Sleep is essential to a person's physical, mental, and emotional well-being. In fact, children who sleep an hour less are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes over their lifetime. Dream includes images, thoughts and experiences while an individual is sleeping. As simple as dreams may seem, there is a process behind why we dream. There are also many reasons why we forget most of our dreams. Our dreams can reflect our thoughts and emotions regarding events that occur in our lives. Finally, each sleep process has its own meaning and benefits. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The Sleep Process When you sleep, the brain does not automatically turn off. There is a step-by-step process when an individual lies down and falls asleep. There are also two different groups of cells associated with sleep. These cells are known as the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus, located in the hypothalamus, and the parafacial zone, located in the brainstem. It is when these two groups of cells switch that the individual is considered asleep. During the first stage of the sleep process, a person constantly alternates between rapid eye movement sleep and non-rapid eye movement sleep. Another small group of cells, commonly called the subcoeruleus nucleus, controls the process of rapid eye movement sleep. Dreams most often occur during this phase of sleep. There are five different stages that occur during non-rapid eye movement sleep. The first stage of sleep would be known as wakefulness. During the second stage of sleep, the individual transitions from being awake to beginning to fall asleep. This is also the stage of sleep where the individual is still somewhat aware of their surroundings, but begins to fall deeply asleep. As the individual enters the next phase of sleep, their heart and breathing rates begin to decrease. The next phase of sleep is commonly called slow-wave sleep. This is mainly due to how slowly delta brain waves travel during this phase of sleep. This is also the phase of sleep during which the body heals and repairs itself. Additionally, the time a person spends in this stage may decrease as they age. Then there is rapid eye movement sleep. This is the phase of sleep in which we dream. Heart and breathing rates are irregular during this stage, and the chemicals our bodies produce during this rapid eye movement phase of sleep prevent us from fulfilling our dreams. While it's important to get enough sleep every night, research has proven that a specific type of sleep has more benefits than others. The research “found that people who spent more time in REM sleep – the phase during which dreams occur – had lower fear-related brain activity when they received mild electric shocks the next day. In fact, surveys have been conducted in recent years to calculate the average amount of sleep Americans get today compared to ten or twenty years ago. “America is now the most sleep deprived it has ever been. The country hasn't always been so sleep deprived: in 1910, people slept an average of nine hours a night. Our culture of insomnia has been propelled by technologies like the light bulband the Internet, which have given us more opportunities to stay awake in an increasingly active 24/7 world. As we said earlier, sleep is a vital part of life and it is necessary in order to function normally. One of the most common benefits of an appropriate amount of sleep is that it has a positive impact on a person's memory. Sleep plays an important role in memory processing, encoding, and storage. Rest is also very helpful when a person is trying to learn or study a specific topic or concept. “Scientists studying the neuronal activity of mice found that a period of sleep immediately after learning a new skill promoted the growth of synapses in the brain specifically linked to this new learning. Tested on their performance after periods of 1 and 5 days, mice that slept after initial learning performed twice as well on the newly learned task as mice that had not slept. “Sleep and plenty of rest can also improve the ability to recall long-term and short-term memories. A sleep-deprived person may have difficulty recalling these memories compared to someone who gets enough sleep. Although creating and remembering memories are both very important, being able to process those memories is most important. This process, also known as memory consolidation, is the process of remembering that occurs while an individual is sleeping. This is when the individual takes what they already know and this process secures that knowledge and creates it in the form of memory. A full night's rest has many other benefits besides creating and preserving memories. An appropriate amount of sleep makes us feel more awake, healthier, and even in a better mood. There are many necessary phases that our body goes through while we sleep that prepare us for the days ahead. For example, sleep allows us to regain things that we may have lost during the day: tissue repair, protein synthesis, muscle growth, and it allows the release of our growth hormone. Another benefit is that those who get at least six hours of exercise sleep each night tend to have a longer attention span. A person who doesn't get enough sleep can quickly develop ADHD. This happens most often in children because when children don't get enough sleep, they react in the opposite way to adults. When adults don't get enough sleep, they tend to be sluggish, weak and tired. When children don't get enough sleep, they tend to be very hyperactive. Finally, another of the many benefits of sleep is that it has the ability to cure depression. According to Rachel Manber, “When their insomnia was corrected after CBT, the success of the depression treatment doubled. Get them to sleep and they stopped being depressed. Other trials, including a recent one led by Colleen Carney, are underway and have reported the same results. Risks of Not Sleeping There are several health risks associated with not getting enough sleep. Some of the health risks are ADHD, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and even Alzheimer's disease. That being said, sleep deprivation in the United States is now considered a public health epidemic. Additionally, the national Highway Traffic Safety Administration predicts that drowsy driving causes 1,550 deaths and 40,000 injuries each year in the United States. Sleep deprivation leads to health problems because the.