Actually 12Stones, I dont think that's quite correct (not trying to put you down) When you're asleep, the brain isn't neccisarily inactive. If anything, it's active in very different regions. When you sleep, your brain essentially collects everything that you saw, heard, and did during your wakening period and organizes it for biochemical memory storage...Think of it as defragging your hard drive (but actually doing something to help). Also, if your brain was not processing anything, chances are you wouldn't dream at all. And since scientists have found that dreaming is imperative to proper brain function, your brain obviously has to be doing some pretty important shat at night. But you are correct, in a sense, that our brain needs a period of non-processing..but only in a conscious sense. When our consciousness drifts out, our subconscious takes over.
also, remember the different stages of sleep. our brainwaves change drastically based on what stage of sleep we're in (the deepest of course being REM sleep)....Actually, looking back on it, the way we sleep is more like....its comparible to a dishwasher and it's different cycles...except we cycle through it about 4 or 5 times during sleep.
