Drugs Eradicate the Need For Sleep

MattSparkes writes "New Scientist is running an article on lifestyle drugs that claim to help you function on little or no sleep. I'm dubious, but the interviewee in the article claims they work well. 'Yves (not his real name), a 31-year-old software developer from Seattle, often doesn't have time for a full night's sleep. So he swallows something to make sure he doesn't need one.'" But, sleep is where I'm a Viking!

Comments

Not good.....

[BWJones]

Speaking as a scientist who used to study sleep and sleep disorders, I have to say this is troubling. Sleep has evolved for a purpose and a number of studies have shown that sleep is necessary or crucial to consolidate long term memories, stabilize mood and more. If you are a simple automaton in your job, then *perhaps* you might be able to get away with something like modafinil for short periods of time, but if your job requires thought and the use of memory and higher cognitive function, then you are doing yourself a disservice by taking these drugs. I worry that the long term effects will not become apparent until years later, like I suspect might happen with PDE inhibitors like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.

Humans have evolved an organized architecture of sleep where we progress through a number of stages of sleep. In other words, sleep is an active state that is not homogenous in that there are five generally accepted states of sleep separate from consciousness. Stages 1 and 2 are light sleep whereas 3 and 4 are deeper, more restful states of sleep with lower brain metabolic rates and more cortical synchronization. Stage 5 or REM sleep is actually a very active stage of sleep with very high metabolic requirements rivaling that or exceeding wakefulness and its thought that REM sleep may be necessary for memory consolidation. The trick is that the architecture of sleep is broken up into various stages and you do not really approach the most intense REM periods until after you have progressed back and forth through some of the other stages including a more brief period of REM sleep earlier in the night. So, the most intense REM period is late into sleep and often early in the morning. If you short change yourself of the other sleep periods, you reduce the quantity and quality of your REM sleep period.

Re:Not good.....

[Hoi Polloi]

I've always wondered about the need for sleep. For an animal to allow itself to go into an extremely vulnerable state every day for hours it must have a VERY good reason for doing so. The fact that sleep has been passed along in our genes even in the face of natural selection (sorry creationist museum) shows this. I think we've barely penetrated the real reasons for sleep.

Re:Not good.....

[Golthur]

Not that I necessarily agree with this, but Carl Sagan hypothesized in Dragons of Eden that mammals were originally nocturnal, and evolved sleep so as to be still (and thus more difficult to spot) during the day when the reptiles (which dominated all niches when mammals first evolved) were active.

Re:Not good.....

[lawaetf1]

I couldn't agree more. I'm not a sleep scientist but find it alarming how willing people are to submit to the "hey, it works!" credo as if they were putting some new additive in their car's fuel tank.

The problem is:

So how does modafinil work? "No one really knows," admits Vaught.

Of course should this drug turn out to cause major depression later in life I'm sure the pharma world will be waiting with open arms and a handful of prescriptions. It's pitiful how quality of life, savoring being human (yes, damn it, savoring being an absolute loaf for a day or month or year), is so readily sacrificed for the treadmill of modernity.

Work harder, get a bonus, go ski with friends in Aspen! Buy an Audi! Vacation in Bali! You too can have "it" if you peddle just a little harder!!

Pass me a good book and a sunset any day. I used to subscribe to the rat race and am eternally grateful that I learned early on what a farce it is. Sadly this country's economic model is based on the "more, more" mindset and, almost necessarily, popular culture reinforces it at every turn.

Re:Not good.....

[Mprx]

REM sleep can't be necessary for memory consolidation, because monoamine oxidase inhibitors eliminate REM sleep, but not not impair memory even if used for a long time. Furthermore, this is a there is a case of brain injury which eliminated REM sleep but did not impair memory. http://www.npi.ucla.edu/sleepresearch/science/1058 full.html

Re:Not good.....

