If humans didn't ever sleep.....
- Thread starter ANONANON
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OK, I forgive you.
8 hours is good for me.
naturally I can sleep 12 hours but feel tired still compared to 8 hours and I also find it much harder to get out of bed
It's too late, I'm going to have evil dreams now thanks to you.
Funnily enough I've heard a few people say that they don't get enough sleep, but when they do get the chance for eight hours or more it leaves them feeling rough and lethargic. There were many times when I was younger I'd commute to work on four hours or less and be generally fine, nowadays, no amount seems too much.
I can sleep twelve hours but I doubt I could do it every night.
We wouldn't need beds or bedrooms, so the act of doing that would be more adventerous. You also couldn't sleep off a hangover either!
If there is one lesson taught by studying the OcUK GD forum, it is that missing the point of the topic is the point
Scientists still don't fully understand why we need sleep. All I know is during this 'experience' I dream about a lot of sexy ladies, then wake up to the horrifying sound of my alarm and realise I need to go to work and that Lucy Pinder was not actually.... well you know 
Scientists still don't fully understand why we need sleep. All I know is during this 'experience' I dream about a lot of sexy ladies, then wake up to the horrifying sound of my alarm and realise I need to go to work and that Lucy Pinder was not actually.... well you know
It isn't just us.
Almost all vertebrates need sleep (I think that there may be a handful that are believed not to, but it is very rare!)
Considering that in the "Wild" sleeping is actually a high risk activity the fact that any animal sleeps at all indicates that Sleep is something of fundamental importance.
It isn't just about rest. or even general sleep AIUI, It is about REM sleep and dreaming, people deprived of REM sleep (By being hooked up to monitors and being woken if they show signs of entering REM sleep) will suffer similar consequences to being deprived totally of sleep.
While the amount of sleep any animal needs varies widely (From a couple of hours a day to nearly all of it) being deprived of sleep will generally kill more quickly than being deprived of food!
What I do find myself wondering (Kind of approaching the OP's question from the other end) was how much Sleep would Humans take if we were allowed to sleep freely unconstrained by the pressures placed on us by being a part of an organised society?
My own guess is likely to be between 8-10. with possible seasonal variations (More in winter, less in summer) This is rather more than many people currently survive on. I suspect that most people are chronically sleep deprived. Some researchers currently claim that people who sleep long hours are more prone to ill health. But this (To my mind) is a bit like the Grass/Schizophrenia argument. IE people who consistently "Need" 10 hours a night despite the modern pressures of life, are probably already ill! The longer than "Normal" sleeping is a symptom rather than a cause.
I've often thought it would be quite cool if I didn't need to sleep. I could get so much done at night and now I've got a local 24hr Tesco all of my needs would be catered for.
Hopefully I'd spend the time productively carrying out the tasks I never find time for during the day and not just spend it in front of my laptop, bodily fluids running down the screen.
Hopefully I'd spend the time productively carrying out the tasks I never find time for during the day and not just spend it in front of my laptop, bodily fluids running down the screen.
Nice.
i love how to the question "if people didn't need sleep would X happen" people reply with "people need sleep"
Christ i wonder about some peoples ability to comprehend a hypothetical scenario and not just try to one up the op with their "knowledge".
Christ i wonder about some peoples ability to comprehend a hypothetical scenario and not just try to one up the op with their "knowledge".
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I don't know who wrote that, but it's absolute, utter twaddle.
Most of the stuff in their table was quite blatantly not invented in the middle ages. Some of it may have seen some refinements in the middle ages, but not invented.
-Leezer-
Ignoring the detrimental effects of no sleep then it is unknown whether we'd be more advance cause we can just as likely send ourselves back to the stone age from self-annihilation. If we could do what we do with no fatigue then yes, we'll obviously achieve and do more. However, we can't use ourselves as a comparison since our development has been shaped by our need to sleep. Taking the need to sleep out of the equation would have vastly alter out development path and we'd have become something else.
I read the Russian sleep experiment article and can loosely relate to some of the parts about wanting to be kept awake.
In 2006 after a weeks holiday where I had no more than about 10 hours max sleep, I got home feeling like I was on another planet.
Its strange, you can't really tell if you are asleep or awake. Its frightening to fall asleep but if you don't then you are sort of half in a day dream hallucinating. I started researching way of making me sleep better and stop the nightmares which woke me up constantly and almost rang 999 on myself at one point. It took me a good 3 weeks to properly recover
In short, if humans never slept we would all be dead or crazy within 2 weeks
In 2006 after a weeks holiday where I had no more than about 10 hours max sleep, I got home feeling like I was on another planet.
Its strange, you can't really tell if you are asleep or awake. Its frightening to fall asleep but if you don't then you are sort of half in a day dream hallucinating. I started researching way of making me sleep better and stop the nightmares which woke me up constantly and almost rang 999 on myself at one point. It took me a good 3 weeks to properly recover
In short, if humans never slept we would all be dead or crazy within 2 weeks
Doubt it. The Dark Ages did more for holding us back than sleeping 8 hours a day does.
Where did this golden nugget come from?
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but you are also missing the point of the OP like a lot of others.
It's a hypothetical question and not 'If we stopped sleeping now'.
So if we evolved to not need sleep would we have advanced further but I like the answer that Rozzy85 gave above:
Basically if we evolved to not sleep then we may have had the IQ of a fly and never got to where we are now.
If its a hypothetical question, then yes, presuming there were no side effects and we were exactly the same as we are when we sleep then a lot more could be done
But we may as well ask all sorts of other ridiculous stuff, like where would we be if we didn't need food or water or if we could fly
But we may as well ask all sorts of other ridiculous stuff, like where would we be if we didn't need food or water or if we could fly
damn you must be a delight to have out in the pub.