When we sleep, how are our bodies naturally conditioned to continue breathing as if we were awake? Further analyzing this concept, we have the ability to dictate whether or not we want to breathe. We are able to hold our breath, breathe for a short period of time, or even take long, deep breaths. Can you imagine if our bodies didn’t naturally breathe when we sleep? Well, we would be dead. That’s for sure.
It’s intriguing to an excessive degree to see how our brains are essential functions in our lives. “While sleeping, unconscious breathing is caused by the brain stem.” Essentially, this means that regardless of if we are dictating when we breathe or not, we will sill be conditioned to breathe, because that’s what our brain tell us to do. 
The body in and of itself is a convoluted mechanism. What our bodies can do by themselves is absolutely mind-boggling. The fact that if I fall and get a cut, that my body can refurbish that wound and produce a scab, is a concept that is impeccable. So, when your brother, sister, or even you, trips and falls on the ground, and gets a gaping wound on their knee, “the body naturally responds by limiting blood loss by reducing the amount of blood flowing to the wounded area“. After this step has concluded, the body works with the proteins that are already in our blood, and the “blood platelets already in place, to form a protective covering called a scab.” Thankfully, our bodies are always working to help us. In return, I think its plausible that we take care of our bodies, because we only get one of them.
Before this blog I never really thought about why we continue to breathe as we sleep. I’m relieved that we do continue to breath, because as you said, we would all be dead. It was interesting to learn why our body this this. I too find it remarkable that our body has the ability to heal itself after we get injured like obtaining a knee scrap from falling. I guess we can thank god for our brain stem since that mechanism is vital to us being able to continue to breathe. I decided to research this topic even more and I found an article that explains other things that our body does when it sleeps. http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/sleep/basics/what-happens-when-we-sleep.htm
Interesting read, but how exactly does our body know what to do? By naturally healing the body when it is harmed and the process that goes into that is truly remarkable, but what tells our body this is what needs to be done in order to repair a wound. This is attributed to a multitude of nerves called axons that fire off signals to the brain, where information is received by networks of cells telling the brain that something has happen, thus the repairing process may begin. This pertains to the moving of muscles, knowing that we are hurt, and how we’re able to use the five senses.