By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe areas of the brain involved in sleep
- Understand hormone secretions associated with sleep
- Describe several theories aimed at explaining the function of sleep
- Name and describe three theories about why we dream
We spend approximately one-third of our lives sleeping. Given the average life expectancy for U.S. citizens falls between 73 and 79 years old (Singh & Siahpush, 2006), we can expect to spend approximately 25 years of our lives sleeping. Some animals never sleep (e.g., some fish and amphibian species); other animals sleep very little without apparent negative consequences (e.g., giraffes); yet some animals (e.g., rats) die after two weeks of sleep deprivation (Siegel, 2008). Why do we devote so much time to sleeping? Is it absolutely essential that we sleep? This section will consider these questions and explore various explanations for why we sleep.
The content of this course has been taken from the free Psychology textbook by Openstax