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Trees have sleep cycles?

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posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 01:49 AM
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I stumbled upon this article recently posted on New Scientist and it kind of intrigued me, yet some how I kind of figured it to be true before even having to have a study done, however, it is a breakthrough in science and the first time it has never been recorded. It reminds me of how a sunflower follows the path of direct sunlight in a way, but at the same time it shows that not only do small plants exhibit a consciouss awareness to their surroundings but also trees do as well. The excerpt from a study I quote below goes into the fact that a tree's physical stucture changes during night and day when measured by lasers.


For the first time, trees have been shown to undergo physical changes at night that can be likened to sleep, or at least to day-night cycles that have been observed experimentally in smaller plants. Branches of birch trees have now been seen drooping by as much as 10 centimetres at the tips towards the end of the night. “It was a very clear effect, and applied to the whole tree,” says András Zlinszky of the Centre for Ecological Research in Tihany, Hungary. “No one has observed this effect before at the scale of whole trees, and I was surprised by the extent of the changes.”

New Scientist

I have tried to upload the image provided but it is not working at the moment, go figure, I'll get it in the next comment. Anyways, one of the explainations provided by these findings is:



The drooping effect is probably caused by loss of internal water pressure within plant cells, a phenomenon called turgor pressure. “It means branches and leaf stems are less rigid, and more prone to drooping under their own weight,” says Zlinszky. Turgor pressure, in turn, is influenced by photosynthesis, the process by which plants use sunlight to create sugar from carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis stops in the dark, so this in itself may explain why the branches droop, says Zlinszky.


Does that not sound like something that happens when we feel droopy and dose off to sleep? I guess the next step is to find out if trees dream, if they spasm at night as if they woke up and then go back to sleep. It's quite interesting to see these plants act very similar to humans even though they cannot travel from where they are rooted except by seeding far away lands.


edit on 14-6-2016 by Sometimes because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 01:52 AM
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a reply to: Sometimes

Well I am not currently blocking ad's as I can clearly see a Time Warner ad and yet ATS thinks I am blocking ad's, sorry cannot upload an image at the moment. Tried to figure it out, yet ATS knows if you have blocked ad's in the past I guess.

NVM Here it is, a laser/computer generated morphing of a birch tree from Night on Left, to Day at Right.



edit on 14-6-2016 by Sometimes because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 02:05 AM
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a reply to: Sometimes This is very interesting. Maybe moonlight has an effect on the day to night cycle..? I'm going to look into this more another time because it is late.
Whether or what trees dream about is a lovely thing to contemplate.
Thanks for the OP.
I love trees, they give us air to breath.



posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 02:06 AM
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Happy tree dreams:

Warm sun-shiny mornings, birds merrily chirping.


Tree nightmares:

Woodpeckers... and dogs lifting their legs.




posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 02:09 AM
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a reply to: peppycat

They also clean the atmosphere of CO2 which is supposedly a threat to humanity.


edit on 14-6-2016 by Sometimes because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 02:14 AM
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originally posted by: CranialSponge
Happy tree dreams:

Warm sun-shiny mornings, birds merrily chirping.


Tree nightmares:

Woodpeckers... and dogs lifting their legs.



When I heard "Birds Merrily chirping" it gave me a recent flashback of trauma. I recently slept with my window open and at 5 in the morning nearly 100 birds, owls, you name it were twittering each other at the same time, and it was beautiful, but I needed 3 more hours of sleep and was not happy about the wake up call to birds' freedom of speech.



posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 04:14 AM
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This really hasn't been studied before?

I would imagine the amount of pressure exerted through the inner workings of the tree by the warmth created by the sun, along with the heat byproduct of various processes like photosynthesis, would "stiffen" the tree during daylight hours. Even leaves droop a bit at night. I can see it on my basil.



posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 07:14 AM
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a reply to: Sometimes
Well ain't that something. I will agree that it is pretty hard to process or get energy by way of photosynthesis at night as there is no sun. It would make sense for trees to not expand to much energy while in that period would it not?

But ya! Trees sleep, in there own tree way they may even dream, the mushrooms or fungi process those dreams for them as well as they do for some lackward humans who happen to ingest them...No joke, even though it is funny. There was a thread around here last year I think about how the fungi and undergrowth is like a internet superhighway for forests.

Here is the link, I think, may be a different one as i did not check past first post, but anyways you get the gist.
Plants Communicate using an internet of fungus



posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 08:34 PM
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Ive noticed this, the narcissis flower that opens at night... and tree leaves curled up when taking night photography. I think its neat that some prefer night and some prefer day... thats a study Id really like to see as a follow up to this one, which ones prefer night and day for sleeping.



posted on Jun, 15 2016 @ 03:39 AM
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a reply to: galadofwarthethird

That's kind of why I always thought it was true by mere human eye observation that trees are less outstretched when it is night time, as if they were dormant, just rustling in the wind, but obviously my eyes can't detect a few centimeters of change so I was likely just guessing at the fact.

I know a decent amount about mushrooms and have have seen how a root system of a fungi interweaves it self with another plant's root system, likely to communicate with and draw nutrients from. Plant species's root systems are basically a neural network from what I have seen, as they are able to connect their fibers to one another and transport energy from one another if one is recieving a lot of sunlight or moisture while another is not. Kind of crazy to think about but it would make sense seeing how many plants live on this ball of energy. No reason to think plants don't evolve as well, even if it takes place underground.

Also, according to quantum physics/consciousness, when a plant recieves sunlight-that plant instantaneously sends that nutrition to the part that is needed to best survive at the speed of near light, which is how photosynthesis works.

I remember planting grass seed and for nearly 2 weeks nothing happend, I just kept watering it and nothing. One day I woke up and there was 1 inch grass and the next day two inch grass and so on. The grass laid it's roots before sprouting, likely connecting to eachother seedling in a hive mind and then determining the best possbile time to sprout. Weird to think about but makes sense in a crazy way.



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