Given that questions about why we sleep have already been answered, the next logical question is, what happens if we don’t? If I simply (by use of some hypothetical drug) don’t sleep, what would happen to me after a week? a month? Longer?
Come on. This one is too easy. Google on sleep deprivation and you pull up literally thousands of results.
As for the effects, they are too numerous to mention. Effects on the brain, on muscle fatigue, etc… There are effects all across the board. IIRC lack of sleep can and will end in death.
from http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/pubs/understanding_sleep_brain_basic_.htm#What Does Sleep Do For Us?
Whoops. Try this link instead.
Well, hell. Just take your pick, then click on the link “What Does Sleep Do For Us?”
:rolleyes:
If you don’t sleep, the monsters in the closet will get impatient and eat your parents.
Don’t ask me how I know…
You’d probably go crazy and die. Conventional wisdom has it that more than a week without sleep, and you’re treading very thin ice. Several days without any sleep often lead to paranoia, halluciantions and increasingly irrational behavior in humans (sorry, I can’t find a citation for this - I’ll keep looking).
Sleep deprivation also seems to have a negative effect on the immune system - during sleep, the body rebuilds stocks of white blood cells and other cells in the immune system vital for protection against infection. People deprived of sleep were demonstrated to have decreased numbers of these cells ( * Irwin, et al., Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology 1996 Apr;10(5): pages 643-53 * ). Additionally, severe sleep deprivation often leads to generalized infections in the blood stream - demonstrated in rats by Everson et al. ( * American Journal of Physiology, Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. 2001 Feb;280(2): pages R602-3 * ), who observed increased growth of bacteria in normally sterile tissues after sleep loss.
Though I don’t know of any experimental evidence for human sleep deprivation causing death, laboratory experiments involving rats that were entirely prevented from sleeping invariably resulted in the subjects’ deaths - see, for example, the study by Everson et al ( * Sleep 1989 Feb;12(1): pages 13-21 * ) - in which all subjects died or were sacrificed in view of imminent death within 11-32 days - interestingly, many of these rats had no discernable cause of death - the scientists simply couldn’t find anything wrong with some of them. But they were dead, anyway. 
See also, a similar study published by Rechtschaffen et al. ( * Science 1983 Jul 8;221(4606), pages 182-4 * )
For sleep-deprivation’s effects on human neurological activity, see:
Hope that helps!
Kn(yawwwn)ckers
No cookie for you Mister!
Crap. Is there a ** Moderator ** around here who can put my second citation in italics, like I wanted to? I’d be much obliged - I put too much work into that to have it come out all ugly.
Yeah, I should have figured someone would have tried this out on rats at some point.
Heehee little rat Freddy coming after them with a little fedora and sweater…guess I need some sleep myself.
Actually, according to a recent article in the New Yorker about sleep and the new drug Modafinil, although rats have been shown to die when sufficiently deprived of sleep, people have not. People do get rather ‘wiggy’, as most of us should remember from the days of college all-nighters, and a bit mad, but supposedly (according to the article), extreme sleep deprivation does no lasting harm, unless of course you cut your foot off or crash your car from tiredness…
The article goes on to discuss the effects of Modafinil, which helps keep narcoleptics alert, reduces the need for sleep (possibly eliminates it while being taken) and is being considered for use in the military, for pilots, and inevitably, procrastinating students. No doubt there will be odd side effects that crop up down the road, as there are with most of these ‘wonder’ drugs.
Total insomniac checking in here 
I have gone for up to five days without sleep without the aid of drugs.
And i can tell you that by the third day I start to see “shadows” in my peripheral vision that dissapear when I turn to look,and my perception of time distorts.
Watch the movie Insomnia,it is mostly accurate.
I remember a news item from many years ago about a man who never slept. He was a WWII veteran and during the course of the war he lost his ability to sleep, he was always on the alert.
After the war he never regained his ability to sleep. On occasion he would lie down for a couple hours but didn’t fall asleep. At the time of the news item aired he had been going without sleep for 35+ years. At night, while his wife slept, he would go down to the basement and pursue his hobbies.
This is an extreme example but somehow his body adjusted.
People who have manic-depression (bipolar disorder) or the latency for it can become manic when they cut back or are unable to sleep.
Psychiatrists have mentioned to me that a change in sleep patterns signal mood shifts for people with bipolar disorder.
I have been told sleep change is one of the clearest indicators psychiatrists have for presaging or current mood disturbance.
http://www.psych.org/public_info/bipolar.cfm
JL