As an essential and pretty time consuming part of all our lives, there are inevitably some weird and wonderful stories and facts about sleeping. So before you pick out your new memory foam mattress here’s a few of our favourite bizarre sleep ‘facts’:

•    Elephants and cows have non-REM sleep while standing up, and REM sleep lying down, so they would do most of their dreaming lying on their sides.

•    Shining a bright light on the back of people’s knees can reset their body clock, scientists so far haven’t explained why.

•    In the US state of Massachusetts a strange law states it is only legal to snore once the bedroom windows are locked.

•    Fred and Wilma Flintstone have the honour of being the first couple shown in bed together on primetime TV.

•    One survey showed over 125,000 people in the US are injured in and around bed every year. Perhaps a body-contouring memory foam mattress is in order!

•    Dolphins can’t breathe unless they are conscious; they sleep with half of their brain at a time so the other half can control their respiration. Ducks can also sleep with just half their brain so the other half can be aware of potential predators.

•    Newborn kittens and puppies only have REM sleep whereas baby guinea pigs are born highly developed and have hardly any REM sleep. This suggests that REM sleep plays an important role in brain development.

•    Mattresses in Elizabethan times were sometimes secured to the bed frame by ropes. Pulling these made the mattress tighter so you got a firmer bed – the origin of the phrase ‘Goodnight, sleep tight’.

So next time you curl up on your memory foam mattress be glad you don’t have to rope it down and watch out for those bed related injuries! We’ve got a great selection of high quality memory foam mattresses at bargain prices here for you to check out.