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Comment by moffkalast | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if eventually once this is more thoroughly researched there could be a way to induce constant cleaning instead of having to do it while unconscious at night? Or at least reduce the hours required. If we could solve this we could just stay awake perpetually and instantly gain a 30% longer lifespan as it were.

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If there is any magic bullet, it'll be something biological evolution can't easily jump-to or stumble-upon. Otherwise I think it would have happened already, given the risks of sleep and the rewards of an expanded activity (or at least awareness) cycle.

Well it's not unheard of that some people won the genetic lottery and are more efficient at it, functioning normally with only 3, 4 hours of sleep every day. There's definitely room for improvement for those of us that need 8 or 9 lmao. Hell even reducing it to just 7 or 6 would be such a massive gain.

For "Short Sleeper Syndrome", it remains to be seen what the long-term tradeoffs are.

Kind of like how someone might excel at a specific test because of a lesser sense of pain, but that lack of feedback loop can be detrimental in the long run as they keep injury themselves without noticing.

> I wonder if eventually once this is more thoroughly researched there could be a way to induce constant cleaning instead of having to do it while unconscious at night?

Hopefully without having to induce those brainwaves, otherwise you might be able to do it during the day but you wouldn't exactly be conscious. But there's also the question of whether those brainwaves are doing more than just cleaning the brain.

I think some types of learning and memory formation also happen during sleep, right?

> Hopefully without having to induce those brainwaves, otherwise you might be able to do it during the day but you wouldn't exactly be conscious. But there's also the question of whether those brainwaves are doing more than just cleaning the brain.

...Lucid daydreaming button, anyone? Maybe not lucid if it's the exact same as normal sleep, but I'm sure that if such a thing more exist, you'd be able to adjust exactly how it affects your brain.

But your brain is disconnected from your body during dreams, to keep you from flailing around. Sometimes you even wake up before the block is lifted and can’t move. So controlling such a device would be difficult.

You're describing sleep paralysis, right? It's not so much a disconnection as it is an inhibition. Attempts to move most of your muscles are blocked, but external stimuli still get in. You know, once upon a time someone started the washer while I was presumably in REM, and I started to hear something in my dream. When I woke up, it only took me a couple minutes to realize that what I had been hearing in the dream was some greatly slowed-down version of the washer that had just been started, since I guess my dream time was travelling faster than real time. I think the only reason it didn't wake me up is because I'm used to sleeping through the sound of the washer running and may even normally filter it out. That's just the first time that someone managed to turn it on in the middle of my actual dreaming phase.

Yeah, that’s right. I had it once before I knew it was a thing and could see, hear, feel, but not move. Quite terrifying at the time, even if it resolved pretty rapidly.

I've been trying to induce it willingly for around a decade at this point. Same for lucid dreaming. Haven't really managed to do either one, not sure if I am capable of it either. Oh well.

All my odd dream/sleep experiences came as a teenager, got every one at least once, lucid dreams I had several times, also night terrors, and sleep paralysis. Nothing since then.

> But your brain is disconnected from your body during dreams, to keep you from flailing around

Tell that to sleepwalkers!

I believe there are two "obvious" theories on how sleepwalking may occur:

- Sleep paralysis doesn't properly activate, and someone accidentally transfers the motion of walking into real life. proprioception may pass through to the dream, they might perceive a dream environment that allows them to navigate the real one. (i.e. righting themself from bed, staying upright while walking)

- They aren't fully asleep, but they aren't awake/aware either. I've had my fair share of people telling me that I said or did things after waking up and before immediately going back to sleep, and those are things I don't remember doing at all, probably because they weren't properly recorded in memory because my brain was not fully awake. (Some of these cases could have been DID though.)

More efficient sleep is possible with ultrasound. But keep in mind that the glymphatic system seems to expand as other systems contract. The waves are tied to brain activity slowing down, can’t have one without the other. That said, could intersperse active times of the day with naps. But naps alone don’t seem sufficient as good sleep.

To what degree is it more efficient? For example could you halve your sleep requirement? That would already be huge.

> The waves are tied to brain activity slowing down, can’t have one without the other.

But why? Is this knowledge onservation based (“that is how it is in the organisms we studied”) or is it a theoretical limit?

Dolphins for example seems to get by without fully going unconscious. (I’m talking about the literal marine mamals, not a chronotype or anything like that here.)

The waves are actually tied to the synchronous firing of neurons which is the hallmark of deep sleep.

Philips has a headband product called DeepSleep. They claim it increases your deep sleep by playing some sort of sound during your sleep that induces more deep sleep. For some odd reason, despite being a Dutch company, the product was only sold in the US. I spent a lot of money having it imported to Netherlands.

Unfortunately I can't tell whether it works. I rely on headphones and earplugs to block out sounds during the night. Sounds such as cars and airplanes outside, or other people in the house going to the toilet, tend to wake me up unless I block out those sounds. And the handband is not compatible with headphones or ear plugs.

I wish there is a better solution.

It appears to be discontinued

Check this out, I just saw a reference to this recently:

https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/noninvasive-brain-wave-treatmen...

There already is constant cleaning, the brain just can’t seem to keep up. Sleep is more efficient at clearance. People are working on making sleep more efficient. As you can imagine, military leading here.

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