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The Purpose of Sleep? To Forget, Scientists Say (nytimes.com)

Over the years, scientists have come up with a lot of ideas about why we sleep. From a report on NYTimes: Some have argued that it's a way to save energy. Others have suggested that slumber provides an opportunity to clear away the brain's cellular waste. A pair of papers published on Thursday in the journal Science offer evidence for another notion: We sleep to forget some of the things we learn each day (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source). In order to learn, we have to grow connections, or synapses, between the neurons in our brains. These connections enable neurons to send signals to one another quickly and efficiently. We store new memories in these networks.

145 comments

  1. Purpose of sleep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is to create more fake news

    1. Re:Purpose of sleep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Daddy sleeps because he drinks and daddy drinks because you cry!

    2. Re: Purpose of sleep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not necessarily fake, but not credible or remotely accurate, either (it's what lies in-between: conjecture). Whatever. Modern day Slashdot reads more and more like the 'Weekly World News' of the past. It's sad, actually, Slashdot was one of my favorite tech sites. I would blame the millennials, but . . . ok, I blame millennials.

    3. Re: Purpose of sleep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think I am a millennial and I have been here since the beginning.

    4. Re:Purpose of sleep by lazy+genes · · Score: 0

      and that is why you don't get nice things.

    5. Re: Purpose of sleep by Virtual_Raider · · Score: 1

      You may have a different idea of what millennial means. I've been here since the mid 1990's and I'm gen X

      --
      +Raider of the lost BBS
    6. Re:Purpose of sleep by admin6659 · · Score: 1

      Actually, if you have ever seen something horendous on the nightly news and woken up the next day without a care in the world. That is what sleep is for. It gives your brain a chance to hide stuff from you. It does this for many reasons. To stop you getting dispare. To stop you trying to solve a problem you don't have the ability to solve, because the energy cost is prohibitive and you can't just keep stacking up the problems you cant solve and run them forever you would stop functioning. This is what sleep is for you morons.

  2. Wake me up by gatfirls · · Score: 3, Funny

    In 4 years please.

    1. Re:Wake me up by gnick · · Score: 4, Funny

      Have you tried turning yourself off and on again?

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    2. Re:Wake me up by mmell · · Score: 1, Troll

      There are those of us for whom the phrase "Never Forget" has special meaning. Sorry, you can't sleep just now - we need you awake and alert with your memory intact.

    3. Re:Wake me up by NotInHere · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Great idea, but you'd miss the elections, and if everyone except the Trump supporters did this, you'd have to sleep for another 4 years.

    4. Re:Wake me up by gatfirls · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're no fun.

    5. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No... they would have "unplugged him" long before the four years are up as he would have been a burden to the system.

    6. Re:Wake me up by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you're implying that Trump is some how anti-semetic or anti-Jewish, may I remind you that his Daughter and Son-in-Law are Jewish. Or is this more of a subtle attempt to brandish him as "Hitler"?

      Hopefully neither is the case. But I do recommend the following link as a read no matter what your political stripe may be. Maybe then we can stop calling everything we don't like "Hitler" or "Nazi"

      https://regiehammblog.wordpres...

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    7. Re:Wake me up by wbr1 · · Score: 2

      Welcome to adulting....have a bag of cynicism and negativity and despair to go with that.

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    8. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or you could just go to sleep and never wake up, Trump is literally Hitler so elections are going to be banned anyway, amirite?
      #hewillnotdivideus

    9. Re:Wake me up by gnick · · Score: 1

      If you're implying that Trump is some how anti-semetic or anti-Jewish, may I remind you that his Daughter and Son-in-Law are Jewish.

      I don't think that anyone is implying that Trump's going after the Jews - It's his apparent attitude toward another religious group that has some people calling him out.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    10. Re:Wake me up by mmell · · Score: 1, Insightful
      No, merely an attempt to point out the disturbing similarities between the current POTUS and a notable historical figure. You seem somewhat sensitive on the subject. Between a barely disguised ban on persons of a specific religion and the revocation of huge numbers of lawfully issued visas you must see the parallels, unless you intentionally choose to accept only information which accords with your chosen world view.

      As for his daughter and son-in-law - well, neither her conversion nor their marriage represent permanent conditions, do they? I'm sure your church will happy welcome her back into the fold (and with a handle like yours, yes it is valid to note this).

      Incidentally, I looked at the linked blog from your post. Just a tad to the alternative right, don't you think?

    11. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good read and useful information with some decent commentary. I'll give you a point, but I still don't trust him.

    12. Re: Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's tried turning other people on, but inky turns them off

    13. Re:Wake me up by thoughtlover · · Score: 1

      you mean 8 years, of course... he's already planning his reelection.

      https://nypost.com/2017/02/01/trump-has-already-raised-16m-toward-re-election/

      --
      No sig for you! Come back one year!
    14. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you had an IQ above 75 you would go read what the Executive Order states and have a basic understanding of how immigration works. The 7 countries listed are all FAILED_STATES who can not properly vet ANYONE leaving their country. Most of the EO was written by Obama and his team. Obama banned immigration from Venezuela after their collapse and Iraq a few years ago. Where were all of you low IQ people then?

