Good point! Thank you for bringing this discussion back on track. Delta sleep provides one with all the hormonal rebalancing and physically rejuvenating effects of sleep. This has been proven.
REM sleep, featuring prominent theta, with across-the-band activation provides mental and cognitive rejuvenation. This phase tends to grow longer and longer as the morning hours progress. The importance of REM in learning has also been established. In addition, a century of psychotherapeutic research- begun by Freud, and continued through prominent researchers like Carl Jung- has established the importance of dreams in developing the healthy individual. These are what I would call baseline facts in the question of sleep. The other aspect of sleep is the frequent, interspersed periods of light-sleep- meaning Non-Delta and Non-REM. These are periods of apparently little value in the whole process of sleeping. Unfortunately, nobody has developed a reliable technique for eliminating just those, while maintaining Delta-sleep and REM sleep. Furthermore, the amounts of all of these periods necessary for achieving optimal health are dependant upon the constitution of the individual. In other words, you must decide what works for you. Practicing meditation before going to sleep helps me sleep better.
I also experiment with lucid dreaming, one of the greatest joys possible in sleep, and to do this I wake up a few hours earlier than usual, stay awake focussing on my intent and meditating, and then after a while returning to sleep trying to bring a continuity of awareness through all these states. This sleep pattern requires that I devote more time to sleep but I think it is worth it in every way. I find that it rejuvenates, energizes, and refreshes my mind and body. Anyways, that is just an example of how one can tailor ones sleeping patterns to better fit ones desires. Also, I highly doubt the causal connection between irregular sleeping patterns and Genius, just for the record.
Here is a recommended reading list:
- Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying. By Francisco Varela and The Dalai Lama
- Exploring the world of Lucid Dreaming. By Stephen LaBerge
- Any of the works on Dreams by Carl Jung
