Turns Out Your Brain Does Sleep ‘With One Eye Open’ Sometimes

Have you ever wondered why you can’t sleep in a new place and you prefer to sleep in your own bed? Science now has the answer. As it turns out, when someone says they’re going to sleep “with one eye open” they’re not exactly lying.

A phenomenon, what scientists call the “first-night effect” (FNE) has now been studied. It happens when a person stays in a new place that’s unfamiliar to them, like a motel room. The brain goes into survival mode, with it only turning half off, resulting in one hemisphere remaining more “awake” than the other, in a state of readiness for trouble.

Scientists from Brown University who made the discovery have also suggested that it may help us to jump awake when a strange sounds approaches. Even though FNE has been known for some time now, it has never been fully understood why it happens — until now.

Sleep scientist Masako Tamaki and her colleagues used advanced neuroimaging techniques to carefully analyze 35 volunteers and their brains while they slept. Yuka Sasaki of Brown University and lead author, said in a statement:

“We know that marine animals and some birds show unihemispheric sleep, one awake and the other asleep.

While the human brain doesn’t show the same degree of asymmetry that the brains of marine animals do, the new findings suggest that our brains may have a miniature system of what whales and dolphins have.”

To read more go to Vision Times