[tlhIngan]

I've always wondered about the need for sleep. For an animal to allow itself to go into an extremely vulnerable state every day for hours it must have a VERY good reason for doing so. The fact that sleep has been passed along in our genes even in the face of natural selection (sorry creationist museum) shows this. I think we've barely penetrated the real reasons for sleep.

In fact, there are animals that don't appear to sleep, but actually do (dolphins, for example). What they do is sleep half their body and brain at a time. So there's obviously some benefit, as they've evolved the necessity to remain awake, but still get the sleep they need. (Unless it really happens to be some anomaly of evolution (another strike against creationism), like the appendix or spleen, that affects basically the entire population of living creatures). But I would think the dolphins proved otherwise, since they'd be the first to do away completely with sleep.

But a concern is still the long term side effects. By playing with stuff like this, would it lead to mental insanity later on due to paranoia or schizophrenia? We are, after all, playing with the mental state of mind (I'm sure tired muscles still remain tired even after popping the pills, even though the brain says it's fresh). The fact that the miliary trials concluded that it's only useful to about 48 hours wakefulness seems to imply that it doesn't reduce the need for sleep, just reduces the feelings of the need for sleep/sleepiness. We may end up with a population of zombies in a decade or two's time.

Anyhow, when did pill-popping become fashionable? I fear the day where it's "uncool" to not stick some drug in you as part of your daily routine in order to get through the day (as opposed to treating disease). Or the "there's a drug for everything" mentality.

Re:Not good.....

[amliebsch]

It does seem severely evolutionarily disadvantageous, doesn't it? Honest question, for anybody who knows: what is the lowest order of animal life that requires sleep? Eukaryotes don't sleep, do they? Do worm? Jellyfish? Is there some connection between higher-order brain activity and the need to sleep, and does it differ by species?

Re:Not good.....

[BWJones]

Some people only need 4-5 hours of sleep a night.
Why is that?

There can be some play in actual sleep requirements. Whereas most people need 8-9 hours of sleep per night, in long term situations, you can "economize" your sleep by appearing to make it more efficient in that latencies to certain periods of sleep may be reduced over time. But like any other economizing you see in life/financials etc...etc...etc... there are tradeoffs. For instance, I typically get about 4-5 hours of sleep per night during the week, but it does catch up with me and I have to once or twice a week get a full nights sleep to recover or there is a price to pay and I suspect that those who claim they only *need* 4-5 hours of sleep per night are doing much the same thing as I am. There are very few people in the world who have been truly documented to maintain lifestyles where they get much less sleep than on average and to remain effective long term, you need your sleep.

Re:Not good.....

[Josh Lindenmuth]

You have excellent points. Unfortunately, now that many advertising restrictions on drugs have been removed, the drug industry can effectively push drugs onto Americans without rational voices such as your own being fairly considered. Combine this with human nature to succeed and excel relative to one's peers, and you have the possibility for us to quickly go down the path of re-engineering ourselves for excellence.

The idea of everyone having an IQ of 300, being able to sleep 4 hours a week, and never getting sick may sound great to some, but where does it stop? After we've reached the point of greatly diminishing returns from drugs, do we turn to machines for enhancment? Do we augment ourselves with embedded computer chips, use genetic engineering to enhance our characteristics, or completely tailor our bodies and minds into something we can't even imagine today?

This may seem far removed from sleep drugs, but I think it is a natural progression ... we are gaining the technology to enhance ourselves, and it will be a game of constant one-upmanship. Ethical discussions will prevent us from moving too fast, but I fear these concerns would have no impact on a slow progression towards turning ourselves into something unrecognizable as human by today's standards.

Re:Not good.....

[mattwarden]

I worry that the long term effects will not become apparent until years later, like I suspect [utah.edu] might happen with PDE inhibitors like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.

Well, I guess if you're going to take away my PDE inhibitors, I might as well sleep anyway.

Re:Not good.....

