What happens to your body during eight hours of sleep?

When you're up against an impending client deadline, sleep might be the last thing on your mind as you desperately work through the early hours. But as this infographic from Dream reveals, getting enough sleep is vital if you want to keep your brain in peak creative condition.

It's a commonly held belief that eight hours is the perfect amount of sleep a person should get every night (apologies to any parents reading this), but does the science back up the claim? Find out by scrolling through the four different states of sleep.

It seems there's a lot going on when we sleep, even though we're too busy being unconscious to notice it. But one thing's for sure, if you want to stay healthy and alert, make sure you gets as close to those eight hours as possible.

Dom Carter is a freelance writer who specialises in art and design. Formerly a staff writer for Creative Bloq, his work has also appeared on Creative Boom and in the pages of ImagineFX, Computer Arts, 3D World, and .net. He has been a D&AD New Blood judge, and has a particular interest in picture books.