I have to disagree. I’m probably in the minority here, but the daydreaming I accomplish while lying down right before I go to sleep or (at least on weekends) after I’ve woken up but not gotten up is serious quality time. If I didn’t sleep, I’d have no excuse to daydream.
And seeing how daydreaming is as close as I’ll probably ever get to winning the lottery (or any number of other things I don’t care to mention – hello, Lucy Liu!), I’d rather hang on to sleeping.
Are you kidding me? I think I was a cat in a former life. I LOVE to sleep. Curling up in my bed with all my quilts and afghans, with my pillows and cushions and stuffed animals, it’s like being inside a warm, soft little coccoon. Now that, my friend, is quality time.
Hell no! I love sleeping so much, I almost wish I were conscious just so I could enjoy it. The best thing about sleeping is waking up and realising that I can go back to sleep.
I like sleeping too, but I wish I only needed like 4-5 hours a night to be refreshed. I could read alot more books and spend alot more time reading the SDMB!!
I like sleeping, too, but wouldn’t mind if I could routinely get by on a lot less. However, I’m afraid employers would expect (and the law might eventually require) longer work hours if sleep were purely optional.
Has anyone ever stopped to think about how WEIRD sleep is? Why on earth did we ever evolve it? How can it possibly be an evolutionary advantage to be unconscious 1/3 of the time?
I like dreaming, but I do think I’d get a lot more done if I slept less. I don’t seem to function well on little sleep, however, so I figure my next plan will involve staying busy enough that I don’t notice I’m tired.
Sleep shows me that there’s more to life than just living it. I love sleep. Granted, I’m down to about 6 hours a night these days, but dammit, it’s important!
I just finished The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep by Lawrence Block. The main character took a peice of shrapnel through his brain, and apparantly destroyed the part that requires sleep, so he hasn’t slept in 13 years. He reads and studies most nights, and speaks many languages. He makes his living writing term papers for college students.
The best was when the feds had him in custody for weeks and couldn’t make him talk. Turns out most of their interrogation techniques depend on sleep deprivation!
I’m not sure, but I would imagine that it might have something to do with evolving a more and more complex neural network… a biological ‘machine’ that sophisticated simply can’t stay in running order for years at a time… or if such were possible, it would be more energy-wasteful than the design we’ve got and not worth the extra time of activity.
Hasn’t sleep been linked to the reinforcement of learning behaviours or something like that?? Certain brain patterns corresponding to the day’s experiences are reviewed, crossreferenced against earlier memories, and rewritten into new experiences and associations.
Nancy Kress developed this concept in her “Sleepless” trilogy (Beggars in Spain, Beggars and Choosers, and Beggars Ride). An experimental and expensive genetic modification produces a small group of people who never sleep. They do indeed have more time to study and one of them enters a university at an early age, but her dorm room is vandalized by resentful “Sleepers” (unmodified/normal humans). The Sleepless don’t dream, either, and lack that subconscious source of creativity. There’s another side affect of the Sleepless modification but it’s a major spoiler:The Sleepless age very slowly and are practically immortal, and they can pass on Sleepless traits to their offspring. The reaction of the “normal” population is explosive.
Cool idea, but impossible. People who lose the ability to sleep die a slow and nasty death, they don’t last more than a few years; usually more like months. It’s sometimes caused by a prion disease passed down in families ( called Fatal Familial Insomnia or FFM ); sometimes it occurs elsewhere.
It seems to have something to do with dreaming. Dolphins are a good example of how important sleep is; despite an obvious evolutionary incentive to eliminate sleep ( to avoid drowning ), they failed to evolve such an adaptation; instead, their brain sleeps one hemisphere at a time.
Regarding the OP : I’d love it if it were possible. I’d like to eliminate the need for food, rest, drink. and go to the bathroom as well. Darn these human weaknesses…but when my new robot body is ready, I’ll show you all !! Mwahahahahaha !