[BWJones]

Actually, you *are* a eukaryote and most of us posting here on Slashdot are with the exception of those that have foed me I suspect. :-)

Seriously though, worms, jellyfish and other "lower" invertebrates do exhibit periods of inactivity as do even prokaryotes such as bacteria. This period of "inactivity" is often crucial for normal physiological processes to occur. The important thing to note here is that through evolution, "higher" organisms appear to have accumulated a number of circadian clocks related to a variety of physiological functions and the "higher" up an organism is, the more clocks for various functions are accumulated.

Re:Not good.....

[BWJones]

But other studies have indicated increased performance in those subjects allowed REM sleep versus those subjects who have been selectively deprived of REM sleep. Other studies still have shown a reduction (higher efficiency) in brain metabolism in those subjects performing tasks who have been allowed REM sleep versus those other subjects who have been selectively sleep deprived. I am on a very narrow connection here and out of time for posting for now or I would find those references for you. But a simple Medline search should bring them up.

Re:Not good.....

[udderly]

My brother-in-law, in trying to cultivate his superman status, claims that he only needs 4-5 hours of sleep per night. But everyone who knows him knows that he goes into a semi-comatose state for 24 hours once per week. No real savings there:
6 nights x 4.5 hours = 27 hours
1 days x 24 hours = 24 hours
Total = 51 hours/week

51 hours/7 days = 7.29 hours per day (just like the rest of us)

Re:Not good.....

[Anonymous Coward]

, like the appendix or spleen

The appendix and spleen are NOT vestigial organs. While you can survive without them, your immune system is stronger if you keep them.

You can survive without your right arm, therefore it's vestigial, correct?

Statements like that (e.g., the appendix and spleen do not perform necessary functions) make evolutionists look stupid. Please research physiology before you try to prove evolution with misguided "facts."

Re:Not good.....

[Hitto]

You know what the saddest thing is? Most people will think you're not leading a "normal" life if you don't try and keep up with the joneses. Because not living a 9-to-6 life is considered "not serious". I stepped out of the fucking rat race a few months ago, and I wish I'd done that *years* earlier.

Re:Not good.....

[ArikTheRed]

My grandmother actually lived her whole adult life on only 3 hours a night. She went to bed at 2am every night, and work up at 5am. It was crazy, and not at all what she wanted - however, she was not an insomniac nor was she tired throughout the day. She visited several specialists, but no one knew why she didn't need to sleep... man, I wish I inherited that.

Re:Not good.....

[Cemu]

And yet we snore, toss and turn, twitch, and sometimes talk in our sleep. Nothing says easy meal more than a loud unconscious mammal.

Re:Not good.....

[jeffy210]

towards turning ourselves into something unrecognizable as human by today's standards.

Playing devil's advocate here: And the problem with this is? Isn't it in man's nature to attempt to improve themselves? Assuming the negative impacts are not great, what is wrong with us having an extra limb (don't know the benefits, just for sake of argument)? It's just a natural process of evolution. We look nothing like the creatures we evolved from, but that is because our form is functional for what we do. In the future, this form may not be the most functional (i'd argue it's not right now, but all things take time).

Re:Not good.....

[lawpoop]

I've wondered about it too, and then I got to wondering just how vulnerable a sleeping animal is. If you're about and about, you're making noise, being visible, creating a scent trail. If you're well hidden, such as in an underground den, you can pretty much go unmolested by any animal that might try to eat you. If an animal tries to dig you out, you have plenty of advance warning. Consider how many animals hibernate during the winter. For a prey animal, being out and about is the vulnerable period.

Re:Not good.....

[hey!]

In support of the nocturnal mammal evolution theory, our vision system has only three colors whereas most non-mammals have four. Birds that appear dull grey are sometimes brightly colored to others of their speices, because of their superior color vision. Losing a color, however, makes more room for light sensitive, b&w sensing rods.

