--- title: Sleep and dreams in people — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Sleep and dreams in people», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Sleep is not the body switching off: it is a busy night shift when you grow, mend muscles, fight germs and store what you learned that day. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Sleep and dreams in people # Sleep and dreams in people Lesson 363 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/0/) — Sleep is not the body switching off: it is a busy night shift when you grow, mend muscles, fight germs and store what you learned that day. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/1/) — A night is like a ride on a slow wave: you sink from light sleep into deep sleep, rise into dreaming sleep, and do it all again, about every 90 minutes. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/2/) — Watch a sleeping little brother: sometimes he lies still as a stone in deep sleep, and sometimes his eyes flick under his eyelids, which means he is in dreaming sleep. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/3/) — The brain also plays tricks at night: twitches as you drop off, nightmares, sleepwalking and dreams that vanish by breakfast are all normal parts of sleep. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/4/) — Children of 9 or 10 need about 9 to 12 hours of sleep a night and grown-ups about 7 to 9; too little sleep makes it harder to concentrate and makes people grumpy. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/5/) — A night is made of about 4 to 6 cycles of about 90 minutes, from light sleep to deep sleep to dreaming sleep; deep sleep comes mostly early in the night and dreaming sleep gets longer towards morning. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/7/) — REM sleep, short for rapid eye movement, is when most vivid dreams happen, and the brain switches off most muscles so you do not act out your dreams. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/8/) — Babies spend about half their sleep in REM, grown-ups only about a fifth. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/9/) — Most dreams are forgotten within minutes of waking because the brain does not store new memories well during dreaming sleep; writing them down at once helps. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/10/) — Nightmares are common in children and do not predict anything; scary films, stress or illness make them more likely, and imagining a new happy ending while awake often helps. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/11/) — Sleepwalking happens in deep sleep, not while dreaming; children usually grow out of it, and waking a sleepwalker is not dangerous, just confusing, so it is best to guide them gently back to bed. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/12/) — Sleep helps the brain store what you learned, and rats that ran a maze replay the same brain pattern while they sleep. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/13/) — Bright screens and exciting games keep the brain alert and can delay melatonin, the sleepy hormone that rises when it gets dark. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/14/) — Yawns are catching, even reading about yawning can start one, dogs can catch yawns from their owners, and scientists still argue why we yawn. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/15/) — The sudden jerk as you fall asleep is a common, harmless muscle twitch, and nobody is sure why it happens. - ← previous: [Eyes and ears deeper: glasses, colour blindness, tears, earwax and dizziness](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/362-eyes-and-ears-deeper-glasses-colour-blindness-tears-earwax-and-dizziness/) - next →: [The body's rough side: burps, farts, snot, sneezes, hiccups and poo](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/364-the-body-s-rough-side-burps-farts-snot-sneezes-hiccups-and-poo/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)