How the brain tunes in to unfamiliar voices while you're sleeping – and why it matters

By Jakke Tamminen, Lecturer in Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London

Have you ever watched a duck sleep and wondered how it keeps one eye open? Ducks, like many other birds, sleep with one half of the brain awake while the other half sleeps. This is called “unihemispheric sleep” and allows the animal to monitor the environment for predators while getting the rest it needs.

Advances in sleep science show that the human brain also monitors its surroundings during sleep. Since our eyes…

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