      I have no idea how idiots like you can function with the belief that the US government has Santa Claus and Crystal Balls at their disposal to determine everything about everyone all the time. Yeah, most media in the US is a failure and pure propaganda but that is NOT an excuse. Media has been that way for a while now, so go do some damn homework. Or shut the fuck up and watch your cartoons and porn and let the grown ups worry about important issues.

    15. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ROY you're wanted back on the set!

    16. Re:Wake me up by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      You mean the 7 countries Obama identified as Terrorist sponsoring countries? Those people?

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    17. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He tried, but all he could think of was punching people in the face. Surprisingly that has the opposite effect.

    18. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes that makes sense... sleep for 8 years so trumps successor can also be elected... if you wanted a vote/say shouldn't it be 7 years?!

    19. Re:Wake me up by p0p0 · · Score: 1

      8 years

      FTFY

    20. Re:Wake me up by Tesen · · Score: 1

      I suspect there is a lot of self turn on...

    21. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not 20-30 years? That way you'll be covered even if he pulls a President-for-Life trick.

    22. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder how common it is for sexually abused daughters to start dating men that their abusive fathers hate just to spite them?

    23. Re:Wake me up by quenda · · Score: 1

      In 4 years please.

      If a giant asteroid was a heading toward Earth, would you rather use what little time you had left, or sleep through it and die without knowing?

    24. Re:Wake me up by quenda · · Score: 0

      If you're implying that Trump is some how anti-semetic or anti-Jewish ...

      Trump is not anti-Jewish*, but he sure does not like the other semites. Excpet the Saudis - they're good for business. Love the Untied States.

      * Trump made Steve Bannon leave his white hood at home.

    25. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, well I just identified the USA as hostile towards humanity and democracy, and am starting personal trade sanctions immediately. My sanctions will continue until such time that the American people come to their senses and do something about their new ruler's ability to make major detrimental changes to foreign and domestic policy without consulting even his own government.

    26. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It wouldn't surprise me to hear that he's already drafted an executive order overturning the constitutional limit of two terms for a president. Or maybe he's leaving that for president Bannon when he succeeds him.

    27. Re:Wake me up by lazy+genes · · Score: 0

      Makes me wonder who he will appoint to run the concentration camps on the Mexican border.

    28. Re:Wake me up by gnick · · Score: 0

      You mean the 7 countries Obama identified as Terrorist sponsoring countries? Those people?

      Yes, of course those people. Are you saying that there's no objection being voiced to a perceived attitude toward Islam? I didn't think I was being that controversial - I wasn't even trying to justify the objection.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    29. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As far as I'm concerned all the muslins can get the fuck out of this country, and the christians and jews for that matter too. Good riddance... religion is a crutch and a way to control people. The less religious nuts I have to deal with the better, so please please get out now.

      Signed, an anti-theist democrat.

    30. Re:Wake me up by Spaham · · Score: 0

      To those who say that Hitler only likes blond aryans, let me remind you that he is a short black haired man.

    31. Re:Wake me up by ebvwfbw · · Score: 1

      Just in time for the next 4 years of Trump!

      You missed the Evita style funeral of Hillary (both fascist despots) and Bill's funeral (Juan Perone, another fascist). Their "foundation" was taken apart just as the Perone's charity was. In a few years Andrew Webber will write another musical about them and their trail of dead bodies. It'll probably star Lady Gaga as the dominatrix and Tom Hanks as the dominated Bill.

      Also, missed George Soros' funeral, right after he did the evil guy on the next Star Wars movie.

      Man... this was meant to be very funny, however reading it it... this is funny and not the truth, right?

    32. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're assuming he liked himself.

    33. Re:Wake me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In addition, I'd like to say that Donald Jeremiah Trump will go down in history as the greatest president since Anthony Jackson.

      I expect that we'll see him on currency within the decade.

      - Archangel Michael -

    34. Re:Wake me up by Lotana · · Score: 1

      You are doing adulthood wrong.

    35. Re:Wake me up by TechnoJoe · · Score: 1

      Tragically, I know too many people who have turned themselves off. Not one has been able to turn themselves back on again.

      Except this one guy about 2000 years ago.

  3. The real reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The real reason that we sleep is because fatigue poisons build up while we are awake, and when we sleep our bodies eliminate these poisons.

  4. Forget this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm going back to bed!

  5. All of the above by religionofpeas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It seems rather obvious that the primary reason for sleep is to conserve energy when being awake isn't very useful (at night when you can't see anything). It also makes sense that the body has then evolved to do other useful things while sleeping.

    1. Re:All of the above by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then explain nocturnal animals. There is plenty to do in the dark or light for all animals.

      So not obvious at all.

    2. Re:All of the above by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many times the obvious answer is not the correct one.

    3. Re:All of the above by strikethree · · Score: 1

      It seems rather obvious that the primary reason for sleep is to conserve energy when being awake isn't very useful (at night when you can't see anything). It also makes sense that the body has then evolved to do other useful things while sleeping.

