We all do it—from the day we're born to the day we die—and it's one of those things that we just don't think that much about. By the end of our lives, we'll have spent about a third of our time on this Earth asleep. According to Thomas Edison, that's a huge waste of time.
我们每天都要睡觉，从出生那天起直到死去，对此我们并没有思考太多。直到生命终结，我们把一生1/3的时间全部花在了睡眠上。托马斯·爱迪生不无感慨地说："这实在是太浪费时间了。"
All animals require sleep to function. Whether we're talking about humans that think they need eight hours to be at the top of their game or a giraffe that only needs a little less than two hours a day, sleep is a really weird thing.
所有的动物都需要睡眠，身体才会运转。不管我们谈论的是睡眠时间最长（长达8小时）的人类还是每天只需要不到2小时睡眠的长颈鹿，无可否认，睡眠的确是件非常怪异的事情。
10.Sleep Paralysis Is The Root Of Many Legends
10.睡眠瘫痪是许多神话故事的根源
Sleep paralysis happens when people wake up unable to move, blurring the line between the dream world and the conscious world. Most of the time, people suffering from an episode wake with the feeling that they're absolutely not alone; some people even claim to see disturbing or demonic figures in the room. Those that frequently suffer from it can be visited by the same figure night after night. Disorders that interfere with normal sleep patterns, such as narcolepsy, can make sleep paralysis episodes much more frequent.
当人们醒来发现自己的身体不能动弹的时候睡眠麻痹就出现了，模糊了幻梦和现实的界限。大多数的时候，人们会在睡梦中突然醒来，感觉他们不是独自一人；一些人甚至说在房间里看到了讨厌的人或者鬼怪。那些经常出现这种幻觉的人夜夜都会被同样的影像惊扰。 人的正常睡眠模式受到干扰出现混乱，比如说嗜睡症，睡眠麻痹的发作就会更加频繁。
We've long known about the phenomenon, and world mythology has some pretty creepy explanations for it. The incubus and the succubus are pretty familiar European tales, but there are plenty of more obscure ones, too. In Brazil, the nighttime visitor is a pink dolphin by day and a seductress by night. In Newfoundland, it's the "Old Hag" that's holding the victim paralyzed. In Japan, the paralysis is caused by a nighttime visitation from an evil monk who binds his victims with an iron rope. In the Caribbean, the spirits that strangle people in the dead of night are the souls of babies who died before being baptized. And in some areas of Africa, sleep paralysis is thought to be the work of zombies.
很久以前，我们就已经知道了这种现象，世界神话故事也对它做出了惊悚的解释。欧洲神话故事里梦魇和女妖是人们熟知的，但是还有更多与此相关的无名故事：在巴西，那个梦中人在白天是一只粉色的海豚，在晚上就变成了一个诱惑人的妖女；在纽芬兰，是"老巫婆"让人瘫痪不起。在日本，那个夜访者是一个恶和尚，他用铁绳把人捆住，所以人才瘫痪不能动弹；在加勒比海地区，夜深人静之时勒住人们的鬼魂是未经洗礼就死去的婴孩的魂魄；而且，在非洲一些地区，人们认为睡眠瘫痪是僵尸的"杰作"。
Sleep paralysis can also be blamed for something else—the ideas many people have about alien abductions. A lot of people who claim to have been abducted during the night report symptoms very similar to other instances of sleep paralysis, such as a feeling of wakefulness and seeing something foreign and bizarre in the room.
睡眠瘫痪还可以归咎于其他原因——许多人都有被外星人绑架的想法。很多声称自己在晚上被绑架的人报告的情况和睡眠瘫痪的一些症状非常相似，比如说感觉自己醒着看见房间里有陌生又怪异的东西。
9.Sleepwalking Is Evolving
9.梦游症不断升级
Back in the day, the most we had to worry about was getting up in the middle of the night and wandering out to the barn or down the street. Now, however, our nighttime activities are evolving with our daytime ones. "Sleep-texting" and "sleep-emailing" now happen right alongside sleepwalking. So if you get some bizarre correspondence from someone in the middle of the night and they say that they can't remember it the next day, there's a chance they're telling the truth.
