What is the purpose of sleep? Scientists have been studying the purpose and why we have a need for sleep. New research is now suggesting that sleep is partly for us to forget what we did that day according to the NY Times. It is known that sleep is also a repair time for the body, since our down time allows our bodies to heal. The brain on the other hand needs it to deprogram and let go of thoughts that it was overburdened with throughout the day. Find out more in this fascinating article The Purpose of Sleep? To Forget, Scientists Say Carl Zimmer FEB. 2, 2017 Over the years, scientists have come up with a lot of ideas about why we sleep. Some have argued that it’s a way to save energy. Others have suggested that slumber provides an opportunity to clear away the brain’s cellular waste. Still others have proposed that sleep simply forces animals to lie still, letting them hide from predators. A pair of papers published on Thursday in the journal Science offer evidence for another notion: We sleep to forget some of the things we learn each day. In order to learn, we have to grow connections, or synapses, between the neurons in our brains. These connections enable neurons to send signals to one another quickly and efficiently. We store new memories in these networks. Read more