My Brain Cannot Rest
By Tegan Roskop
Every night I become wide awake, thinking about every little experience I’ve ever had. Every detail, from embarrassing conversations to all the information I didn’t listen to in class, everyone's names I’ve forgotten, and much more. This is a fairly universal experience; you're lucky if it’s not for you. Maybe you form better connections and memories while you sleep since you can! While we sleep our brain is on a connection train, transporting memories from the hippocampus to permanent storage “bins”. Everything we think about throughout the day and before bed gets aboard the train.
You may feel like you and your brain are resting while you sleep. However, your brain is not actually in total shutdown mode. Your brain is working hard connecting all your experiences, even the “meaningless” ones, to your neurons and forming memories while dumping the less significant ones. And, what is important to you may not be to others. This is possibly why we also dream. Sleeping a full recommended amount is preferred for us to go through all the stages of sleep so we can integrate new information into the brain and hold on to it (Dimitriu, 2019).
Dreams might not make sense 90% of the time, however they work on it. While we sleep, we are forming memories, making connections, dreaming, and making sense of our experiences throughout the day. This is why sleeping is so important, more important than we think! In this blog, I’m going to investigate why we need sleep for our brains and the working gears while we’re dreaming and processing information.
In the Memory Illusions book by Julia Shaw (2016), there is a term called ‘active system consolidation theory’. This theory may answer some of our questions. While we sleep, there are certain wavelengths we ride out like falling asleep, light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. If you don’t know what REM sleep is, it’s a phase consisting of rapid eye movement, dreaming, and body movements. This theory explains that while we are in a slow wave of sleep, our brains are reviewing the memories we make throughout the day and strengthening them to keep them around. The Memory Illusion book discusses many topics that revolve around memory and making connections. Within this topic, “this… is how sleep helps to consolidate memories: by repeating the connections between neurons, and replaying our experiences,” (Shaw, 2016, pg. 117). Synaptic Pruning is also partaking in this time frame which is when our brains get rid of extra synapses. Gordon Wang within the Memory Illusion book theorized that synaptic processing “...allows us to keep our most important memory traces and get rid of the less important ‘noise of daily experience’.” (Shaw, 2016, pg. 117). This means while we are sleeping and forming memories, we are dumping the less important ones that won’t seem to benefit or mold us in the future.
You think you may be sleeping and unconscious, but you’re not. You are experiencing a long rest interval but going through different stages of connecting memories. The blog, “Sleep: It Does a Memory Good.” (Fenn, 2012), discusses how it doesn’t matter how long you sleep to form a better understanding of a memory. It just matters if you sleep at all! However, the article discusses that the effects of sleeping on memory also depend on the skill we are learning or what we’re thinking of. For example, “...if you are trying to learn to surf…, don’t worry if you seem to be getting worse with time – just sleep and performance will be restored! But, if you’re trying to memorize the periodic table, then you might want to study at night to optimize the benefit you receive from sleep.”, states the blog (Fenn, 2012). This is due to declarative memory versus procedural memory, which affects connections differently.
The article “The Functions of Sleep: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective” (Simon et al., 2022) describes the science behind why sleep is so important for us and the contributions it makes to our brains. We process information better when no environmental factors are partaking such as when we are asleep. In the article, they used a method to study the connection called “targeted memory reactivation”. They learned through the study of targeted memory reactivation that, “...established that presenting olfactory or auditory reminder cues during sleep, especially during slow-wave sleep, can meaningfully boost memory consolidation.” (Simon et al., 2022).
Therefore, the reason my brain cannot rest is because I am forming memories! Strong ones too that can stay with me long-term. Now I have an idea as to why my memory could be so unhelpful and that may be because I don’t get enough sleep to let my brain form connections. Maybe this is why we have dreams that don’t make much sense to us (so we think). For example, when I dreamt about sending flowers to someone the other night, it didn’t make much sense to me. Now, I understand I was processing experiences throughout my day and my brain was working through my feelings toward the situation leading me to a formed memory.
References
Cappello, K. (2020). The impact of sleep on learning and memory: Chronobiology and Sleep Institute: Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The Impact of Sleep on Learning and Memory | Chronobiology and Sleep Institute | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. https://www.med.upenn.edu/csi/the-impact-of-sleep-on-learning-and-memory.html
Dimitriu, M.D., A. (2019). The Neuroscience of Sleep. Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-happens-in-the-brain-when-you-sleep#Sleep-memory-and-learning
Fenn, K. (2012). Sleep: It does a memory good. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/you-are-what-you-remember/201210/sleep-it-does-memory-good
Ly, D. (2020). Improve Your Memory with Sleep [Image]. https://www.pocketprep.com/posts/improve-your-memory-with-sleep/
Shaw, J. (2016). The Memory Illusion. London, Great Britain: Random House Books.
Simon, K. C., Nadel, L., & Payne, J. D. (2022, November). The functions of sleep: A cognitive neuroscience perspective. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9636951/#:~:text=That%20sleep%20passively%20shelters%20memories%20against%20interference%20seems,that%20helps%20to%20stabilize%20memories%20in%20brain%20circuits.