      Doesn't pass the basic acid test. Why do nocturnal creatures sleep? The night is when they are active and they can see perfectly fine in the day. No need for sleep at all according to your theory. :)

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
  6. I forget everything from last week... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    I thought that was what the weekends were for. I keep a dead tree notebook at work to write down what I did each day and remind myself what I did from the week before. Otherwise, on Monday mornings, I'll have no clue to what to do.

    1. Re:I forget everything from last week... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Government employee huh?

      I've always kept a notebook at work to record my daily activities. Something that several managers tried to stop me from doing when they figured out I was documenting their actions as well as my own. It's hard to throw someone under the bus when they kept good documentation for the HR department.

      That explains why I always seem to experience a case of the Monday's when dealing with government services.

      Uh, no. Every bureaucrat on the planet has to have their meetings first thing on Monday mornings, putting a strain on limited government resources to meet the demand over the Intertubes. Fortunately, I'm only attendee to these meetings and I can multitask to better serve taxpayers.

    2. Re:I forget everything from last week... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oddly this may be sleep related, I had real problems with memory, turns out it was related to severe sleep apnea. Got a CPAP machine, started getting actual sleep and my memory came back, as well as motivation / focus / quick thinking. It was amazing, like somebody had lifted a fog.

      Anyway, worth getting checked out

    3. Re:I forget everything from last week... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Oddly this may be sleep related, I had real problems with memory, turns out it was related to severe sleep apnea.

      Since I work in government IT, I have to get up at 4:30AM to catch two local busses and an express bus to start work at 7:00AM. Most nights I'm drifting off at 8:30PM, sometimes 10:30PM or later. With a one-hour commute to and from work, I can quite deliberately forget about work as I never take work home. Weekends and three-day holidays are difficult to recover from on Monday mornings.

    4. Re:I forget everything from last week... by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      You may want to investigate using a diary instead as it may have specific and additional protections under your local laws. A notebook may be claimed as a method to capture confidential information and therefore subject to a search, where as a diary (and its associated habit) can be admissible as evidence in some courts and is a private document, YMMV.

      I think you are ahead of a lot of people who just stumble from day to day aimlessly. I too have a regular diary habit that extends back 20 or more years. It is an amazing tool for long term memory. In my specific case I have launched three legal action with the evidence from my diaries and won every time.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  7. Purpose of sleep is to forget? by olsmeister · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought that was the purpose of whiskey.

    1. Re:Purpose of sleep is to forget? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      I thought that was the purpose of whiskey.

      But it doesn't last.

      "Trump who? Oh, right, that guy. Another round, please!"

    2. Re:Purpose of sleep is to forget? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, the purpose of whiskey is to make you more attractive to the opposite sex.

    3. Re:Purpose of sleep is to forget? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1, Funny

      It's to make those members of the opposite sex that are attracted to you, attractive enough to you, while you are still sober enough to be any use to them.

      Like all important things, it's about balance.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:Purpose of sleep is to forget? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kinda like Lincoln waking up with a hangover; "I freed WHO??"

  8. Re:what scientists? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I suspect I am feeding a troll, but just in case you are just completely incompetent.

    The article from The Guardian has the links right in the article.
    Giulio Tononi
    Chiara Cirelli

    First link in Google
    Ohio Sleep Medicine Institute

  9. Re:what scientists? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    There are no Giulio Tononi or Chiara Cirelli listed as professors on UoW's websites.

    They are at the UofW School of Medicine, which is someone separate from UoW's academic campus. Here are their bios: Chiara Cirelli, Giulio Tononi.

  10. And this explains... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not getting any sleep is fatal. The theory that sleep's main function is "to forget" doesn't explain that. Of course, the post didn't claim that was its sole function, but I'd say it implied it. Scientific American had an article on sleep last year which favored the garbage removal theory. It's not very smart to think that sleep has a single purpose, imho. The fact that all mammals sleep, (some only half a brain at a time) and as far as I know all birds, reptiles, amphibians, and some (not all) fish sleep. Plus some insects enter a state similar to sleep, as do roundworms. Such a broad adoption clearly indicates it has a very strong evolutionary driving/survival force behind it.

    1. Re:And this explains... by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 1

      Not getting any sleep is fatal. The theory that sleep's main function is "to forget" doesn't explain that. Of course, the post didn't claim that was its sole function, but I'd say it implied it.

      Well, I'd say the summary implied that this may be sleep's primary function, probably not the "sole" one. But I take your point.

      Scientific American had an article on sleep last year which favored the garbage removal theory.

      Yes, the theory itself is hardly new. These two new studies seem to support it. It does seem to make intuitive sense, since a lot of our brain's activity has to do with getting rid of all the "noise." People who are working with AI these days realize how difficult it can be to get a system to sort out the patterns from the noise, particularly when it comes to greater abstraction.

      And we know from numerous studies for decades that sleep is essential to memory formation. The idea that one aspect of that memory formation may be getting rid of less "important" mental traces of your day while reinforcing ones "that matter" makes a lot of intuitive sense... not that that's an argument for its scientific validity. But it's almost certainly an important brain function at some level and at some time -- so finding out it happens during sleep is interesting.

