# Why sleep? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 13, 2000, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344 "2000-04-13T22:16:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2000, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/1 "2000-04-13T22:16:00Z")
I searched “sleep” under the SD archives and found about 40 threads, but amazingly, not this question … Why do we need to sleep? Not just us, but why do all animals sleep? It’s not hibernation; our pulse and respiration don’t drop appreciatively. And our brain activity actually seems to **increase**. Yet, if we are deprived of sleep, insanity and death will follow. What’s the deal? * * * “We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2000, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/2 "2000-04-13T22:18:00Z")
Perchance to dream. ---
**Author:** ![lablonde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/eb9ed0/32.png) [@lablonde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lablonde)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2000, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/3 "2000-04-13T22:36:00Z")
Try [www.sleepquest.com](http://www.sleepquest.com) ---
**Author:** ![aseymayo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e57/32.png) [@aseymayo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aseymayo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2000, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/4 "2000-04-13T22:39:00Z")
To knit up that ravelled sleeve of care. ---
**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2000, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/5 "2000-04-13T22:54:00Z")
Tried it, lablonde, and didn’t see an answer to my OP. You know something I don’t, or was that just a suggestion of a site that might have the answer? * * * “We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi ---
**Author:** ![Sake\_Samurai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sake\_Samurai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sake_Samurai)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2000, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/6 "2000-04-13T23:34:00Z")
6 hours of sleep allow our brains to process information with a great degree of accuracy and reliability. It’s sort of like cleaning up and defraging your hard drive: you want the best performance out of your computer and while you’re optimizing & defraging it you want to shut down as many open programs as you can. When that screen goes blank, it doesn’t mean the computer has shut down - just like someone sleeping. To “wake” the computer, all you have to do to is slowly and gently wrap your hand completely around the mouse and quickly and firmly move it back and forth while caressing the scroll wheel - trust me, you’ll soon realize that the computer was far from off. . .I guess I’m carrying this analogy too far so I’ll stop. * * * Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2000, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/7 "2000-04-13T23:46:00Z")
[Why do we sleep?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_044b.html) ---
**Author:** ![dpr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8797f3/32.png) [@dpr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dpr)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2000, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/8 "2000-04-14T01:26:00Z")
We sleep because we can’t help it: we’re addicted!!! And why? Because our mothers had the audacity to sleep while they were pregant with us! Evil cows. ---
**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2000, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/9 "2000-04-14T03:20:00Z")
This begs another question: Is Manhattan’s search engine better than mine, and if so, why? * * * “We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2000, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/10 "2000-04-14T15:32:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Milossarian: > **Why do we need to sleep? > Not just us, but why do all animals sleep? > It’s not hibernation…** Actually, there’s a sleep gene yet to be found. (They think there’s a gene for everything.) 😉 * * * “They’re coming to take me away ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee, to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time… :)” - Napoleon IV ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2000, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-sleep/10344/11 "2000-04-14T16:18:00Z")
Just a guess but perhaps some time in our evolutionary past it was found beneficial to become less active when it was darker/colder and food was harder to find, thus conserving energy. Organisms developed which partially shut down at theses times. Later developments then took advantage of this down-time to do those pesky but necessary housekeeping activities, freeing the wide awake organism for more productive stuff. Once started down this road you would be locked into the wake/sleep cycle otherwise the housekeeping stuff would never get done.