What's Powiull Sleep?
I am not sure yet where all this research is leading, but I thought I would share with you what I discovered up to this point. Enjoy! :)
Unihemispheric slow-wave sleep is the way some animals sleep where half the brain is asleep and the other half is alert. Dolphins for example, are reported to surface for air while asleep, thanks to this slow-wave sleep. This is known to only happen in animals and not humans.
However with further study, I found that this does occur in humans while sleepwalking. Here is a quote from Wikipedia's sleepwalking article, "Contrary to popular belief, most cases of sleepwalking do not consist of walking around (without the conscious knowledge of the subject). Most cases of somnambulism occur when the person is awakened (something or someone disturbs their SWS)"... " It generally occurs when an individual moves during slow wave sleep or SWS (during stage 3 or 4 of slow wave sleep—deep sleep)". This is to say, that people who sleepwalk are not acting out a dream. Slow wave sleep (the deepest sleep and hardest to wake form) happens before the R.E.M. stage (where dreams are experienced).
During the slow wave sleep stage, the consciousness can respond, without conscious recollection. Yet, this does not only happen during slow wave sleep. In fact humans preform tasks without conscious recollection on a daily basis, highway hypnosis is one example of that. This happens when you drive a great distance and are unable to recall consciously driving. Also termed automaticity, it can be found while walking, speaking, bicycle riding, assembly-line work, or anything you do routinely out of habit. All these things are done on a brain wave pattern called Theta. During stage one of sleep, theta waves can be found. Other activities that produce theta wave include: hypnosis, meditation, deep daydreams, and lucid dreaming. This is the stage before stage two of baseline sleep and after drowsiness (the stage between awake and falling asleep). Slow wave sleep happens after stage two of sleep (after baseline sleep).
Through this research, I found several sites that said the R.E.M. stage of sleep is not the stage that makes you feel restful. Slow wave sleep stage is the most restful stage. I also discovered that sleep in mammals that have the unihemispheric slow-wave sleep ability don't even enter a R.E.M. stage of sleep, all their sleep patterns consist of non-R.E.M. sleep stages. For an example of this research, I found this popular site explaining Different Stages of Sleep. If you scroll down to the bottom where you see "Stage 3 and 4 or Delta sleep", you can read "Contrary to popular belief, it is delta sleep that is the "deepest" stage of sleep (not REM) and the most restorative. It is delta sleep that a sleep deprived person's brain craves the first and foremost." I also found Wikipedia's Slow-wave sleep article, backs that information up, saying "After sleep deprivation there is a sharp rebound of SWS, suggesting there is a "need" for this stage."
This information is convincing evidence to me, since being awoken from having a dream (where the R.E.M. stage is happening) I feel very rested. Of course, I would feel rested because I already experienced the most restful stage of sleep (slow-wave sleep). If this is true, then polyphasic sleep does not retrain the R.E.M. stage, it retrains the slow-wave sleep stage. However, the R.E.M. stage must be retrained too in order to experience dreaming before sleep and vivid dreams. Yet, stage one of sleep (theta waves) must be realigned too in order to increase lucid dreaming and heavy daydreams while on polyphasic sleep. And while on polyphasic sleep, I could fall asleep a lot faster (generally one minute) then on monophasic sleep (15-20 minutes), which suggests the sleep stage two is reshaped too.
In another article I discovered more about slow-wave sleep: by Edward Willett. "Guilio Tononi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, has discovered that it’s possible to stimulate slow wave activity" ... "he’s primarily interested in generating slow wave activity on demand so he can test his hypothesis about why we need sleep." To learn more about how he does this, go here: http://dericbownds.net/uploaded_images/Massimini.pdf. To watch a video in his study on sleep in general, go here: http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/waking-up-to-sleep/giulio-tononi.
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