    2. Re:And this explains... by CrashNBrn · · Score: 1

      Pretty much every documentary, and article that I've come across over the last 10 years on the "purpose of sleep|dreaming" say nearly the exact same thing. Maybe these "researchers" could build on what is already known instead of regurgitating known facts.

      * Forget unimportant crap.
      * Solidify New Memories.
      * Clear out built-up toxins.

    3. Re:And this explains... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everything living expends energy. Animals gather that energy from food. Food is either a plant or another animal. At some point, the food chain has to involve plants. Plants gather energy from sunlight.

      Sunlight only bathes half of the planet at any given time. The other half of the planet is deprived of energy input for the night. Plants and animals alike go dormant to conserve energy. Some things do this during the night, other things expend their stored energy during the night and go dormant during daytime. But everything goes dormant (sleep) for roughly 1/4 or more of the day/night cycle, every cycle, on average. Things that do not sleep as much as they should tend to die sooner than they should. This is a failsafe mechanism to ensure that no one energy-sink can over-consume the planet's total energy intake over even a very long period of time.

    4. Re:And this explains... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You are right we would die.
      Why? Because lots and lots of bodily maintenance happens when we're sleeping. Cells can't rebuild fast enough or old cells thoroughly flush out when we're awake because they're actively managing a busy body. But when we shut down... the lack of activity allows healing, scrubbing, and other organic functions to take place with great results. In a more /. example would you prefer your computer do heavy background functions while you are working, slowing all your efforts by half? No, these things happen best when computer is more idle.

      The old trope about "so we can forget" is only because we, (as humans) are more familiar with our personalities, thoughts, memories- than say our cell repairing themselves. So we'll notice how sleep affects our thoughts more so than our bodies and we write about it. Naturally we'd think sleep was all about 'us' the personality. Though it's mainly for our impersonal bodies... the body we've forgotten about ;)

    5. Re:And this explains... by BlackPignouf · · Score: 2

      "Not getting any sleep is fatal."

      We don't know much about sleep, and we don't even know if sleep deprivation can be lethal.

    6. Re:And this explains... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forgetting is clearly not sleep's primary function. I regularly need to stay awake over 37 hours straight each week. Your memories don't get stronger and stronger the longer you stay awake. Sleeping to better remember important parts of the day is not the same as sleeping to forget the unimportant parts. The two are not interchangeable.

      I read the paper. I interpret their results more as you're digging a trench though which memories will flow. During the day you're too busy trying to stay ahead of a flood so you're just tossing dirt every which way out of the trench and workers are rushing to stay ahead of the flow so they're taking whatever way that looks easiest and ignoring the master plans. Then at night when the levels have receded everyone goes back through and shores up the main trench so you'll have a nice clean waterway in the morning. It's not that you're remembering too much, you're not growing memories efficiently so they're becoming too intertwined. That doesn't mean you're forgetting things when you untangle them.

      If you have two identical bowels and put coins in one then turn your back, the scientists are claiming you have too many memories of those bowels to guess where your coins are. I'm saying you can recall you have two bowels and that the coins are in one of them, but you can't distinguish which one because the pathways from one are mixed with the pathways of the other. When you unmingle those pathways you're not forgetting anything, you're pulling apart the memories so you can remember each one specifically without accidentally jumping to the other.

      One more way to say it since I'm not sure if I'm being clear, your brain is running a compression algorithm to keep up with all the data coming into cache during the day. Then it runs a decompression algorithm at night. While decompressing, it files all the memories where they're supposed to go on the hard drive. Compressed or not you have the same amount of data, just it's harder to distinguish between two similar items within the compressed data set compared to their two uncompressed versions. When you take a single wrong turn through a compressed data tree you end up extracting the wrong file. When you take a single wrong turn through an uncompressed data feed you end up with one bad pixel. I'm saying you don't need to forget things to remember them more clearly, those extra synapses that are pruned aren't real memories, they're excess metadata.

    7. Re:And this explains... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      This explains why the only stuff I can remember is unimportant crap.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:And this explains... by Place+a+name+here · · Score: 2

      It's lethal in rats. Fatal familial insomnia is also pretty horrible, although one might argue that it's the prion that makes it lethal, not the sleep deprivation.

    9. Re:And this explains... by reboot246 · · Score: 2

      Please stop putting coins in your bowels. Eventually one of those coins may wind up in my hands, and I don't want your crap all over them. It's a very nasty habit you have, so please stop.

    10. Re:And this explains... by cats-paw · · Score: 1

      i think it's more likely that during sleep, as your body resets the systems it needs things that have not been strongly re-inforced are forgotten.

      as you point out, sleep is wired in at an extremely low level.

      researchers don't seem to assign as much importance to that fact as you would think it deserves.

      --
      Absolute statements are never true
    11. Re:And this explains... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

      Not getting any sleep is fatal. The theory that sleep's main function is "to forget" doesn't explain that.

      Conceivably, it does. This theory goes that sleep makes us forget in order to do "housekeeping" for the brain. If the brain gets too cluttered, runs this line of thinking, it starts failing to function. Several neural failure could indeed lead to death.

    12. Re:And this explains... by BlackPignouf · · Score: 2

      Let's electrocute rats every now and then during 10 days, and fail to mention it in the abstract!

