There are two major states of sleep, non-REM and REM. Non-REM sleep has three phases, each characterized by different levels of brain activity, while REM sleep is associated with vivid dreaming and rapid eye movement. A perfect night's sleep involves cycling through these phases multiple times.
Sleep allows strong neural connections to become pliable and fit in with the rest of the information stored in our brain. The theory of sleep being energy-saving is also discussed in this podcast.
Rapid eye movement sleep occurs throughout the night and involves connections between the brainstem, an area called the pons, and the thalamus. It has many important implications for dreaming and learning.
The episode discusses an experimental technique of selective deprivation of deep non-REM sleep or REM sleep to analyze the effects of sleep deprivation on the human body. The technique involves sleep deprivation for the first four hours of sleep or the second half of sleep to selectively deprive individuals of either deep non-REM sleep or REM sleep.
NSDR or Non-Sleep Deep Rest protocol helps to relax the body and brain, allowing an individual to fall back asleep and get a lot of REM sleep, which is important for emotional unlearning. Studies have shown that rodents and humans have a replay of spatial information during REM sleep, mapping the activity they experienced during the day.
In this podcast, the speakers discuss the importance of both REM and non-REM sleep, and the ways in which sleep deprivation can have negative effects on health. They also touch on the subject of toxins, which are flushed from the brain during sleep.