Why Do Predators Really Leave You Alone While You Sleep?

Why can you lie paralysed and unconscious in the dark for hours while nothing comes to eat you? It is not your locked door. It is a stack of defences, almost none of which live inside your body. A Hadza camp in 2016 had someone awake for 99.8% of the night. Border Cave's 200,000-year-old grass beds were burned clean and relaid over ash. Lions killed more than 560 people in Tanzania between 1990 and 2004, while Greater Kruger animals fled human voices faster than lion growls. Insecticide-treated bed nets account for about 68% of the malaria cases prevented between 2000 and 2015. Tonight you will lie down as defenceless as your ancestors did, and this is why you get away with it. The video is educational and not medical advice. Topics covered: The paralysis of REM sleep The Hadza camp and staggered sleepers The half-awake brain in hotels Border Cave grass beds and ash Tanzania's lion attacks and the moon Why predators fear human voices Mosquitoes and insecticide-treated bed nets Bears, Tsavo lions and skewed fear The five layers of protection #SleepScience #HumanEvolution #Documentary #Predators