Sleeping and Stuff

1. The article about how the position one sleeps in tells a lot about his/her personality was cool. The connection to body language was an interesting thought that I hadn't realized. I am apparently a "yearner." It's fun learning about yourself. I found it interesting that naps help memory because I tend to feel groggy and oogy after taking naps. It was also interesting to read about the different fish and how they "slept;" makes my bed look that much more comfortable. 2. I LOVE analyzing dreams, so the dream interpretation bit was fascinating. It's amazing what you try to tell yourself. Some say that dreams are insignificant, so either way I would like to learn of some proof. Also, I'd like to learn more about this chemical that replaces sleep. I'm sure if used for a long time it would have adverse affects; no chemical can completely replace sleep (I think). I'd also like to learn where I could get some...
3. A) In "Is Sleep Essential," one of the points of view shown is that sleep is essential, that all animals sleep, and that interfering in the amount/quality of sleep has negative effects on the animals. This could very well be a falsehood. First of all, it's admitted that it's very hard to tell if animals such as fish are "sleeping" or not; a group of researchers concluded that fish rested in a manner "'equivalent to sleep.'" So they first of all need to define their terms. The other piece that comes into question is the 'negative effects. Animals have a hard time telling humans what they feel, them being animals and all. It's difficult to fully understand the affects lack of sleep has on an animal when we really have little idea about what's going on in their head.

B) In "Time to Wake Up to the Facts About Sleeping," Horne asserts that we as a nation receive enough sleep/ have a low sleep debt and that a lack of sleep doesn't cause major health problems like obesity. I was confused by that thought because in another paragraph he said that "healthy adults sleep 7 to 7 1/2 hours a night." Healthy adults. One would then assume that unhealthy adults sleep less or more than the average. Obese adults are unhealthy. Doesn't that kind of contradict itself? The article also insists that we sleep more on weekends simply to indulge ourselves, not because we are repaying our sleep debt. To me this doesn't make sense. On weekdays most of us are awoken by an alarm clock; alarm clocks, I would argue, are not natural. The amount of time one sleeps uninterrupted, I would say, is natural.