If sleep were not required, but just optional, would you ever sleep?

[mathwonk]

what?? is sleep required? i have not slept since 2004.

 

[lurky]

No side effects? Why wouldn't you? You could get the surgery and still go to sleep later. This is a much weaker question than the one posed in the OP

I was trying to address the issue some people were having with "but if I don't need sleep, then I wouldn't know what it means to need sleep, therefore I would not sleep."

 

[aruna]

Have you ever dreamt without being asleep?

I am not sure but I think so, yes.

What about you?
Anyone else?Is it different from being lost in random thought, though?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I am not sure but I think so, yes.

What about you?
Anyone else?


Is it different from being lost in random thought, though?

Several years ago I went through a bit of a bad patch where I had horrific nightmares multiple times a night for over a year. I'd wake up haggard, scared and depressed every day. Towards the end it got so bad that I began to hallucinate some of my nightmares whilst I was awake.

I got through all that though and am better for it. However whilst I relived some of my dreams as hallucinations I was not dreaming, there is no way to dream whilst you are awake. You can have lucid dreams where you are beginning to fall asleep but you do not really qualify as awake then.

Thinking deeply about something (daydreaming) has some similarity to dreaming (you "come to" and realize you can't remember how you walked to where you are) but is quite different

 

[mrchristo]

i love sleep, but also love my study and work.
dont think that i would change too much

too much study/work makes you go crazy, too much sleep makes you lazy.
but going to sleep whilst listening to audio lectures is the best of both worlds (any field of physics)

 

[elabed haidar]

if it comes to me id sleep more especially for the marvelous dreams

 

[fluidistic]

How can you sleep if you can't be tired?
If you can set your sleep-time then I'd try to sleep say for more than 24 hours and then wake up. If I prefer dreams than reality I'd go in a hospital so that I get intravenous food/water and would sleep all my life.

 

[viko]

i think the question is "don't you hate having the need to sleep sometimes?"

yes, sometimes i can't get why i have to spend half of my life resting in bed
i tried things like sleeping 15 minutes many times along the day or that stupid things... them didnt work :P

 

[hemeliscus]

50% would be great..

 

[Geezer]

If sleep were not required, but just optional (you didn't get tired), would you ever sleep? I can say that I'd sleep much less often, if ever.

If I didn't need sleep to function or retain knowledge, I wouldn't sleep at all. Ever.

 

[Geezer]

yes, sometimes i can't get why i have to spend half of my life resting in bed
i tried things like sleeping 15 minutes many times along the day or that stupid things... them didnt work :P

I've looked into some of those alternative sleep schedules (e.g., polyphasic sleep), but I've never actually tried them out. However, I've discovered that I can get by with less sleep at night if I can fit a nap or two in during the day. The total sleep time (naps + night sleep) is typically less than a full night's sleep and I seem to manage just fine.

 

[Geezer]

If you could suddenly undergo some procedure that would utterly and completely remove your need for sleep, would you do it?

My answer: Absolutely.

I absolutely agree.

 

[Geezer]

I'd sleep just for the dreams.

I've never had interesting dreams. My brain doesn't appear to "suspend belief"--I can't even enjoy movies or books that are too fictitious...if I watch TV, it's a documentary or the like, definitely no science fiction--so nothing other than very ordinary, could-happen-in-real-life-any-day-of-the-week dreams ever occur. Very boring.

 

[Noirro]

I think I wouldn't. There would be so much I could do if I didn't have to sleep since lots of time would be saved.