40 Mindblowing Facts About Sleep

21-25 Sleep Facts

21. Tank crews don’t sleep under their tanks, as there is a story about a tank sinking in mud and crushing people. – Source

22. Sleep deprivation can temporarily act as an antidepressant. – Source

23. LSD cured a holocaust survivor of Auschwitz’s PTSD and allowed him to sleep for the first time in 30 years without nightmares. – Source

24. A man named Dean Karnazes has a physiological advantage in that he doesn’t seem to have lactate threshold; thus was able to run 350 miles in under 81 hours without sleep. – Source

25. The smell of coffee reduces the stress caused by sleep deprivation and damage caused by stress. – Source

26-30 Sleep Facts

26. Dogs circle around because of their ancestors. The process of circling around before finding a place to sleep would mat down grass, as well as scare away any bugs or snakes that might be in the place they want to sleep. – Source

27. As much as 7% of the population has experienced waking from sleep and being totally paralyzed but aware as mind & body become out of sync in REM cycles. – Source

28. There is a rare sleeping disorder called Kleine–Levin syndrome that causes people to sleep for weeks at a time waking only to eat or go to the bathroom – Source

29. Sleeping Beauty’s deep sleep was caused by a splinter of flax in her finger, and during her sleep, she was raped by a king (her father was a Lord). She gave birth to twins while enchanted and one sucked on her finger to remove the flax which woke her up. – Source

30. The “sleep” (eye discharge) in your eyes when you wake up helps seal your eyes in an airtight fashion when they are closed; prevents tears from spilling onto your cheeks, and helps keep tears that coat your eyes from evaporating. – Source

31-35 Sleep Facts

31. After a large meal, a male lion can sleep for up to 24 hours. – Source

32. Cats sleep 70% of their lifetime; we humans only sleep 30%. – Source

33. In the early 1990s, 6-day long bicycle races were quite popular. The winner would be whoever rode the greatest distance in the 6 days. They would get extremely little sleep and hallucinate on the track. – Source

34. Street dogs in Moscow have learned to take the trains from the suburbs into the city for food during the day and then return to the safer, more comfortable suburbs to sleep at night. – Source

35. When former president Teddy Roosevelt died in his sleep in 1919, Thomas. Marshall, the sitting vice-president, said: “Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight.” – Source

36-40 Sleep Facts

36. Andre the Giant died in his sleep while in Paris for his father’s funeral. – Source

37. Seattle has a “tiny house” village that homeless residents can use to sleep, eat and shower. It costs residents $90 a month to cover utilities and is designed to help them get back on their feet. – Source

38. The movie ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ was based on news articles of Cambodian refugees refusing to fall asleep due to nightmares. Many of them ended up dying in their sleep of unexplained causes. – Source

39. In 1993, an Army husband cut off his wife lover’s head, dropped in her lap while she was in the hospital pregnant and said “Look, Diane, Glover’s here. He’ll sleep with you every night, only you won’t sleep at night.” – Source

40. In 1913 researchers kept dogs awake for several days, extracted spinal fluid, then injected this into other dogs which immediately put them to sleep – Source