a chance
you might suffer from bouts of psychosis. 49. According to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, one in three Americans don’t get enough sleep. Scientists believe most humans need at least
seven hours of sleep, but many people don’t get nearly that much. 48. In 1987, a man named Kenneth Parks got in
his car and drove around 12 miles (20km) to his mother in law’s house. He then entered the house and bludgeoned his
mother in law to death with a tire iron. After that, he tried to strangle his father
in law, but he didn’t succeed in killing him. Covered in blood, Parks drove to the police
station and told the cops that he may have just killed two people. He didn’t go to prison for his crime, since
it was believed he had committed the act while sleepwalking. 47. In 2005, a 15-year old girl in England went
for a walk while she was sleepwalking. She actually managed to climb up a 130-foot
(40 meters) crane. There she remained, until a firefighter climbed
up the crane and rescued her. The girl was still sleeping when he got to
her. Of course she was very confused, having gone
to sleep in her bed and woken up at the top of a crane. Just imagine if that happened to you. 46. Lots of studies have been done so we can better
understand dreams. One strange thing about dreams is the fact
that something like 12 percent of people report they only dream in black and white. Why? We don’t exactly know. We know that a lot more Americans in the past
dreamed in black and white. The main reason for that is that TV was black
and white. 45. According to the National Sleep Foundation,
only one in four married couples in the USA actually share the same bed. The separation isn’t always because the
couple has fallen out of love or they argue too much, it’s more likely to be because
they disturb each other’s sleep patterns. 44. Some people just can’t seem to get out of
bed in the morning. Some struggle, but others really feel like
they just can’t make the move. There is a term for this and it’s called
“Dysania.” There are a number of reasons that this can
happen, and it could simply be that the person is not getting enough quality sleep. It might also be related to anxiety or depression. It’s not a medical condition per se, but
some people can have chronic dysania and some sufferers have been known to stay in bed for
days on end. 43. Some people are born blind, so you might wonder
what they dream about since they have not visualised the world. Well, blind people’s dreams tend to be more
about the other senses, such as taste and smell and sounds, but there is evidence that
some blind people can have visual dreams, too. Studies have also found that people who were
born blind tend to have more nightmares than people who can see. These might be related to the sense of falling
or getting lost. 42. Some people claim to never dream at all, but
that’s just because they rarely if ever wake up during their REM portion of sleep. This is when the brain is most actively dreaming,
and self-professed non-dreamres who were woken up during REM sleep admitted they had been
dreaming. 41. Do dogs dream? It seems they do, since scientists have looked
at dogs’ brains’ electrical activity while they were sleeping. Some of those scientists said that the average
sized dog will start to dream after about 20 minutes of sleep. At this point you should be able to see the
rapid eye movements of the dog. Ok, so you might now ask, do dogs sleepwalk,
too? The answer it seems is no, although they might
flop about a bit while they’re sleeping. It’s unlikely that one day you’ll find
your dog at the top of a crane, fast asleep. 40. We don’t know where the myth originated,
but some people hold the belief that if they were to die in their dream they’d die in
real life. Simply put, this is hogwash. Many people have reported dying in a dream
and they lived to tell the tale. 39. Humans are the only animal that deliberately
delays their sleep. 38. According to the National Sleep Foundation,
the body does not adjust to shift work. On its own website, the organization says
that people who work shifts and change their sleep pattern a lot are more likely to later
develop diseases, such as cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases. 37. Around 90 million Americans snore, and 37
million of those folks do it on a regular basis. 36. Some people claim they don’t sleep much
at all, and some of them are pretty well known. Donald Trump wrote in his book, “Think Like
a Billionaire” … “Don’t sleep any more than you have to. I usually sleep about four hours per night.” Well, at least he paid someone to write that
in a book for him. Other reports state he sleeps about 6 hours
a night, which would be the same as Elon Musk. In fact, we found lots of reports stating
that many CEOs and famous people only sleep between four and six hours a night. Now let’s get strange again…the best is
yet come. 35. There is a guy in the UK by the name of Lee
Hadwin. He’s been painting in his sleep since he
was four and as an adult he carried on doing it. He’s been dubbed the sleepwalking artist
and has made a lot of cash from selling his artworks. He goes to bed, and when he wakes up there’s
sometimes a drawing or painting in front of him. He said when he was 15 years old he woke up
and found that he’d drawn a really good picture of Marilyn Monroe. The thing was, in his waking life he had no
talent whatsoever for drawing. Some of his paintings have been sold for six
figures, and even Donald Trump has bought one of them. He’s made a lot of cash and kind of put
no effort into it. Hadwin’s skills have baffled scientists,
