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What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

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Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#271

Post by freejulian85 »

TwoHeadedBeast wrote: post #213
IIAOPSW wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a future where we have engineered this effect to perfection, and even in your dreams you are expected to work. The effect would be an increase in the supply of labor, without an increase in the population. Wages would be depressed. There would be at least some people who have no reprieve, no moment to themselves, just so they can make it to the next paycheck and survive. 24 hour wage slaves. A human shaped co…

Or alternatively, we get all our work done in our sleep, and conscious time is devoted to leisure.

That's not how it works. There's always going to be someone willing to work in his sleep, plus 1 more hour of conscious time relative to the next guy.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#272

Post by cgriswald »

rwmj wrote: post #261
OJFord wrote: post #249

> Your reaction time will begin lagging around hour 18; after a full night without sleep, it will nearly triple—which, for context, is about the same as being legally drunk. Wouldn't a reaction test be much better than breathalysing? 1. it would catch reasons (such as this) for being unfit to drive besides drunkenness 2. it would work whatever your weight / propensity for absorbing alcohol 3. it tests the actual thin…

Is "legally drunk" (also used in the article) some American term? What does it mean and how is it different from "illegally drunk"?

It means meeting the legal definition of being drunk based on blood alcohol concentration.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#273

Post by thrownblown »

Filligree wrote: post #254
leadingthenet wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but is it a better alternative than hunting/farming in groups? I'm not convinced.

Farming is not a good life. Hunter/gatherers famously had it much better. Doesn't matter. The sustainable population of farmers is orders is magnitudes higher, to the point that they can push out any hunter-gatherers almost without noticing. I hope that modern life is at least closing on that quality of life, but I don't think it is yet, for most people.

the !kung bushmen spend about 15-20 hours a week "working", some as little as 12

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#275

Post by cgriswald »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #106

I went a period of several weeks with little sleep (2-3 hours per day). At first I was really tired. Then that started to go away and my head was numb. After that the numbness went away and I had a persistent headache. The reason why I got so little sleep initially stopped after about 10 days (sleep regression in twin babies). The rest of the time was because it became very difficult to sleep. Any noise would wake me…

Zolpidem was a lifesaver for me. Although I always have really strange dreams and never feel like I get “real” sleep while taking it, it helped me get back on track when my sleeping schedule would go off the rails.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#276

Post by tome »

b123400 wrote: post #178
motivic wrote: post #9

In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Once thing I noticed in grad school is that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. And often I would "dream" up a clever solution to a homework problem during my sleep. J.P. Serre, one of the most brilliant mathematician still living today…

Few years ago I spent quite some time learning Haskell, failing to understand the concept of Monad. One day I just woke up, with the concept understood. It was like magic.

That's interesting. Have you ever woken up with the ability to explain monads?

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#277

Post by jjtheblunt »

motivic wrote: post #9

In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Once thing I noticed in grad school is that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. And often I would "dream" up a clever solution to a homework problem during my sleep. J.P. Serre, one of the most brilliant mathematician still living today…

nice username!

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#278

Post by lygaret »

cgriswald wrote: post #270
toast0 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've hit 24 hours twice on accident shortly after coming home with a newborn child, and was seeing pulsating walls and other weird visual stuff and generally feeling pretty shitty. The first time, it took me until much later to realize I had been awake so long. So definitely some YMMV.

“Fireflies” in my vision and then peripheral movement are the two effects that hit me first, usually around 24 hours. I will often hear what sounds like voices from another room. The first time this happened I freaked out a bit, searched the entire house, peeled outside through windows. When it was clear, I put my ear close to my radio thinking it was on at a really low volume. But of course no matter what I did the…

Audible hallucinations and peripheral movement are exactly what happens to me - I rarely am awake for more than 20h, but it's been 18-22 hours every day for 6+ months, and eventually they just sort of end up there regularly.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#279

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

thrownblown wrote: post #273
Filligree wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farming is not a good life. Hunter/gatherers famously had it much better. Doesn't matter. The sustainable population of farmers is orders is magnitudes higher, to the point that they can push out any hunter-gatherers almost without noticing. I hope that modern life is at least closing on that quality of life, but I don't think it is yet, for most people.

the !kung bushmen spend about 15-20 hours a week "working", some as little as 12

What about the !Kung bush women?

Probably most of the labor of hunter gatherer societies was done by women. The men hunted some, but a bigger responsibility was raiding their neighboring tribes (often for women) and protecting themselves from being raided by their neighbors.

If you look at hunter gatherer societies, many times women are treated as property and there is horrific violence against women.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/worl...

Also a lot of these societies are polygynous with men having multiple wives. So yeah, men work less - but that is because the women do the work for them under threat of violence.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#280

Post by 4b11b4 »

soulofmischief wrote: post #233
Zarath wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand why you'd write something like this, I think that this sort of thinking is the reason people get poor sleep nowadays anyway. This obsession with "efficiency" and "productivity". Even if it is more productive to get sleep, I believe that thinking about it in terms of hygiene or in terms of quality of life is much healthier. Maybe you disagree but not every minute of life should be devoted to doing t…

I understand your point of view, but honestly I have a hard time consolidating the notion of being stress-free with the notion of making as much of an impact as I can. I want to be as productive as possible (when I'm not allotting necessary time for recreational activity, but my social activity is generally at a minimum) because of a driving fear over the future of earth and humanity. I have a deep urge to do as much…

What kinds of projects are you working on?
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