The Purpose of Sleep? To Forget, Scientists Say

[TVNerd]

Woah. Great article. Thanks for the share, Linville! I've been a severe chronic insomniac since I was a small child, but my doctor suspects that this is due to my circadian rhythm being way off- so my body, for some reason, just doesn't know it needs to sleep until around 120 hours have passed, whereas most people's bodies naturally get tired approximately every 18 hours, give or take a few. So that has its own unique set of challenges... and I had read a study somewhere about how you should sleep right after studying, because apparently it helps convert short- to long-term memories, but this seems to focus more on how your brain is actively working to put memories in context, with the rats that /hadn't/ managed their sleep task (for lack of a better word) not knowing what the chamber was that had hurt them.

I'm tempted to draw parallel to the deep-seeded paranoia that starts to seep in somewhere around day 4... I wonder if that has anything to do with my brain just not being able to properly filter out stimuli?

Anybody have any clue how your brain /knows/ what to trash? THAT trips me out to think about sometimes: what have i done, said, thought, or lived that I have NO IDEA of? Weeeeeeird.