so we humans we have a 90-minute cycle on average but you know other species birds for example the sleep cycle from non-rem to rem can be maybe just two or three minutes much shorter non-rem to rem sleep cycle so it's very perplexing we actually don't really understand what determines the length of your sleep cycle across phylogeny across different species the best guesstimate that we have right now is that it has something to do with the relative mass size of your brain it has a weaker correlation with body mass but for the most part the larger your brain mass the longer your sleep schedule and your relative brain mass relative to the rest of you the organism