Did you know that if you don't get enough sleep, you could start hallucinating? Would you believe that you always dream when you sleep, even if you don't remember your dreams? Check out this page to learn more about it!

In 1968, the world record was set for longest period of time without sleep. It was set by Bertha van der Merwe of Capetown, South Africa. The record was 11 days, 18 hours, and 55 minutes.

In 1959, a disk jockey from New York named Peter Tripp stayed awake for more than 8 days. It was all to raise money for a charity.

For most people, this kind of sleeplessness is almost impossible. Two days is usually enough to make us feel weird and act strange. We would probably see wacky hallucinations if we stayed awake (or even tried to stay awake) for as long as Bertha van der Merwe or Peter Tripp. In fact, Tripp did start to hallucinate. He thought he saw a friend's face on a clock dial, a fire in his dresser drawer, and even a suit growing fuzzy worms!

People who don't get enough sleep are grouchy, confused, and prone to accidents. Does that sound like anyone familiar to you? People who lack sleep have a hard time doing their jobs or schoolwork. We need sleep, and that's a fact. One of the many reasons is because our body runs on a 24 hour cycle. Our "body clock" operates according to Circadian--or 24-hour--rhythms that correspond with certain hours of the day.

Everyone's body clock is completely original. Most people need to get about eight hours of sleep a day and spend the other sixteen hours doing waking activities. Some people seem to need only about 4-5 hours of sleep, and still, other people may need up to ten hours of sleep every day. You'll need to pay attention to how you feel in order to figure out how many hours of sleep you need.

One of the other reasons people need sleep is because the body uses the resting hours to make internal repairs. Yet another reason might be because of "genetic programming". Our ancestors from long ago slept at night because it was too dangerous to hunt at that time. Maybe that way of living got passed down through the generations!

Okay, so maybe scientists don't know EXACTLY why we need sleep, but they do have a pretty good idea of what happens when we drop off into dream land! People used to believe that not much happened with your brain when you slept, but they are totally WRONG! When you're sleeping like a baby, parts of your brain are WIDE awake.

Some researchers in sleep labs study people who are sleeping. They do this to find out what happens in the mind and the body during sleep. They use a large variety of tools to do this. The most used tool is called the electroencephalograph, a.k.a., EEG. Being hooked up to an EEG is completely painless. Electrodes are just taped to certain parts of your body, that's all. Wire runs from the electrodes into the EEG and carries messages to it. The EEG records these messages as a series of lines on a long roll of paper. A roll of paper from one single night may be as long as 1,500 feet! The EEG tells researchers about different stages of sleep. Your brain travels back and forth through these stages all night long. There are 4 different stages of sleep. Here they are:

You usually stay in your deepest sleep for only around three minutes.Then you move back down through the other stages. When this happens you might start to dream, and keep up your dreaming for around twenty minutes. Then you go up through stage 2, stage 3, and stage 4. That sleep series goes on until you get up in the morning. As daylight gets closer, your dreams get longer, and stages 3 and 4 get shorter.

When was the last time you took daily naps? Did you know that Thomas Edison was famous for taking short naps everyday? In fact, some employers, like Nike, want employees to take 15 minute naps each day so they'll work better. According to Cornell University sleep researcher James Maas, people who take 20 minute naps every day think more clearly than their coworkers who are overtired. Wouldn't it be great if that was the way our teachers thought, so we could take an afternoon nap each day, just like we did in kindergarten?

Here are some interesting facts about dreams taken from It's All in Your Head by Susan L. Barrett:

• Around a third of your dreams take place in houses, and a fourth in trains, buses, boats, cars, or other vehicles.
• 40% of dreams are about strangers.
• Sometimes people remember their dreams in black and white, even though everyone dreams in color.
• Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, according to nightmares that he had.

I knew that you would find that interesting. Have you ever wanted to remember your dreams? Now, here is an activity for you to try out. Just follow these four easy steps to create a great Dream Diary.

1. Put something to write on next to your bed, and that will be your Dream Diary.

2. Right before you go to sleep, think of something that you could dream about. Chances are that you will end up reminding your brain to dream.

3. When you wake, don't get up right away. Lay there for a couple of minutes. That way, your dreams might rush back into your mind.

4. Write down as much of your dream as you can think of. Do it right away. A dream that is not recorded as soon as possible usually leaves your mind very quickly.

Here's a tip: Keep your Dream Diary with you all day. Something that happens could possibly remind you of a dream that you had the night before.

Now that you've read this page, you'll love this quote. It is by Edgar Allan Poe, a poet-- "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." I will leave you to make your OWN choices about sleep.

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