With respect to the risks of sleep -- perhaps. It may be that specializing for night or day is a better overall strategy than trying to be able to operate around the clock. Maybe you're a daytime animal that relies on speed. If you can't see at night that speed is less useful. Maybe you're a nighttime animal that relies on stealth. That stealth is impaired during the day. So, even without sleep, you'd be looking for a safe place to den up during your off time.

Re:Not good.....

[Doctor Memory]

One thing I've noticed (which may or may not be real) is that my daughter seems to grow in her sleep. She'll enter a period (usually days) of increased appetite and activity, then one night she'll be very sleepy and go to bed early and I'll swear the next morning she's taller. She also has a definite decrease in stomach size, although whether this is related to fat-burning or an overall increase in body size I couldn't say.

Again, all apochyphal information, I haven't actually done before-and-after measurements. Still, there's a noticable difference, and after the growth spurt her appetite and activity level return to normal. So sleep may be a necessary component of the body's growth/repair mechanisms. It would be interesting to see if people who take this sleep-counteracting compound take longer to heal.

Re:Not good.....

[Vellmont]

Hmm.. well I think what the GP was asking was more specific to REM sleep. Perhaps what we call "sleep" is really a collection of different processes that serve different purposes (I'm guessing that's already been shown). You've already talked about processing long-term memories. Do we know how low this aspect of sleep goes down into organism complexity? I know dogs dream.. how about birds or reptiles?

Also, what else occurs during sleep to the rest of the body (other than the brain). Is there some greater immune response? Re-charging of different systems? If people didn't sleep and just took this pill to make their minds FELT like they slept, would people be more prone to illness, disease, etc?

Re:Not good.....

[amliebsch]

I guess it boils down to this:

Is the requirement of sleep enforced by our brains because it is
(a) an irreducibly necessary part of living for physiological or neurochemical reasons, like breathing, or
(b) a behavior that was evolutionarily advantageous in the wild?

If (a), then these kinds of drugs are very troubling. If (b), then I would probably have no more qualms taking these than, say, a pain-killer.

Re:Not good.....

[Frangible]

Exactly. Sleep-cheating drugs are nothing new-- look at methamphetamine. It's about 100 years old and is very effective, moreso than modafinil, for treating narcolepsy. People stay up for over two weeks with it (nevermind 48 hours!) but after a point an interesting thing happens where the brain hemispheres start taking turns shutting down and going into REM sleep. To the user, half their brain is dreaming and the other half awake, leading to an odd fused state of hallucinations that cannot be distinguished from reality. It's interesting to note this same behavior happens in some mammal (I don't recall which) that naturally does not sleep.

Beyond the acute effects though most mammals pushed through drugs like meth to avoid sleep simply die in studies after a month. The circadian cycle is needed for proper homeostasis. Sleep deprivation causes symptoms of ADHD (ironically, treated with stimulants), obesity via lower leptin and higher ghrelin levels, and a very nasty cycle of altered immune, inflammatory and glial response.

One other interesting thing to note is that the human circadian cycle specifically tracks dawn and dusk, via the CLOCK genes mPer1 and mPer2 -- mPer1 being dawn and mPer2 being dusk. If there is no gradual "dusk" period before sleep, direct changes in gene expression -- outside of sleep deprivation -- result in a persistently lowered level of tyrosine hydroxylase, interfering with dopamine levels. Dopamine is of course a neurotransmitter associated with motivation, goal seeking behavior, wakefulness, attention, etc. So therefore perish the dusk, perish the dopamine. And yet this commonly happens -- artificial lighting, computer / TV screens, etc right up to the moment of sleep destroy melatonin production and any sort of proper expression of mPer2 activity. Over time this results in low cortisol and catecholamine levels during the day (fatigue), higher levels at night (as the melatonin/hormonal peaks become disturbed), and increased hunger/activity during the missing dusk period, as you in essence train the natural oscillation to favor alertness at that time -- when it cannot be sustained.

