I hope they don’t find out a way to eliminate sleep.
When you take a natural function that we and every other creature on Earth have been doing since the beginning of life and try to manipulate it through science or medicine, it’s a dance with disaster. Our bodies go to work repairing tissues and fibers and cells while we sleep. Without it, the effects on our minds and bodies would probably be devastating.
Yeah, that is my fear when I think of the idea. As it stands now about 1/3 of the week is spent in sleep, 1/3-1/4 is work and the rest is leisure, home upkeep and whatnot. If we ever found a way to live without sleep we wouldn’t get an extra 60 hours a week of leisure we’d just extend our home upkeep and work schedules by an extra 40+ hours a week. The idea of a 100 hour workweek (when you combine home upkeep work and income work) will become common in a sleep free society. I’ll pass.
These arguments about the necessity of sleep don’t wash, because as has already been stated, THERE ARE ALREADY PEOPLE LIVING FULL, HEALTHY LIVES WHO NEED LITTLE OR NOT SLEEP. If you HAD to have sleep to keep from being fucked up, they would be fucked up, but they’re not, they seem perfectly OK. They’re rare, but they’re there.
From this I deduce that getting rid of sleep is possible, and will occur one day. I also suspect that the people who predicted our corporate masters would extend the workday to “cover” the extra hours are right. So I’m of two minds about it.
These arguments about the necessity of sleep don’t wash, because as has already been stated, THERE ARE ALREADY PEOPLE LIVING FULL, HEALTHY LIVES WHO NEED LITTLE OR NOT SLEEP. If you HAD to have sleep to keep from being fucked up, they would be fucked up, but they’re not, they seem perfectly OK. They’re rare, but they’re there.
From this I deduce that getting rid of sleep is possible, and will occur one day. I also suspect that the people who predicted our corporate masters would extend the workday to “cover” the extra hours are right. So I’m of two minds about it. Though the more likely path is that wages would fall until everybody “had” to have two jobs to stay fed, clothed and sheltered. And people who just worked one eight hour shift a day would be considered lazy welfare types by most people … including most Dopers.
I will refrain from the obvious response to this. 
I tend to agree with those that think we’ll figure out a way to make it work. But I’m also sure it won’t make us happier as a population, and that even if it works perfectly (ie no physical detriment, no psychosis), there will be some side-effects.
Sorry about the double post. I made that first one … in my sleep. Yeah. In my sleep.
I don’t just like sleep because I get tired. I like sleep because, let’s face it-what’s nicer than crawling into a nice, soft warm cozy bed at the end of a hard, cold, wet, miserable day? Stretching out and wiggling under the covers, wraping yourself in a big soft quilt and just relaxing?
And I am NOT a morning person-I like staying up late and sleeping in.
Exactly. Some people will probably get more done. The rest of us will have 5-6 hours more to goof off. Hell, I have a hard enough problem not goofing off when I’m supposed to be working.
If the effects were devastating, then this wouldn’t be the ‘solution’ I am looking for. I want a solution where there are no (physically) negative repercusions.
A lot of people seem worried about the extra work - seems odd to me. My feelings would be that we would increase our work and free time in equal proportions (from an 8 hour work day to a 12 hour work day and from 8 waking hours of freetime to 12 waking hours of free time). So yes, you would work more, but you would also have more non-working time too.
Give up sleep? What a terrifying idea! I love sleep. And not just as a “release” from being tired. Best feeling in the world is waking up in the morning and not having to get out of bed: just lie there half-conscious for an hour or so. I’m not a morning person at all, because morning is when you have to get out of bed and wake up.
Now, if we could get rid of the need to eat, I’d be all for it. Where are those little meal-in-a-pill thingies they had in the Jetsons? Screw the rocket cars - that’s the future tech I want!
Who says you can’t relax? Instead of getting all comfy and happy, enjoying it for 15 minutes then waking up 5 hours later, you can get all comfy and happy and enjoy it for 2 hours and still have 3 hours to do whatever you want with.
Seems to me, we only really enjoy the parts of sleep that we are conscious for, which is to say the parts of sleep that aren’t sleep. Let’s pretend for a moment that instead of 8 hours of sleep leaving you refreshed and happy when you wake up, that it is 30 minutes of sleep, leaving you just as refreshed, would you miss the 7.5 hours?
I’m surprised you don’t find any of the dozen or so activities that I LOVE to do while awake but physically resting in bed as enjoyable as I find them. Hell, I LIVE for them!
I only need to eat once a day. I don’t feel hungry, and it keeps me slim and fit. What if we only need to eat and drink once a day? What if our bowel movements slide out of us as a shiny, odorless capsule in less than 1 second each day? Think of how much glorious free time we’d all have!
Yeah, sure… And think about all the tasty foods that will be banned because they’re not 110% safe, or producing them harm the environment, or it’s cruel for animals, etc… Once it won’t be necessary to eat anything else than a handful of pills.
I’d happilly grab the no-sleep pills, but count me amongst those who can’t comprehend why one would want to give up eating.
Don’t count on taking away my foie gras while I’m asleep because I won’t be.
If you’re talknig about what I think you’re talking about, you’re doing it wrong.
Heh. I always wondered why they called it “sleeping with someone” 
Actually, I meant mostly reading, watching TV and DVD’s, listening to music, daydreaming, and receiving massages.
Allow me to introduce you to a lovely site called http://bugmenot.com/. You type in the name of the url you are trying to get to (in this case, nytimes.com) and it will give you an e-mail and password to log in. No need to register all your personal info to read a newspaper article.
I read about it on the Merck site. This would be a kickass way to die (btw: I suffer from bouts of somnophobia so I may be a little biased). I’ve heard that there are some people that havn’t slept for years due to a bizarre form of schizophrenia. Is this true or an urban legend?
-Saint Cad