Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

When it comes to information processing, think of the wake state principally as reception (experiencing and constantly learning the world around you), NREM sleep as reflection (storing and strengthening those raw ingredients of new facts and skills), and REM sleep as integration (interconnecting these raw ingredients with each other, with all past

sleep swells concentrations of a hormone

melatonin helps regulate the timing of when sleep occurs by systemically signaling darkness throughout the organism.