Taking stimulants, be they modafinil, the neurotoxic ampakines, or amphetamine, only partially reverses some of these things. They increase neurotransmitter and cortisol levels -- but also do this when their levels should be lower! Chronic levels of cortisol alters body composition to favor muscle catabolism (breakdown), fat retention, annihilation of the thyroid hormone T3 into reverse T3 thus fucking up thermogenesis and the metabolism, and causing atrophy of the hippocampus and disruption of memory. This also results in suppression of the immune system, increased inflammatory response, increased stress/anxiety, etc etc.

Do any of these things sound like "happiness" you would take a pill for? Shut down the computer and TV, and artificial lighting sources at least an hour before bed. Relax, in dim light. Train yourself with a normal schedule in sync with the sun. You'll have greater alertness during the day, lower hunger, higher energy, better memory, and sleep better.

We are a nation of stimulus junkies, always wanting to be entertained by something novel, with no thought for relaxation, rest, or recovery. When our novelty seeking behaviors disrupts our normal diurnal behaviors, the answer isn't to take drugs and start the cycle anew, but to perform these behaviors in moderation and balance.

Try turning off your electronic shit a bit early tonight and relaxing before sleep at a normal, consistent time. In a week, you'll be surprised at the huge difference it makes.

Re:Not good.....

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I fear the day where it's "uncool" to not stick some drug in you as part of your daily routine in order to get through the day

Coffee, anyone?

Re:Not good.....

[unPlugged-2.0]

Hmm you make good points but not all of them are correct. Human sleep has evolved based on the culmination of past requirements for survival. This meant that not being out at night was most necessary for surviving the predators of the past. Now there are obviously a lot of other factors that come into this such as the earth's magnetic field and also our body's own circadian rhythm which is tied up with other factors most of which are genetic.

Also in terms of the stages of sleep mainly REM that is not always the way the body needs to progress through the phases. There is a method of sleeping called polyphasic sleep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep which can actually change the cycles and steps needed to get to REM sleep. Famous people such as DaVinci and Buckminster Fuller have professed to being on this pattern for years.

Also I know this works because I have actually tried it for 2 months as an experiment. If work permitted napping during the day I would still be on it but unfortunately it does not. There is a great Yahoo group called the uberman mailing list that has a melting pot of people who have tried this method.

So I think that sleep is not such a cut and dry science as some people claim. That is why some people can sleep only 4-5 hours a day and still be immensely productive while other need up to 12. It is a matter of mental brainwaves and like you said evolutionary approach to the sleep genre which will affect people differently.

Re:Not good.....

[Hoi Polloi]

Deer don't sleep in dens and they are considered yummy by lots of preditors. My wife is another example of a mammal that is completely oblivious to external stimuli during sleep.

Re:Not good.....

[qwijibo]

You need to be awake during the times when things you like to eat are available. If you can't efficiently find them at night, you're better off sleeping at that time. While you may be vulnerable, the threat isn't too extreme based on the number of people who managed to survive sleeping in the past. Do you sleep at home, or do you figure that's what the predators expect you to do? Anyone could be the victim of a home invasion robbery, but very few people sit in the dark at home with a gun waiting for the predator to strike.

Re:Not good.....

[nido]

What they [dolphins] do is sleep half their body and brain at a time.

There was a post here some years back by someone who claimed to be able to do this. He [?] said he only found it useful for long-distance road trips.

As I recall, his method worked through totally relaxing (via self hypnosis) half the body at a time.

Re:Not good.....

[Pojut]

I do (comparitively) mild body building, and I did a little experiment.

For one month, I worked out at LEAST 6 hours prior to going to sleep. For the next month, I worked out no MORE than 1 hour prior to going to sleep. I showed a VERY noticable improvement when I worked out shortly before going to sleep as opposed to working out long before going to sleep.

It makes sense, if you think about it. Sleeping is like running your body on reduced (and in some people minimal) power...so instead of doing things like interpreting sight and sounds and tastes and touch and smells, you can spend those extra brain cycles repairing, regrowing, reorganizing, etc...

