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Evolution of Sleep

Sleep is very ancient. In the electroencephalographic sense we share it with all the primates and almost all the other mammals and birds: it may extend back as far as the reptiles.
　　
There is some evidence that the two types of sleep, dreaming and dreamless, depend on the life-style of the animal, and that predators are statistically much more likely to dream than prey, which are in turn much more likely to experience dreamless sleep. In dream sleep, the animal is powerfully immobilized and remarkably unresponsive to external stimuli.
　　
Dreamless sleep is much shallower, and we have all witnessed cats or dogs cocking their ears to a sound when apparently fast asleep. The fact that deep dream sleep is rare among prey today seems clearly to be a product of natural selection, and it makes sense that today, when sleep is highly evolved, the stupid animals are less frequently immobilized by deep sleep than the smart ones. But why should they sleep deeply at all? Why should a state of such deep immobilization ever have evolved? Perhaps one useful hint about the original function of sleep is to be found in the fact that dolphins and whales and aquatic mammals in general seem to sleep very little. There is, by and large, no place to hide in the ocean. Could it be that, rather than increasing an animal’s vulnerability, the function of sleep is to decrease it? Wilse Webb of the University of Florida and Ray Meddis of London University have suggested this to be the case. It is conceivable that animals who are too stupid to be quiet on their own initiative are, during periods of high risk, immobilized by the implacable arm of sleep. The point seems particularly clear for the young of predatory animals. This is an interesting notion and probably at least partly true.

全文翻譯：

睡眠的進(jìn)化
　　
睡眠是古老的。 從腦電圖上看，我們?nèi)祟惡退�有靈長目動(dòng)物以及幾乎所有的哺乳動(dòng)物 和鳥類都一樣需要睡眠；甚至爬行類動(dòng)物也有睡眠。 有證據(jù)顯示，有夢睡眠和無夢睡眠這兩種類型的睡眠取決于該動(dòng)物的生活方式。 從統(tǒng)計(jì)上看，食肉動(dòng)物比被捕食動(dòng)物有更多的 有夢睡眠，而被捕食動(dòng)物更多地?zé)o夢睡眠。
　　
動(dòng)物在有夢睡眠時(shí)，被有效地解除動(dòng)作能力， 并且對外界刺激缺乏反應(yīng)。 無夢睡眠則要淺得多。 我們都看到過貓和狗在顯然的酣睡中， 有一點(diǎn)響動(dòng)耳朵就會(huì)豎起來。 被捕食動(dòng)物很少有深度的有夢睡眠，這看來顯然是自然選擇 的結(jié)果。
　　
而且這一點(diǎn)是有道理的：當(dāng)睡眠高度進(jìn)化以后，愚笨的動(dòng)物比聰明的動(dòng)物更少在 深度睡眠狀態(tài)下喪失動(dòng)作能力。
　　
但是動(dòng)物為什么要進(jìn)入深度睡眠呢?為什么這樣的無動(dòng)作狀 態(tài)也會(huì)進(jìn)化出來呢? 海豚、鯨魚以及水生哺乳動(dòng)物睡眠都極少，這一事實(shí)可以給睡眠的根本 功能提供有用的線索。 海洋中是沒有藏身之處的。 會(huì)不會(huì)是這樣，睡眠不但不增加動(dòng)物受 傷害的可能性，反而是減少了這種可能性呢?佛羅里達(dá)大學(xué)的 Wilse Webb 和倫敦大學(xué)的 Ray Meddis 認(rèn)為情況就是如此。 可以想像得出，在危險(xiǎn)的時(shí)刻，那些由于太愚笨而不能自動(dòng)保 持安靜的動(dòng)物，會(huì)不由自主地變得動(dòng)彈不得。 這一點(diǎn)在食肉動(dòng)物的幼獸身上表現(xiàn)得特別明 顯。 這是一個(gè)很有意思的看法，它至少部分是正確的。