    13. Re:And this explains... by JonnyCalcutta · · Score: 1

      The purpose of sleep is to allow your eye 'looking beams' to recharge. If you don't recharge them they will slowly lose power and your vision will become darker and darker (for an average person, this will happen in the evening). During winter the cold will also drain your eye 'looking beams' quicker - hence your vision will become darker earlier in the evening.

  11. Not working by whoever57 · · Score: 1

    There are certainly embarrassing events in my past that I would prefer to forget, but I don't seem to be able to.

    Why isn't it working for me?

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    1. Re:Not working by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      No kidding. For me, the more I try to avoid thinking about the embarrassing thing, the more acute it gets as my brain forces me to relive the moment over and over again.

      TBH, this is why I don't hang around people, I always end up saying or doing something that I later analyze and construe as hyper embarrassing, even if it wasn't really. It's probably a medical condition of some kind...

      Sometimes (a lot actually) the thought will come on so suddenly and so strongly that I make a weird non-verbal sound, whimper or exclamation, which is itself embarrassing if I am near people.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  12. Who needs sleep! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't need sleep to forget things.

  13. God's a script kiddie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Proof that God is a hack and couldn't write a kernel that manages much more than a 48h uptime before it needs a reboot. I bet all the kids in other galaxies with cooler Gods are laughing at us.

    1. Re:God's a script kiddie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is actually a solid argument for NO GOD. No omnipotent being could possibly be this bad a coder. Plus, our whole universe is basically a stack overflow expanding the way it is. We are in for a blue screen of death at some point.

    2. Re:God's a script kiddie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, we're just stuck in a badly coded simulation. "Sleep" just eases the CPU and memory load. And now we've discovered the hastily-written garbage collection routine...

      Wait a minute -- does that mean it's coded in Java?!?

      Oh, the horror...

    3. Re:God's a script kiddie by ArylAkamov · · Score: 1

      Memory leak. We won't be updated because we're end of life.

    4. Re:God's a script kiddie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a reboot, it's garbage collection and data compression with a high CPU allocation.

  14. The purpose of sleep is to forget. by MrKrillls · · Score: 1

    I need more sleep.

    --
    Don't step on the baby.
  15. And...? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Please try and write summaries that at least get somewhere close to the crux of the story, and don't just trail off mid-concept.

    In 2003, Giulio Tononi and Chiara Cirelli, biologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, proposed that synapses grew so exuberantly during the day that our brain circuits got “noisy.” When we sleep, the scientists argued, our brains pare back the connections to lift the signal over the noise.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  16. Re:When he treats his daughter like a daughter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If that was true then it'd have been all over the place before he was elected. When Clinton was digging 10 year old secret recordings up out of the cobwebs to use as ammo.

  17. So basically... by wardrich86 · · Score: 1

    A nightly (for most of us) redundancy check and defrag of the ol' noodle?

    1. Re:So basically... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ooooooh, so close. If you had just called it a "gulliver," you'd have full geek points.

  18. It is to recharge brain for next day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sleep is required to reload your brain with neurotransmiitters so that your brain can function properly the next day.

    Vision processing requires lots of them.

    When you are sick, you need to sleep.

    When you are sick your liver is overloaded.

    When your liver is overloaded, the liver
    can not produce enough neurotransmitters.

    Your brain is tied to your liver.

    This is why drugs (alcohol) are bad for brain.
    It is not just the direct pychoactive effects,
    but also the load on your liver. The liver has
    to break down the poisons (drugs/alcohol)
    which leaves the liver less processing
    resources to regenerate neurotransmitters.

    1. Re:It is to recharge brain for next day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The head bone's connected to the foot bone,

      the ear bone's connected to the thigh bone,
      the shoulder bone's connected to the finger bone
      the brain bone's connected to the duh bone!
      Now here the word of the Lord!

    2. Re:It is to recharge brain for next day by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      The most on-topic post is by Mr AC and no one has even noticed.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  19. I've slept for over a dozen years total by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now at least I have an explanation for all of the things I have forgotten.

    I hope I remember this the next time someone asks me why I keep forgetting things.

  20. Re:When he treats his daughter like a daughter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was all over the place. You would have missed it if you, like a good sheep, only read the outlets that were suppressing the information. The ones that Darth Cheeto calls "scum" for showing the truth.

  21. Only one purpose? That sounds stupid. by gurps_npc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can think of at least 5 reasons for sleep off the top of my head, and several have nothing to do with the brain:

    1) Eliminate unwanted memories, like this study suggested.

    2) Reduce consumption during periods of low resources, enabling longer life. I.E. Consume fewer calories in winter.

    3) Rest the body giving it time to repair minor every day issue without constant strain.

    4) Time for the unconcious brain to do deep thinking and solve long term problems

    5) To allow the body to expand all it's resources to fix major illnesses, such as Small Pox, because it literally takes EVERYTHING we got.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  22. Sleep, data.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it can cause an overload of a borg cube.