A good friend of mine who went on to be a neurosurgeon once said "sleeping is to your brain as defragmentation is to your hard drive"

Re:Not good.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop. You're turning me on.

Re:Not good.....

[jank1887]

civilization has allowed people with weaker traits to survive and procreate, propegating the weak trait... rather than being eaten by the dinosaurs they coexisted with (yippee creationist museum)

Re:Not good.....

[Vellmont]

The appendix and spleen are NOT vestigial organs.

True of the spleen, but at least according to wikipedia it's still controversial whether the appendix serves any real purpose:

One explanation has been that the appendix is a vestigial structure with no current purpose.[citation needed] The appendix is thought to have descended from an organ in our distant herbivorous ancestors called the cecum (or caecum). The cecum is maintained in modern herbivores, where it houses the bacteria that digest cellulose, a chemically tough carbohydrate that these animals could not otherwise utilize. The human appendix contains no significant number of these bacteria, and cellulose is indigestible to us. It seems likely that the appendix lost this function before our ancestors became recognizably human.

Maybe you're thinking of the tonsils?


Statements like that (e.g., the appendix and spleen do not perform necessary functions) make evolutionists look stupid.

From what I understand of evolutionary theory, that's not really accurate. It takes the correct mutations to eliminate organs that no longer serve any purpose. As long as they don't provide any disadvantage, they're not going to be eliminated from the gene pool.

If anything, the existence of vestigial structures make intelligence design/creationists look stupid. Why would an intelligence designer create a structure that serves no purpose, (though the same structure exists in other "lower" animals that the organism and the animal both likely evolved from a common ancestor)?

Re:Not good.....

[paanta]

If you sleep 80% of the time, and use half the energy as a result, can't your environment support more of your offspring? There's a limited amount of energy out there, especially for predators, so energy conservation might make sense. Also pertaining to predators is the fact that most of them are specialized to either hunt at night or during the day, so it makes sense to go into hibernation in those off-peak hunting hours.

Speaking out of my ass, since I'm no biologist, it seems that while all higher life forms sleep, the amount they sleep is strongly correlated with how often they eat, how long it takes to digest their primary food source (meat vs. grasses vs. sugary stuff) and how much food is available in their environment.

Re:Not good.....

[Kyont]

> There was a post here some years back by someone who claimed to be able to do this.
> He [?] said he only found it useful for long-distance road trips.

> As I recall, his method worked through totally relaxing (via self hypnosis) half the body at a time.

We haven't heard from that guy in a while. Apparently, he was killed in a single-car accident at 4 a.m. on I-80 in central Nevada. Misjudged a curve due to a lack of depth perception while his left eye was sleeping.

Re:Not good.....

[jc42]

Uh birds sleep too.

Yeah, but there was the recent research showing that many birds sleep on just one side of their brain at a time. ;-)

One thing I thought interesting about the report was that some of their test subjects were cockatiels. We have 'tiels, and we've often seen them apparently asleep, but if you can move to see their other eye, you find it open and alert (while the first one is still closed). Apparently part of what triggered the research was people reporting this sort of thing in their pet birds.

The researchers instrumented the birds' brains (with very light-weight instruments ;-), and found that when the birds were in this state, with one eye open and one closed, their brain activity matched the pattern, with one hemisphere quiet and the other one active.

A curious aspect to this is that birds' eyes are, like ours, wired into both sides of the brain. But the "asleep on one side only" pattern exists, and matches the eyes.

The hypothesis is that birds generally don't need as much sleep as they get, so they stay half-alert to watch out for predators, maintain their grip on their perch, etc. And the alert side can send a wake-up signal to the sleeping side if anything interesting happens.

Re:Not good.....

[timeOday]

Agreed. The fact is evolution can explain and predict anything and everything, whether or not it is true (e.g. humans have wings so they can escape predators). The fact that a just-so story comes from (insert famous astrophysicist) means nothing in itself.

