What if REM sleep, deep sleep, and dreaming are all processes that defrag the brain?

I know for myself, I go to bed with my brain all a-chatter with the events of the day, fragmentary snippets of conversation and images, half-formed lists of things I need to do but are yet undone or partially in progress, scattered data strewn across the mental landscape.

I sleep soundly and wake up clear-headed and ready to rumble. Sometimes I wake up with a prioritized list of the day's requirements, sometimes just with a gestalt of the day ahead. I take a few moments to be thankful for a new day, a few deep breaths and stretches (aka yoga) and I'm off to a fresh start.

When I don't get enough sleep, I have the feeling all day that I'm playing catch-up. It is my belief that during a full night's sleep my brain defrags, cluttered memory locations are cleared out and reassembled in the proper order, and the storage re-indexed. Tasks for the next day are reviewed and tagged for importance.

Sleep is a wonderful thing.