  23. Implications for PTSD treatment? by jenningsthecat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    FTA:
    "That night, the scientists injected a chemical into the brains of some of the mice. The chemical had been shown to block neurons in dishes from pruning their synapses. The next day, the scientists put all the mice back in the chamber they had been in before. Both groups of mice spent much of the time frozen, fearfully recalling the shock. But when the researchers put the mice in a different chamber, they saw a big difference. The ordinary mice sniffed around curiously. The mice that had been prevented from pruning their brain synapses during sleep, on the other hand, froze once again. Dr. Diering thinks that the injected mice couldn’t narrow their memories down to the particular chamber where they had gotten the shock. Without nighttime pruning, their memories ended up fuzzy."

    I'm far, far away from being a neurologist, so I may be totally off track here. But these results remind me of what PTSD sufferers go through, and I have to wonder if they're related. Might the emotions experienced in response to traumatic events, be so strong as to alter neurons, synapses, or brain chemistry in such a way that the synapses aren't pruned in the normal way by sleep? Or perhaps the loss of sleep that results from traumatic experiences results in something like setting the 'immutable' bit on a file?

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re:Implications for PTSD treatment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are these scientists torturing mice? The scientists should do the experiments on themselves. Newton probed his own eyes with needles, he didn't murder mice.

    2. Re:Implications for PTSD treatment? by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Why are these scientists torturing mice?

      So we don't end up torturing humans.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  24. Re: When he treats his daughter like a daughter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ahh it made headlines everywhere?

  25. Re-worded title by gnick · · Score: 1

    Rebooting flushes RAM.

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    1. Re:Re-worded title by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Rebooting flushes RAM.

      Sort of. It's a function of the bios to set the ram to a consistent state. Even a power cycle means that the bits stored in ram are in a random state on start, the bios makes sure that doesn't happen. A reboot means they would still be in the same state prior to the reboot *IF* the bios did not set the ram state prior to booting. That can really trip you up with some things if you are unaware of it.

      Besides, aren't we off-topic? Aren't we supposed to be talking about Trump and blah blah. ;)

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  26. cache cleaning by cmotdibbl3r · · Score: 1

    So sleep is just another form of cache cleaning?

  27. Zombie Nation by Presto+Vivace · · Score: 1

    Zombie Nation describes the harm sleep deprivation is doing to the United States. https://drive.google.com/file/...

    1. Re: Zombie Nation by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      No mod points, so I'll just say "thank you" for the article instead.

    2. Re: Zombie Nation by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      Zombie Nation describes the harm sleep deprivation is doing to the United States.

      I was going to ask what the hell a bunch of German techno producers would know about it, but I guess they've spent a few late nights in clubs over the years.

      (And yeah- I know. I used to think that too, but "Kernkraft 400" was actually the name of the song...)

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    3. Re: Zombie Nation by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Wow, this is really great - thanks.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  28. Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm no expert or anything but from everything ive read or experienced I'd say its the exact opposite. Although more likely a little of both.

  29. Re:When he treats his daughter like a daughter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like this?

  30. Just call us Reddit already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Once again, this place devolves into a Trump bashing session from a topic that has absolutely nothing to do with Trump or even politics :|

    I think I know why we rarely see low user id's these days. They watched this whole place become a cess pool of stupidity and jumped ship.

  31. The Professor by corychristison · · Score: 1

    Farnsworth: And what makes my engines truly remarkable is the afterburner, which delivers 200% fuel efficiency.

    Cubert: That's especially impossible.

    Farnsworth: Not at all. It's very simple.

    Cubert: Then explain it.

    Farnsworth: Now that's impossible! It came to me in a dream and I forgot it in another dream.

  32. Not maintenance? by dschiptsov · · Score: 1

    WTF am I reading? Hipster's "science" newsletter.

  33. Cerebrospinal fluid cleanse by phorm · · Score: 1

    I also seem to recall reading that when you sleep (properly), your brain also gets flooded with cerebrospinal fluid, which cleans a type of "plaque" from between pathways in the brain. This plaque has been seen as possibly contributing to various mental/cognitive degenerative conditions

    I can't find the exact thing I read previously, but here appears to be an article on it.

    1. Re:Cerebrospinal fluid cleanse by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      your brain also gets flooded with cerebrospinal fluid, which cleans a type of "plaque" from between pathways

      So, you're saying that cerebrospinal fluid is basically mental floss then?

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    2. Re:Cerebrospinal fluid cleanse by phorm · · Score: 1

      I'm not a brain scientist, but basically sounds something like Plax for the ol' grey matter.

  34. Makes perfect sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I often go to bed early to escape my wife's conversational combination of tedious inanities, reality TV references and whiny complaining, and usually feel much better in the morning (when she's still in bed, but I'm sure that must just be a coincidence). Now I know that I was just trying to wipe said inanities from my memory.

    1. Re: Makes perfect sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like perhaps you two shouldn't be married.

  35. To Forget Scientists, say... by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

    I forgot what I was going to say here.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  36. Task Scheduling by tinkerton · · Score: 1

    Some have argued that it's a way to save energy. Others have suggested that slumber provides an opportunity to clear away the brain's cellular waste

    Odd juxtaposition. Let's put it this way with some fake news. There once was a time when all there was was day. Then suddenly God made night. In a first stage the Day-beings spent their nights waiting, saving energy and keeping save. But in a later stage they started doing too much of some activities during the day because they could postprocess/recover/clean up during the night.So one does not exclude the other. As soon as your brain gets some spare time it can start to reschedule some things so that some bottleneck operations(which slow you down) are moved to the night stage.