and no one really knows how he manages to create his works while asleep. Some people have said he’s a fraud, although
experts at the Edinburgh Sleep Clinic have witnessed him sleep-working and they say he’s
the real deal. 34. Most people tend to fall asleep after around
7 to 15 minutes of trying, although anyone who has suffered from insomnia or stress will
tell you that it might take them hours to find slumberland. 33. On the other hand, if you’re the kind of
person who falls asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow, it’s likely you are sleep
deprived. 32. You can find recent articles in the media
that tell you that around nine million people in the U.S. take a sleep medication, although
the data cited is CDC research that is now a decade old. Still, we found more stories talking about
Americans’ problem of falling asleep. It does indeed seem that millions of adults
are taking a medication for sleep, or medications to reduce stress and anxiety. The downside to this are some side-effects
and also dependency on the drug. With some medications there is something called
a rebound effect, so if the person tries to quit they might experience even worse anxiety,
stress, or insomnia. 31. The younger you are, the more you sleep. Babies usually sleep 14 to 17 hours a day
and they usually don’t have a problem dozing off. 14 to 17 year olds usually sleep anywhere
from 7 to 11 hours a day. According to Johns Hopkins All Children’s
Hospital, it’s important that younger folks get this extra sleep, compared to adults who
can get by on 7 hours. Parents shouldn’t nag if their teenager
likes to spend, say, 10 hours asleep. Still, according to the CDC, two thirds of
high school students aren’t getting enough sleep, especially on school nights. 30. Twenty percent of American adults hit the
booze before bedtime, and if you’ve ever done that, you’ll know that it can help
you to fall asleep. But is it good for you…in the sense of sleep,
not what it does to your organs. The experts tell us that a drunk sleep might
not be the best sleep because the alcohol can prevent you from having those good REM
sleeps. You might also wake up in the middle of the
night and not be able to get back to sleep again. A bucket of beer might also lead to many trips
to the bathroom throughout the night, and as some of you know, drunk sleepers tend to
snore. That’s because the booze has relaxed their
throat muscles, and also because drunk sleepers tend to sleep on their backs. 29. New research has shown that more people are
now texting in their sleep, especially people who have grown up with a mobile phone. This is a very modern “parasomnia”, which
means sleep disorder. Still, it’s a good excuse if you’ve texted
something you regret in the morning. If your partner finds out that you’ve texted
an old flame, you now know what to say, “My love, it was merely a sleep-text....Totally
out of my control.” Now for something really wacky. 28. We imagine that just a few of you guys watching
this video have woken up in the middle of the night with a raging hunger. You’ve gone down to the kitchen, raided
the fridge, and left a trail of destruction behind you. But how many of you have done this while still
sleeping? You might have experienced something called
“Nocturnal Eating Syndrome”, but as a sleep-related eating disorder. It’s full name is “Nocturnal sleep-related
eating disorder.” People who have suffered from this have sometimes
raided the kitchen several times in just one night, but they didn’t remember a thing
the next day. It sounds funny, but NES can be dangerous
as eating while still asleep could lead to choking or having an accident. In extreme cases, people have been known to
put on lots of weight, while some people have fired up the stove and made a complex meal. Others have eaten things such as salt sandwiches,
raw meats, frozen food, and would you believe it, buttered cigarettes. Yikes. 27. Arguably better than that is something called
“Exploding Head Syndrome.” These people might be on the cusp of sleep
when suddenly they hear a loud explosion, or hear the sound bullets or great claps of
thunder. It freaks them out to say the last, especially
if the noise is accompanied by flashes of light. The good news is that it’s not dangerous. No one really knows why it happens. It might be related to problems with the ear,
nerve dysfunction, a minor seizure, or just your regular stress. 26. Driving while feeling drowsy can lead to accidents,
with the CDC saying in the US alone in recent years thousands of fatal crashes happened
because someone nodded off behind the wheel or was very close to it. The statistics differ depending on what you
source you are reading, but everyone agrees that driving while very fatigued is a bad
idea. In one poll, 37 percent of people admitted
that they had fallen asleep while driving at least once in their life. 25. Is napping good for you? NASA wanted to know this because it wanted
to see if napping improved the performance of its pilots. The agency concluded that the ideal nap should
last 26 minutes. This can improve alertness and reduce stress. With this in mind, if you ever find yourself
in a position where you have to drive a long distance, or you have to do something that’s
very important, if you feel tired you should find a suitable place to take a nap. This might improve your performance and keep
you concentrated. 24. According to some studies, it’s a myth that
you can catch up on sleep. Some people might think, hmm, if I sleep only
a few hours on Monday and Tuesday, I will catch up those missing hours later in the
week. Harvard Medical School said this is not the
