A) Sometimes I’ll take a mid-day nap. Before I go to sleep, my face will feel normal and dry, or slightly oily around the nose area. But after I wake up from my nap, even if it’s only for twenty minutes, my entire face is totally oily. What causes this? It’s as if sleep turns up my body’s petroleum production…
B) Does sleep have any effect on medication? For example, if I took any sort of antibiotic, vitamin, ssri, maoi, or what have you, would my brain’s activity during sleep alter the medication’s affect, perhaps even keeping the medication from working?
C) Several years ago, I woke up around 5am with extreme lumbar pain, most likely from sleeping on a very uncomfortable bed. I spent the next several hours crying and vomiting from the pain. Then, as I was sitting in a recliner trying to not move, I fell asleep, for no longer than 30 seconds or so. As soon as I woke up, the pain was completely gone. It’s as if falling asleep “rebooted” whatever was causing the pain. How would sleep have done this?
Are you sure it was lumbar pain? The crying and vomiting part sounds more like kidney or gallstones… though 30 seconds of sleep wouldn’t seem likely in that situation, nor would the sudden disappearance of the pain.
Brain activity shouldn’t have an effect, so long as the drug has a biochemical mechanism of action. It may possibly effect alternative and complimentary “medicine” because they usually rely on the placebo effect, and you need to be conscious for that (e.g. blue coloured homoeopathic/herbal sleeping aids work better than pink coloured ones).