20 Mind Blowing Facts About Sleep

11. The feeling of falling prior to sleep is called a hypnic jerk

The hypnic jerk, or hypnagogic jerk, is an involuntary twitch that happens just as a person is about to fall asleep. Often the feeling is to intense that it causes the person to wake suddenly. Typically, the feeling resembles the shock of being startled, but many describe it as the feeling of falling through a void. Researchers aren’t quite sure why they happen, but anxiety, stress, caffeine and strenuous activity in the evenings have all been suggested.

12. One in 4 married couples sleeps in separate beds.

A report conducted by the U.S. National Sleep Foundation found that an incredible 25% of married couples in the country sleep in separate beds. This might seem surprising, but it turns out that although it might be a comfort to sleep in the same bed as someone you love, it an be very disruptive for your sleep. Some reports indicate that those sharing a bed reported a 50% increase in sleep disruption!

13. People born blind dream with their other senses.

For the average person a dream is made up of primarily visual information, with a small amount of auditory information on occasion. So what happens if you’ve been blind from birth? It turns out that those who have been blind from birth of very early on can feel, taste, hear and smell in their dreams, making them a highly sensory experience.

14.  50% of your dream is forgotten within 5 minutes of waking.

After 10 minutes, 90% of the dream will be gone. Some believe that this happens because dreams represent the repressed thoughts and the brain wants to get rid of them quickly. However like so many things to do with dreams, we really don’t know what causes the memory loss to occur.

15. Sleep deprivation can reduce pain tolerance.

Chronic sleep deprivation can make you grumpy, depressed and even overweight. Now we also know that it makes life more painful, literally. Science has found that reducing the amount of sleep you get by half drastically lowers your pain threshold. This explains why doctors always tell patients to get a lot of rest before they go in for surgery.