case. Its study revealed that people who often have
nights of little sleep will always suffer in the end. 23. Exercise helps you fall asleep easier and
also helps you to sleep better throughout the night. Why, though, you might ask. Well, scientists tell us that exercise releases
endorphins in our brains and this can reduce stress and depression. In fact, studies have shown that when people
suffering from insomnia did four months of exercise they slept better and were less anxious
in general. The thing was, though, the good sleep didn’t
come immediately. Participants had to put some effort in. 22. Almost half of Americans sleep rolled up in
the fetal position, so it seems we have a fondness for how we kicked it back in our
mother’s womb. Back sleeping is the second most common and
after that stomach sleeping. Then there are people that combine different
sleeping positions. Some research tells us that sleeping on your
back is the best position to promote good health, although it might depend on if you
have certain health issues. 21. We generally dream 4 to 6 times throughout
the night, and as you’ll soon find out, this can be a problem. 20. Some of you will know that one of the scariest
things that can happen to you during sleep is dreaming that you are awake. Such a “false awakening” might mean you
get up, go downstairs, have a drink of orange juice and then suddenly you realize something
isn’t right. You then might wake up for real, often with
your heart pounding. Even worse is the fact that some people have
woken up with a shock and then seen someone standing over them. This is a dream within a dream again, and
then the person might wake up for real. These are called multiple false awakenings,
which has been described as a Russian doll of dreaming. That’s scary. 19. Some people can dream and while they don’t
wake up they are aware they are dreaming. These are called lucid dreams. You might even be able to give yourself superpowers
in these dreams, such as the guy who says when he is being chased in a nightmare sometimes
he just has to decide to run backwards and he shoots off like a rocket. Why do we lucid dream? It’s likely because a part of the brain
called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is partly switched on during sleep when it
usually isn’t. This part of the brain deals with planning,
reasoning, working memory and thinking about multiple concepts. In a lucid dream, the person then becomes
conscious enough to know they are dreaming, but not conscious enough that they wake up. That’s one theory, anyway. 18. So, which country’s citizens get the best
sleep? We found some data and it seems that folks
from New Zealand on average sleep the most hours. The Netherlands, Finland, Britain and Australia
weren’t far behind and the U.S. was somewhere in the middle. The worst sleeping nation was Japan, followed
by South Korea and then Saudi Arabia. 17. According to the National Sleep Foundation
only eight percent of Americans sleep totally naked, while a whopping one third of British
folks sleep in the buff. 16. There is no proof that eating cheese can give
you nightmares, but if you go to bed on a full stomach it might affect your sleeping
pattern. It can make you restless as your body digests
the food, and therefore you might wake up more during REM sleep. 15. Around 1.4 percent of people sleep with their
eyes open, a condition known as nocturnal lagophthalmos. It simply means they cannot close their eyelids
during sleep, with some folks sleeping with their eyes fully open and others just partially
open. They have no idea they’re doing it since
they’re asleep, but it looks pretty freaky to other people. There are other reasons why someone might
sleep with their eyes open, relating mostly to disease, trauma and autoimmune conditions. 14. In 2010, a man named Gregory Machon said he
was kicked off a US Airways flight because he was caught sleeping with his eyes open. He’d fallen asleep before the plane had
even taken off, but when one of the cabin crew saw him sleeping with his eyes open,
she thought he was ill and asked if anyone on board could help. There was actually a nurse on the plane, but
she had no idea why someone would sleep with their eyes open. She had not heard of nocturnal lagophthalmos,
and while Machon explained that he often slept this way, in the end the crew decided he wasn’t
fit to fly. He wasn’t very happy about this at all. Ok, coming up to the top thirteen. Now we have some really strange things to
tell you. 13. You cannot sneeze when you are sleeping. 12. Studies have shown that people have a worse
night’s sleep when there is a full moon. Why that happens is confusing, but the obvious
answer might be because of the light of the moon. That doesn’t seem to be the case, though,
because when scientists in Switzerland watched people as they slept during a full moon, the
subjects were literally kept in the dark. They were figuratively kept in the dark, too,
since they had no idea what the experiment was about. The scientists found that when the moon was
full, on average the people spent 30 percent less time in deep sleep and slept less time
overall. It also took them longer to fall asleep. Some scientists believe that humans are naturally
attuned to the moon’s cycle, and that’s why its fullness affects our sleep. More studies have been undertaken, with mixed
results. One study showed kids slept longer during
a full moon, but another revealed again that adults slept less. 11. Back when the British were leading the Industrial
Revolution a new job came onto the scene so that the people got to the factories on time. This job was called a knocker-upper. For a few pennies a week, some guy would come