  37. the purpose of sleep is ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the purpose of sleep is to heal. dumb scientists.

  38. The question isn't, "why do we sleep?" by rbrandis · · Score: 1

    The real question is, "why are we conscious?"

    1. Re:The question isn't, "why do we sleep?" by yes-but-no · · Score: 1

      It's consciousness that is we; not the other way around.

  39. Vive La France by bugs2squash · · Score: 1

    Thank god for that, I don't need to join the Foreign Legion after all.

    --
    Nullius in verba
  40. confusing summary by Mozai · · Score: 1

    "The Purpose of Sleep? To Forget" "We store new memories in these networks."
    To forget is to store new memories?

  41. Move to China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Coward!

  42. Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's from Shakespeare's Macbeth. Lovely line IMO.

  43. According to Macbeth by shoor · · Score: 1

    Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
    The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
    Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
    Chief nourisher in life's feast,--

    --
    In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
    1. Re:According to Macbeth by careysub · · Score: 1

      To die, to sleep--
      No more--and by a sleep to say we end
      The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
      That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
      Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
      To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
      For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
      When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
      Must give us pause.

      Hamlet's Soliloquy

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
  44. Zzzzzz .... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... rm -rf /

    Zzzzzzz

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  45. The Is No One Purpose for Sleep by careysub · · Score: 1

    The need for "sleep" (regular periods of markedly reduced activity, distinct from mere rest) is virtually universal across the vertebrate sub-phylum at least, with a last common ancestor 500 million years ago, found in every family (though not necessarily obviously so in every species).

    This extraordinary common pattern in creatures with radically different environments and life habits, persisting over such a vast stretch of evolutionary time, alone suggests there is not "one reason" for it, and indeed a lot of research has uncovered many necessary processes associated with sleep, which go hay-wire at different rates when sleep is denied. In fact going without sleep is lethal, usually killing animals faster than starvation.

    Evolutionary biology offers a coherent explanation for all of these facts. Periods of inactivity to conserve energy and reduce exposure to predators is an evolutionary advantage, so a branch of evolutionary descent would tend to develop such a pattern if one did not already exist. Once a regular period of reduced activity exists biological processes that are more efficient or effective during periods of inactivity would tend to migrate in timing to coincide with it. Thus many biological processes, related or not, would in time become associated with this "sleep" period in a common pattern of convergent evolution, and the organism would become dependent on sleep periods for many unrelated biological reasons.

    --
    Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    1. Re:The Is No One Purpose for Sleep by yes-but-no · · Score: 1

      What all share is the rotating earth with (nearly) half day and half night. And most of these species will respond to light (ie have some form of eyes/visual processing). It may be interesting to study creatures/life deep under ocean (non dependent on sun/light/day/night) whether they too have any form of "sleep". The point is your light stimulus changes regularly every 12 hours - it only makes sense to optimize your internal processing based on this cycle. And all life is doing that.

  46. I thought that is why we drink? by mrvan · · Score: 1

    I think this study actually raises more questions than it answers: If we sleep to forget, than what is the purpose of drinking?

  47. Synapses shrink during sleep by UpnAtom · · Score: 1

    Scientific American had an article on sleep last year which favored the garbage removal theory.

    Yet more evidence for this theory:

    http://neurosciencenews.com/sl...

    As someone who's done plenty of sleep deprivation and polyphasic sleeping, I'm about pretty sure I can actually feel the garbage being removed. It mostly happens in the first 60-90 mins of sleep. If one is woken between 30 mins and 60 mins, one's mind tends to be missing several functions. ;)

    1. Re:Synapses shrink during sleep by epine · · Score: 1

      I have a circadian rhythm disorder. Not that long ago I free ran on my innate 25.5 hour circadian day for three years, before I discovered that only sustained release melatonin is able to fix my problem (the shortest circadian day I achieved on any dose/formulation of non-SR mel was 24.15 hours, which required me to discontinue for two out of every five-six weeks for vertical retrace).

      2016 was the first year of my adult life where I didn't lose entrainment with the calendar day.

      But it's still not a bed of roses. I still feel a trace of my 16.5 day free-running circadian period, and it primarily affects sleep quality, more so than duration. I'll go through bad weeks where my afternoon melatonin induces extreme fatigue in the late afternoon / early evening.

      This is not normal fatigue. I was once told by a German linguist that some parts of Germany have a way of saying "go downstairs" as "go down from up". In English, we normally say "fall asleep", in which consciousness unwinds top down. When my melatonin overpowers me, my consciousness unwinds from the bottom up. I'm not falling into sleep. Sleep is welling up like a glacier trapped in a tanning salon. I don't know if other people have experienced brief waking moments at night, where you are kind of consciously awake (you look around the dark room, check the time, groan a bit to yourself, etc.) but all the while whatever dream you were having continues apace. It's more like that than normal sleep, only the underlying alternative brain state becomes progressively more intense, while conscious tasks become progressively more difficult as the underlying circuits abandon consciousness to crash a different party.