Re:Not good.....

[gurudude]

I've done pretty much the same thing my entire life - much to my parents chagrin during my early day... Ever since I was born, 3 hours 15 minutes, almost to the second... No observed adverse effects, I've done several sleep studies both in college and a few since I moved up near Yale... No related health issues, no problems - I don't feel tired, I function normally... Unlike one poster suggested, I don't work a boring, repetitive job - well, *sometimes* being a contract database programmer gets repetitive but it's not burger flipping... I made my way through college holding done a full time job, 20 hours a semester 2/ a 3.9 (4.0 in major) and left with a MS in Math and a MS in Comp Sci... Now, in my 40's, I sometimes take a little nap out in the hammock on Sundays (being a heathen has it's perks!) but at no time in my life have I ever *needed* to take naps unless I had a really nasty flu or some such illness... I have an ex-wife who contends I'm crazy, but a shrink who is more inclined to 'just a little weird' so... The doctor I'd seen @ Yale said it wasn't totally unheard of, but certainly rare... I think someday they'll find a way to reduce the amount of sleep the average person needs... A couple of interesting (to me anyway) side notes, I fall asleep withing minutes of lying down and according to the sleep studies, enter REM within 30 minutes of going to sleep...

Re:Not good.....

[sbrown123]

And yet we snore, toss and turn, twitch, and sometimes talk in our sleep. Nothing says easy meal more than a loud unconscious mammal.

What are you talking about? Snoring is a defensive measure. Hell, it probably sounded like a large herd of vicious animals roaring when you put enough humans together snoring in unison.

And if that's not enough, I imagine that these early humans probably didn't do much in the way of bathing. Nothing says "I just tossed my lunch" than being downwind from a large pack of primitive humans.

Re:Not good.....

[headonfire]

Yeah, er, that article about the appendix is a bit wrong, or at least misleading; and you're quoting it out of context by ignoring the beginning paragraph about how the appendix connects.

Humans _do_ have a cecum. It's at the beginning of the large intestine; it's the juncture where the small bowel(the ileum, more precisely) and large bowel meet. It's a bit of a pouch shape. There's also the ileocecal valve, which handles flow control. The appendix is directly connected to the cecum. The thing is hardly 'vestigial'. It may have been different, once, but what in our bodies hasn't changed at least a bit since we crawled out of the Soup?

Re:Not good.....

[Reziac]

That was me. I'll close one eye for about half an hour, and the effect is as if I've taken a nap. It apparently works by shutting off input to half of the brain, letting that half relax.

It's more effective if I shut the right eye, albeit leading to terror in the passenger seat. :)

(I also take more-ordinary naps at home, which tend to hover at the edge of sleep. And I'm naturally a *very* light sleeper, and a sunrise person.)

Re:Not good.....

[thetaco82]

From what I understand of evolutionary theory, that's not really accurate. It takes the correct mutations to eliminate organs that no longer serve any purpose. As long as they don't provide any disadvantage, they're not going to be eliminated from the gene pool.

My understanding of natural selection is that genes naturally decay through incremental mutations. If a mutation is detrimental to the organism's survival, then it will not be passed on to future generations. Traits that no longer serve a purpose will decay because there is no pressure to preserve them; mutations will be passed down along with the healthy genes. Over time, the mutations build up and the trait will fade away. A good example of this is the sense of smell. Most animals have a very keen sense of smell relative to humans. Animals with a dull sense of smell will be less likely to detect predators, and they will die. We humans live in such a way that there aren't any environmental pressures that make smell key to survival. People without a keen sense of smell are at no greater risk of death and the cycle of decay continues.

Re:Not good.....

[Shaman]

My 15lb schnauzer mini snores like a rock splitter.

Re:Not good.....

[kelleher]

Here's a table of average daily sleep time for various animals.