一天里我们最担心的事就是半夜里起床然后跑到谷仓里或者大街上游荡。然而，如今我们的夜间活动不断升级，甚至掺杂了白天的活动。现在人们除了梦游之外，还会在睡梦中发短信和发邮件。所以，如果你在三更半夜收到别人的奇怪短信，第二天他们说自己完全不记得这件事了，他们很有可能说的是实话。
According to professors at the New York University's College of Dentistry, the act of texting and of answering an alert on our phones has become so ingrained in us that it's crossing the boundaries between being asleep and being awake. The kind of messages being sent varies by the sleep-texter; some people send incoherent or just badly spelled messages, and others text as fluently as when they're awake. Some people even have preferred sort of messages they like to send, like inappropriately romantic ones. One of the common outcomes of sleep-texting is embarrassment, regardless of the context of the messages. Stress and exhaustion can increase the likelihood of sleep-texting, but a few simple tricks—like turning your phone off and putting it well out of reach—can help prevent embarrassing messages. It's also thought that sleep-texting—and other similar nighttime activities—can interfere with deep sleep. This can make the sufferer more tired and, in turn, more likely to do it again.
根据纽约大学牙科学院的教授们所说，手机一有提示我们就编辑回复短信的行为已经在我们的大脑中根深蒂固，所以在半睡半醒的时候就会"过界"。发出的短信因发信人不同而不同；一些人会发一些不连贯的或者拼写错误百出的短信，而一些人的短信就像在醒着时编辑时那样流畅。一些人甚至会偏好发一些他们喜欢说的话，比如说不合时宜的浪漫情话。不管短信内容如何，在睡梦中发短信的普遍结果就是造成尴尬。压力和疲惫会增加睡梦中发短信的可能性，但是一些简单的把戏——比如把手机关机，把它放在手够不到的地方——就能成功地阻止你发出尴尬的短信。人们还认为睡梦中发短信和一些其他类似的夜间活动都会干扰深沉睡眠。这样在睡梦中发短信的人就会越来越累，反过来，再犯的可能性就会增大。
8.Counting Sheep Absolutely Doesn't Work
8.数绵羊一点作用也没有
Having trouble sleeping? Chances are, you've gotten some unsolicited advice from colleagues that saw you yawning, and it was probably the hilarious suggestion to start counting sheep. The idea of counting sheep to fall asleep is an ancient one, and it's thought to have its origins in actual sheep. The theory behind it is that shepherds who were watching over their flocks at night would become so concerned about the safety of the animals and the presence of nighttime predators that they would count the sheep over and over again to make sure they were all still there and in one piece. Eventually, the shepherds couldn't keep their eyes open anymore and would fall asleep.
睡眠有障碍？很有可能你从看见你打哈欠的同事那里得了些主动建议，而且这个建议极有可能是可笑的数绵羊。数绵羊会睡着是个老掉牙的想法，而且这个说法的起源来自真正的羊。背后的故事是这样子的：在夜里看守羊群的牧羊人们非常关心羊群的安全，担心晚上会有掠夺者出现，以至于他们把羊数了一遍又一遍以确保它们还在那儿，完好无损。最后，牧羊人们再也睁开不了眼睛，沉沉睡去了。
It's one of those sayings that just kind of stuck. Unfortunately, it's absolutely not going to have the same effect on you as it did on those shepherds. The idea behind counting sheep is that it's going to occupy your mind with a monotonous task. In turn, this should push away panicked thoughts of what you need to do tomorrow or stress over the previous day's events. The problem is that it's too boring, and, even as you're counting, other thoughts will start to intrude. When it comes to visualization, a better idea is imagining something relaxing that takes some brain power to maintain . . . but not a whole lot of it.
它是其中一种非常流行的说法。不幸的是，数绵羊在牧羊人身上起到的效果和在你身上起到的效果完全不同。数绵羊这个办法是用一项单调的任务占据你的大脑。这样的话，就会赶走你对明天的恐惧或者对于过往的忧虑。问题是它实在过于单调乏味，就算你在数绵羊的时候，别的想法也会不由自主地冒出来。想象的时候，最好想些让人放松的事情让一些大脑力量集中……但是也不用全部都集中起来。
7.The Dangers Of Sleep Deprivation
7.睡眠不足的危险
We've all pulled all-nighters and spent the next day cranky and waiting for the moment we could finally go to bed. That's not what we're talking about, though; long-term, chronic sleep deprivation is downright scary. Go a few days without sleep, and you'll start suffering from hallucinations, high blood pressure, and memory loss—on top of the more short-term effects like being irritable and depressed. Long-term sleep deprivation, voluntary or involuntary, can lead to weight gain, random moments of losing consciousness, and even permanent damage to the immune system. It's not unheard of for people to die after going without sleep for even as little as three days; we hear about sports fans like Jiang Xiaoshan, who tried to stay awake to watch a marathon of football championships.
