WHY SLEEP?

» tomjax - Who is really in charge? conscious/unconscious?

The article by Dr White on "why Sleep" is excellent and provocative as is his great body of work on Psychiatry and sleep disorders.
The question reminded me of a discussion I had with my sleep clinic director, a PHD in psychology and Physiology following my sleep study.
One of his fanciful musings was also that we do not understand why we need sleep or how it works and how do we know that our conscious daytime contact with the "real" world is what is in charge of our psyche.
If we consider our unconscious and awareness as a type of dissociative relationship in which neither is aware of the other except to a very limited degree in dreams, then is it not possible to construct a scenario that the unconscious is really in charge and simply tolerates our "aware self" to provide it with the necessities to do its thing.
This may be analagous to parallel universes of quantum physics in which we all may be only probability waves.
Of course, this would limit its perspective totally to its inner self and any influence the "aware" self has is purely speculative.
I am presently reading "time Line" by Crichton. Maybe this is something for fiction, but it is provocative.
And if this is possible, how does it determine values and knowledge, or is this its function?
Just a thought- maybe I have too much time on my hands.

-- posted by tomjax

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