Why do we sleep? Here is an interesting talk which tries to answer:

http://www.ted.com/talks/russell_foster_why_do_we_sleep?language=en

I am a person who wants my 8 hours of sleep. 6 hours is comfortable. 4 hours is doable. Anything less than 4 hours is tragedy. I remember taking over night buses not being able to sleep in them coming home and sleeping the whole day. In the last half a century of my existence, there have been maybe just 5 Nights that I have not slept. That’s like once a decade. But I’m still not sure why I want to sleep.

I’m also not sure what the colours of my dreams. It is said that kids when they are born are legally blind. Probably they see things only in black and white. Milk givers Vs Milk non givers, maybe. Have also heard that dogs that can only see in black and white. What’s the role of colours in dreams? Do we dream in black and white at night, because there is no ambient light? And on the general subject of dreams, it is correlated to REM sleep. REM is “paradoxical” because of its similarities to wakefulness. Although the body is paralyzed, the brain acts somewhat awake.

Last night I dreamt about being in Kerala. I dreamt about getting onto bus. I realise it is the wrong bus. Hastily got off the bus. Forgot my bag in the bus. Run around to get the mobile number of the driver. Could not find it. Woke up from my sleep. Another dream. This has been the theme of most of the dreams that I remember. Missed trains, missed planes, missed buses. Wonder why I am so fascinated by the theme of getting stuck, though in my 20 years of travel till date, I’ve missed trains only twice, and yet managed to reach in time! So why this worry? Is it that we do not remember the good things that happen to us?

Pico Iyer says that home is not a place where you sleep, it is where you stand. So should we dream more when we are awake?