我们常常熬通宵，第二天情绪暴躁，然后等待着最终能够上床睡觉的那一刻。不过，我们谈论的不是这个长期习惯性的睡眠不足会造成非常恐怖的后果。连续几天不睡觉，除了短期影响会变得易怒和压抑之外，你还会出现幻觉，高血压和记忆力衰退的症状。长期睡眠不足，不管有意无意，都会导致体重增加，大脑间歇性失去意识，甚至会对免疫系统造成永久性的损伤。短短三天不睡觉人就死翘翘的新闻我们也不是没有听过；比如说运动爱好者蒋小山，每天熬夜看球，一场不落，结果一睡不醒，年仅26岁。
Some people have even tried to channel the weird stuff that happens to them when they're sleep deprived to increase performance elsewhere. Take a look at Jure Robic, a Slovene long-distance cyclist whose technique for winning included simply not sleeping during cross-country marathons. By the end of the race, he'd go from angry and belligerent to seeing wild animals attack, to ditching his bike to confront the shadowy figures he saw lurking around every corner, to being convinced that he's being pursued by people trying to kill him. The hallucinations made Robic push his body even harder and, occasionally, it made his support team take cover in their cars. Robic died in 2010, when he was hit by a car during a training ride.
一些人甚至企图利用睡眠不足产生的奇怪幻觉来增强自己的表现。看看Jure Robic，一个斯洛文尼亚的远程自行车车手，他赢的诀窍就是在自行车越野马拉松比赛中坚持不睡觉。比赛快要结束的时候，他从愤怒好战一直到出现幻觉，看见野兽攻击他，他扔下自行车与潜伏在他四周的幻影对峙，直到确信有人想要他命在追杀他。这些幻觉使得Robic的身体爆发出更多的力量，有时候会把他的啦啦队远远地甩在身后。Robic在2010年去世，在一次训练旅程中他的山地车撞上了一辆汽车，当即死亡。
6.Our Sense Of Smell Stops Influencing Us
6.我们的嗅觉不再影响我们
We all know that smoke alarms and fire detectors are basic safety equipment, but you might not know just why they're so important. There's not much that's more distinctive than the smell of smoke, after all, and it seems obvious that you'd be aware of a fire happening pretty quickly. However, our ability to react to smells changes when we're asleep. Unlike sounds, smells won't wake us up.
我们都知道烟雾报警器和火灾探测器是基本的安全设备，但是你或许不知道它们为什么如此重要。毕竟没有什么比烟味更加特殊了，好像我们能够很快意识到火灾的发生是一件再清楚不过的事情。但是，当我们在睡梦中的时候我们的嗅觉出现了变化。气味，不像声音，不会将我们叫醒。
In a study conducted by Brown University and published in a journal called Sleep, volunteers were exposed to different types of smells during their sleep cycle. The volunteers showed an absolute lack of response to different smells ranging from peppermint to the same smoke they would have smelled during a house fire. Even when fitted with a chin strap (to force one to breathe through their nose) and exposed to the strongest, most noxious of fumes, there was no reaction once the person moved from the first, lightest stages of sleep into deeper sleep. In comparison, the same study found that sounds were much more capable of pulling a person out of even the deepest sleep.
布朗大学进行了一项研究并将其发表在《睡眠》杂志上。志愿者们在他们的睡眠周期里被暴露在各种气味中。志愿者们对各种气味都没有做出反应，从薄荷味到家中起火时他们能够闻到的烟味。甚至给他们带上下巴托（强迫他们通过鼻子呼吸）并给他们闻最刺激最恶心的气味，一旦人从睡眠第一阶段的最浅层睡眠进入到更深沉的睡眠就不会对气味做出任何反应。相比之下，这个研究发现声音更能够把一个人从最深沉的睡眠里唤醒。
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