      During the years I spent free running, my sleep architecture was highly structured, but not in a good way. I divided my 16.5 day cycle into five lobes of three days each, because in each lobe my sleep architecture was noticeably different. By convention, my cycles began anew the first day I found myself waking up shortly after midnight (sleeping across midnight was a welcome condition). My five lobes progressed from fabulous, to good, to mediocre, to piss poor, to downright horrible. It had something to do with increasingly non-restorative sleep. Getting eight hours of solid sleep during each sleep period didn't seem to make much difference. (My sleep intervals were more consistent free-running than they are now, fully entrained.)

      There seems to be two competitive cycles in my SCN: when my body wants to sleep, and when my body fully responds to sleep as a restorative function.

      While free running, the cycle determining when I wanted to sleep had the upper hand at all times. Whether the sleep was fully restorative depended entirely upon which lobe I was in. For one glorious lobe, both cycles were in complete alignment. Then they began to drift. By the fifth lobe, it was like they were 180 degrees out of alignment. Being 180 degrees out of alignment seemed to send my SCN straight into the Bermuda triangle, with all dials spinning madly in the magnetic anomaly. On the last day of my last lobe, I usually experienced a very long waking period I called "stretch day". I wouldn't be very productive, but I'd be strangely alert—almost manic—for a 24-hour waking period. Bed time would jump from 07:00 directly to 14:00 (rather than the customary 1-1.5 hour daily jump during the rest of my cycle).

      What I tended to do in my long nights of piss poor to appalling level of function was read a lot. I couldn't generate any kind of outward task signal. I needed to do something that provided a strong external signal, and I needed to latch onto it like the last tit in paradise, and never let go. My comprehension and retention were as high as ever, with one gotcha: not yet. While in this state, I could understand the book I was reading, but not fully relate it to any other knowledge I might have. First day of lobe one, I would often experience manic recall of every connection I had failed to

  48. Don't know about you, but by codeButcher · · Score: 1

    I sleep because I am sleepy. (But only if I manage to shut down the web browser.)

    --
    Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
  49. Amount of darkness; not sleep by yes-but-no · · Score: 1

    What I found with my experimentation is I feel fresh based on how many hours I had visual stimuli off; it doesn't matter if I sleep or lying staring the darkness. I can even afford some audio input/output (listen to songs or even sing/talk along - yeah may sound like a mad man). The crucial piece is my visual cortex in brain is kinda put in a lower power mode. Then even if i really sleep only a few hours say 3 or 4, I still feel fresh. The contrary is true as well. If I am busy in computer or phone and sleep late, my body demands those many hours of eyes shut -- in fact it is taking more because during the day time the diffused sunlight is making the brain ask for more rest time. So the fix I found is try to catch hold of as many dark hours (like between 1 am to 6 am) as possible [early to bed, early to rise]. Of course the early man/before light invention people used to do this normally. Basically it's how much darkness u get that matters - not sleep.

  50. Re:Only one purpose? That sounds stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    several have nothing to do with the brain

    I don't know about you, but my brain is a part of my body.

  51. Dumb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are 50 Muslim, or predominantly Muslim countries in the world. 43 of them, including the largest populations of Muslims is not on the list. So what do those 7 have in common besides being Muslim? When you consider that all 7 of those countries under moratorium are failed states, your Muslim bias argument is based on fantasy.

    The fact that you leftists fail to see your own stupidity and hypocrisy is really quite sad. It's too bad you are also cowardly morons, or you would have the intestinal fortitude to move to one of these countries and try to fix them instead of breaking the US.

    1. Re:Dumb by gnick · · Score: 0

      your Muslim bias argument is based on fantasy.

      My Muslim bias argument? I'm not out in the streets - I'm not even calling the man out. I simply said that there's an objection right now to a perceived attitude. Whether that attitude is real or justified is a completely different matter - But if you think there's no objection to the perception, you're blind.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  52. Quite The Reverse by jman.org · · Score: 1

    I'd always thought sleep was for helping to retain memories, not erase them.

    During sleep, we are not recording nearly as much data as when awake, giving the brain the opportunity to prioritize which earlier experiences need to be retained in long-term storage.

    Many theorize that during REM sleep, while dreaming, we are actually re-living various experiences gathered throughout the day. By re-examining these experiences, they have a better chance of being retained long-term.

    Remembering a pretty sunset years down the road may be pleasurable, but will not help you stay alive in the physical sense.

    On the other hand, remembering to immediately jump into the tree when catching scent of a predator you haven't run across in quite some time, just might save your life.

    It's this latter form of experience, getting put into long-term storage partially by initial experience, partially be repetition via dreams, that helps us to enjoy more sunsets.

    The former will fade, leaving just a shell of its presence, if any.

  53. Re: When he treats his daughter like a daughter by LordNightwalker · · Score: 1

    No idea what this "this" was supposed to show, because you didn't bother describing the link, and the video is down now. When will people on forums learn to describe what they link to so that others who stumble upon it years (or in this particular case, days) from now at least can follow along?

    --
    Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?