around to workers’ houses and knock on their doors, or windows, or use a pea-shooter to
hit the higher level widows. In the 19th century the author Charles Dickens
wrote about this occupation, but knocker uppers were still around in the 1970s. The first personal alarm clock was invented
in 1787, but we guess not everyone in Britain’s industrial cities had one. 10. Things can turn ugly if you wake someone up
who is experiencing something called sleep terrors, or night terrors. These are very intense nightmares. Fortunately, only around one percent of adults
suffer from regular night terrors, and while someone might thrash around a bit or scream
out, the person next to them will usually not be harmed. That’s not always the case, though, and
we found instances when people had attacked their partner during a night terror. During the frenzy, the dreamer might also
hurt themselves. This is how one woman described how her husband
would sometimes act during sleep: “He seems to have the strength of 10 men
and shoots straight up from bed onto his feet in one motion. He’s landed clear across the room on many
occasions and has pulled down curtains, upset lamps, and so forth. He’s grabbed me and pulled on me, hurting
my arms.” There are many reasons why someone might have
night terrors, from substance abuse to childhood trauma to PTSD, to a family history of parasomnia. 9. According to the National Sleep Foundation,
you should wash that pillow of yours at least once every six months and you should replace
it after a year or two. The reason is dust mites. These little fellas can impair breathing and
worsen allergies. 8. Babies are another thing that really get in
the way of a good night’s sleep. It’s reported that a new person in the house
will result in 400-750 hours of lost sleep for parents. 7. Major global events can make many people have
a bad night’s sleep. A big event might have this effect for many
months, as many people have experienced during the coronavirus pandemic. Other major sleep disturbers have been the
9/11, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. While it’s good to know about current events,
we can certainly consume too much news. Sometimes you have to tune out and just be
in the moment. 6. When your stress levels are high the hormone
corticosteroid can negatively impact the effectiveness of the immune system. A vicious cycle that can happen is a person
is stressed and so sleeps less, and then the next day the lack of sleep means they deal
with stress worse. They might then sit in front of the TV watching
news media that sounds apocalyptic. This creates stress, which creates sleeplessness,
in a repeating cyclical pattern. 5. Some people dread going to bed and falling
asleep, a condition called Somniphobia. One sufferer in the UK explained it like this:
“I would stay up listening to my mum’s snoring just to make sure she was alive. I was petrified that if I slept, something
bad might happen, and I wouldn’t be awake to help.” Some of these people might fear the loss of
control they have during sleep, or they might worry about what could happen while they are
unconscious. Some sufferers have said the fear comes from
having had night terrors or bouts of sleepwalking, while for others a traumatic event in the
past caused the dread of the bed. Ok, we’re getting to the end now…but there’s
still so much more to tell you about sleep. 4. 5 to 7 million kids in the U.S. wet the bed,
although by the time kids reach the age of ten only about 2 to 3 percent of them wet
the bed. One study we found said that one in 50 teenagers
in the U.S. wets the bed. Ok, so why do some folks wet the bed In the
first place? It could be a number of things, such as the
child having a smaller than average bladder or the fact both his parents were bedwetters. It might also be because they have lower than
average levels of the hormone vasopressin, or simply the fact their sleep is just too
deep. Stress and infections can also be a reason. 3. According to the experts, counting sheep as
a strategy to fall asleep is useless. 2. Some studies have shown that if you regularly
sleep well you might deal with pain better. In those studies, the scientists allowed participants
to sleep a certain number of hours. When they were later tested to see how they
dealt with pain, the people who had slept more seemed to feel less, so much so it was
as if they had taken codeine. 1. Lastly, we’ll tell you about the horror
of something called “fatal insomnia”. This is a rare disease, thank God, which affects
the brain. It happens because of a tiny genetic mutation
in the brain, but that mutation in time will mean the sufferer will find it very hard to
sleep. The insomnia will get worse and worse and
this will lead to hallucinations, delirium and finally death. It might take many years for the person to
show any symptoms, but once they do there is no going back. Over a period of months the person will suffer
from panic attacks, which will lead to paranoia, and then the hallucinations will occur. Next will come weight loss and finally when
the patient hasn’t slept for a long time, they will become unresponsive. It could happen when the person is as young
18 or it might not happen until they’re in their 60s. There’s no cure for this nasty disease,
and even the strongest sleeping pills or other sedatives don’t seem to help. It’s just one long, agonizing nightmare,
so we can be glad that only around 40 families have been known to carry this gene. Now you really need to watch, “50 Surprising
Facts About Space You Didn't Know”. Or “50 Insane Facts About Titanic You Didn't
Know.”
