Dr Renata Riha is an Honorary Reader and Consultant in Sleep and Respiratory Medicine, and Head of the Sleep Research Unit at the University of Edinburgh.

Adequate, restful sleep is integral to our physical and mental health. Over the last 60 years we have learned more about sleep than we have over the previous 6,000 years. Culturally and philosophically we still maintain a predominantly Descartian view of what is in fact a highly differentiated, liminal state. Sleep is an active process that with ongoing research as to its function continues to illuminate our understanding of consciousness, wakefulness, unconsciousness, dissociation and states in between. This lecture will focus on the importance of sleep to human health, describe stages of sleep and also pathologies of sleep states that put in question our binary views of a process that is fundamental to the existence of all living creatures.

Recorded on Tuesday 14th November 2017 as part of the University of Edinburgh's Our Changing World public lecture series.

For more information on this lecture series, visit www.ocw.ed.ac.uk