nigma
Member
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2013
- Messages
- 218
We humans stand vertically against the force of gravity. When sleep is needed we lay down horizontally, that is... we change our orientation to reduce the effect of gravity, therefore gravity is a stressor that we seem to need regular breaks from. When we sleep we loose our consciousness, which is highly dangerous in a competitive world like our own, any prey animal could take advantage of us during sleep. We sleep for 1/3 of our lives, which is a very, very significant amount of time and cannot be understated. Therefore sleep must be very important as we are apparently willing to put ourselves in danger 1/3 of our lives.
I'm coming at this from an electric universe paradigm, please go to thunderbolts.info if you are not familiar with it. But basically it is an alternative model of the universe where electricity is given a dominant role at all scales, it is informed from the mythology of all peoples around the world, which mention great electrical disturbances in the sky and ground that happened in the past. As such, it views the past as being highly catastrophic and therefore opposite to the prevailing view of uniformitarianism, where the earth and to solar system are thought to have been relatively uneventful for 1000s and 100,000s of years. Therefore uniformitarianism takes how the world appears and behaves now, as applicable to the past, but this is an assumption. There is enough evidence to suggest that the past was very different and that modern times are far less pleasant than during a 'golden age' which is a highly universal myth.
With the above in mind it is possible to think of sleep as an abnormality. I remember hearing that there is, so far, no known physiological attribute that correlates with the amount of sleep needed, i.e. when comparing organisms, the amount of sleep taken doesn't seem to be associated with body size, brain size, activity level, etc. so it seems to be a mystery. Also within humans there are large variations, apparently around 0.5% of people need only half as much sleep as others. There is also a tribe where the people don't sleep but just have a few 20min naps lying against trees throughout the day/night. Based on the above and other things I cannot recall at present, I think its possible sleep is a modern phenomenon that did not exist in the past, at least not in its current form.
Gravity also seems to have increased overtime. Mankind has used smaller and smaller bricks/blocks for building structures overtime. Dinosaurs do not seem to have be able to stand in present day gravity, calculations show their bone mass could not support their own weight. There are also the megafauna and flora that apparently all died out only very recently (going by mainstream dating), without proper explanation.
It is highly speculative but very interesting to picture the effects on physiology of our modern environment if it is actually very different to the past. Our body template would be currently unsuited to the modern increased force of gravity, this would constantly be activating the stress systems in the body, which systems would be activated to respond to the stress? One is the management of pressure in the body, partly controlled by the kidneys by altering the amount of electrolytes and water in the blood and body. I know from personal experience the effect of drinking water with electrolytes on my self perceived level of consciousness. I can at times feel like my awareness of reality is dipping in and out of actual consciousness, then have a 600 mL electrolyte drink and suddenly feel like I have just woken up. This effect is obviously most pronounced at the time of day I usually have a 'lul' which is around 6pm when I arrive home from work and can relax. But note this is after being vertical for about 12 hours. For those 12 hours my body has had to resist the force of gravity pushing everything down and this includes all the dissolved substances in my blood and cells. As the brain is at the top of the body, it is more sensitive to lowered blood pressure than other parts of the body. As well as the kidneys controlling blood pressure, in a body hypovolume situation (from dehydration or blood loss), the brain can send messages to the blood vessels to contract to allow more pressure to the brain to keep consciousness going, this requires energy of course and so is connected to the bodys stress and adaptive systems Ray spends much time talking about. How much stress/adaptive energy is used by the body just trying to maintain consciousness over the course of a day? I'm not sure what proportion it is, but I think it is related to the amount of time we need for sleep, as we spend the day vertical and then rest for 1/3 of the 24hr day horizontal to repair and undo the effects of being vertical. In an even more stressful environment where you have the added stress of cold, animals hibernate laying down and spend even more time avoiding the energy cost of being vertical. I wonder if this is why electrolyte regulators and or osmolytes like taurine, TMG, etc. have such beneficial effects?
I also wonder if the drugs that are now available to reduce the amount of time needed for sleep work by affecting the regulation of electrolytes and thus reduce the stress of gravity which our body design may not be optimally designed for...?
I'm coming at this from an electric universe paradigm, please go to thunderbolts.info if you are not familiar with it. But basically it is an alternative model of the universe where electricity is given a dominant role at all scales, it is informed from the mythology of all peoples around the world, which mention great electrical disturbances in the sky and ground that happened in the past. As such, it views the past as being highly catastrophic and therefore opposite to the prevailing view of uniformitarianism, where the earth and to solar system are thought to have been relatively uneventful for 1000s and 100,000s of years. Therefore uniformitarianism takes how the world appears and behaves now, as applicable to the past, but this is an assumption. There is enough evidence to suggest that the past was very different and that modern times are far less pleasant than during a 'golden age' which is a highly universal myth.
With the above in mind it is possible to think of sleep as an abnormality. I remember hearing that there is, so far, no known physiological attribute that correlates with the amount of sleep needed, i.e. when comparing organisms, the amount of sleep taken doesn't seem to be associated with body size, brain size, activity level, etc. so it seems to be a mystery. Also within humans there are large variations, apparently around 0.5% of people need only half as much sleep as others. There is also a tribe where the people don't sleep but just have a few 20min naps lying against trees throughout the day/night. Based on the above and other things I cannot recall at present, I think its possible sleep is a modern phenomenon that did not exist in the past, at least not in its current form.
Gravity also seems to have increased overtime. Mankind has used smaller and smaller bricks/blocks for building structures overtime. Dinosaurs do not seem to have be able to stand in present day gravity, calculations show their bone mass could not support their own weight. There are also the megafauna and flora that apparently all died out only very recently (going by mainstream dating), without proper explanation.
It is highly speculative but very interesting to picture the effects on physiology of our modern environment if it is actually very different to the past. Our body template would be currently unsuited to the modern increased force of gravity, this would constantly be activating the stress systems in the body, which systems would be activated to respond to the stress? One is the management of pressure in the body, partly controlled by the kidneys by altering the amount of electrolytes and water in the blood and body. I know from personal experience the effect of drinking water with electrolytes on my self perceived level of consciousness. I can at times feel like my awareness of reality is dipping in and out of actual consciousness, then have a 600 mL electrolyte drink and suddenly feel like I have just woken up. This effect is obviously most pronounced at the time of day I usually have a 'lul' which is around 6pm when I arrive home from work and can relax. But note this is after being vertical for about 12 hours. For those 12 hours my body has had to resist the force of gravity pushing everything down and this includes all the dissolved substances in my blood and cells. As the brain is at the top of the body, it is more sensitive to lowered blood pressure than other parts of the body. As well as the kidneys controlling blood pressure, in a body hypovolume situation (from dehydration or blood loss), the brain can send messages to the blood vessels to contract to allow more pressure to the brain to keep consciousness going, this requires energy of course and so is connected to the bodys stress and adaptive systems Ray spends much time talking about. How much stress/adaptive energy is used by the body just trying to maintain consciousness over the course of a day? I'm not sure what proportion it is, but I think it is related to the amount of time we need for sleep, as we spend the day vertical and then rest for 1/3 of the 24hr day horizontal to repair and undo the effects of being vertical. In an even more stressful environment where you have the added stress of cold, animals hibernate laying down and spend even more time avoiding the energy cost of being vertical. I wonder if this is why electrolyte regulators and or osmolytes like taurine, TMG, etc. have such beneficial effects?
I also wonder if the drugs that are now available to reduce the amount of time needed for sleep work by affecting the regulation of electrolytes and thus reduce the stress of gravity which our body design may not be optimally designed for...?