Sleep is an integral part of everyday life, a biological need that allows you to restore physical and

psychological functions for full performance.

The dream has been and remains one of the enigmas of scientific research, and still today, we have
great doubts about it. To be considered a passive phenomenon in which it seemed not to happen
Apparently nothing, it has been spent considering the emergence of techniques for measuring electrical
activity in the brain, a state of dynamic consciousness in which we can get a brain activity active
tanning as in wakefulness and in the case of major changes in the functioning of the body; Changes in
blood pressure, heart and respiratory rate, body temperature, hormonal secretion, among others.

Each night, while we sleep, we go through different phases or stages of sleep that happen with a
repeated pattern in the length of four to six cycles of sleep throughout the night. All these stages are
included in two major phases of sleep, with great differences in terms of muscle activity, brain and eye
movements:

Why do we have to sleep? In short, we could say that we sleep so we can be awake for
the day and that, precisely because we are awake and active during the day, we need to
sleep. Sleep is a basic need of the organism and its satisfaction allows us survival.
Everything that happens in the human body keeps a balance, and if this balance fails, the
organism will try by all means to recover it again. Thanks to the experiments of sleep
deprivation, it has been understood that when the possibility of sleeping in an organism is
"completely" eliminated, death ensues. When you are temporarily or partially deprived of
sleep, that is, you are not allowed to sleep one day, or you are not allowed to have any
specific phase of sleep, an increase in the phase that has been canceled and in the need
for sleep in the days after said deprivation. This confirms that the organism will try by all
means to maintain its balance by recovering what it has been deprived of. These same
studies have served to bring us closer to understanding the functions of the dream and its
different phases. Although we are still a long way from obtaining clear answers regarding
this phenomenon, it seems that non-REM sleep would have a function related to the repair
of body tissues and conservation and energy recovery, whereas during REM sleep the
processes of brain repair would predominate ( neuronal reorganization, consolidation and
storage of relevant memories and elimination and forgetting of those that are not). In this
way we could explain that when an organism is learning something, increase during REM
sleep (eg children have much more REM than adults and the elderly) and that on the other
hand, when subjected to a strong physical exhaustion increase the non-REM phase (eg
during physical exercise). One of the most important functions of the dream is its
contribution in the regulation of body temperature, functioning as a thermostat that
maintains the temperature that the body needs at each moment in function of the activities
that are carried out in it to facilitate metabolic processes , hormonal, etc. Without this
important thermostat, the organism would die.
The basic needs of sleep to maintain the functions and survival of the organism are placed on an
average of 4 or 5 hours of sleep every 24 hours. The rest of the hours that we sleep contribute to
improve our well-being and better quality of life, estimating that in an average of 8.3 hours the
optimum rest point could be found. However, it is important to clarify that both basic and optional
sleep needs to achieve optimal performance and well-being during the day will vary in each person, and
even the same person does not have the same needs at all times of his life. As we have repeated, the
body tries to maintain balance, and it is precisely this that determines the need for sleep of each
organism at each moment (the more wear, the greater the need for sleep). The necessary hours of sleep
are those that allow us to be well during the day, without feeling drowsy until the next night.

Chronic voluntary sleep deprivation produces physiological changes (metabolic, hormonal, etc.) that
can precipitate physical illnesses such as diabetes, or hypertension that ostensibly decrease the quality
of life. It has not been possible to verify a clear relation between chronic lack of sleep and death (it
would not be ethical to reach this point in the experimentation), but if a relationship is pointed out
between lack of sleep and a higher incidence of some medical diseases (hormonal, cardiovascular ,
immunological, psychiatric, etc.).