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/chasleep.htm l

Re:Not good.....

[Cro Magnon]

Yes, but how many predators, other than you, consider your wife "yummy"?

Re:Not good.....

[badasscat]

In my own musings, I'd figured sleep was just an energy-saving mode (yes, we are all computers). When we sleep, our body temperature lowers and we're not running around at a relatively unproductive time of the day. Especially when no food is available, a power-saving mode would be a great advantage in waiting out the bad circumstances (think hibernation, listlessness in famines, or siestas b/c it's too hot to work). If you look at reptiles as always being in low-power (cold-blooded) mode, the increased sleep trade-off for mammals and birds seems reasonable.

Of course, you don't need to be asleep to lower your body temperature and save energy. All you need to do is turn down the heat and sit down.

Sleep is a bit more than that. The problem is it's still not well understood. But in REM sleep, your mind is actually incredibly active, not passive or at rest. What it's actually doing and why is what we don't really know yet. What we do know is that people who go for just a few days without sleep often undergo profound, permanent personality changes (and those who go for more than a couple weeks or so without sleep die). There was a famous radio DJ in the 1950's that went without sleep for several days on air - by about the 4th day, he reportedly was seeing spiders everywhere and was babbling pretty much incoherently. His family and friends reported that he was never the same again, and he lost his job and faded into obscurity shortly afterwards.

I'm no scientist, and for all I know these new drugs could prove to work just fine. But from what I do know about sleep, I'm pretty skeptical of the long-term effects of taking these drugs. There is obviously something necessary about sleep that regulates our personalities, maintains our memory and keeps us from literally going nuts - and also that keeps us alive. As we still haven't identified exactly what the mechanism is that does that, I don't really see how all of that could be boiled down into pill form. We've taken an unknown and claimed to have replicated it. Something is missing here.

My sense is these drugs just cover up the symptoms of sleep deprivation, but the effects are nevertheless still there and are cumulative.

Re:Not good.....

[djp928]

The idea of everyone having an IQ of 300, being able to sleep 4 hours a week, and never getting sick may sound great to some, but where does it stop? After we've reached the point of greatly diminishing returns from drugs, do we turn to machines for enhancment? Do we augment ourselves with embedded computer chips, use genetic engineering to enhance our characteristics, or completely tailor our bodies and minds into something we can't even imagine today?

Yup. It's called Transhumanism, and a lot of people subscribe to its basic philosophy of augmenting human beings with technology and medecine to create perhaps a higher lifeform.

-- Dave

Re:Not good.....

[malign]

Nothing says "I just tossed my lunch" than being downwind from a large pack of primitive humans.

You've been to Texas????

Re:Not good.....

[Schmendr1ck]

If you talk to an amateur astronomer (like me), he'll tell you that we humans actually have decent, but not great, night vision. There are two problems, though. First, it takes time to acquire. A minimum of 20-30 minutes in very low light is generally needed for good dark adaptation - for some folks it can take as long as an hour. Also, any relatively bright light, even a brief flash, will break down the accumulated rhodopsin in your retinas, destroying your dark adaptation and forcing you to start over. We use red flashlights because the red wavelengths don't break down rhodopsin as readily, and we also throw large, sharp objects at folks who shine white flashlights during a star party.

But once you're dark adapted, you can see well enough to walk around and do quite a lot in conditions that a non-dark adapted person would consider "pitch black". Could you see a black cat sitting still on a black background? Maybe, maybe not. But could you see well enough to run away from a large predator at night without stumbling into a tree? Most likely yes.

Re:Not good.....

[Schmendr1ck]

A little bit of fact checking here:

1) We actually do know quite a bit about what the brain does during REM sleep, and there are several theories on why REM sleep is necessary. But yes, these are theories and we don't know for certain which one, if any, is correct.
2) I was unable to find any scientific evidence or reported cases of permanent psychological damage or death due to sleep deprivation, except in the case of an exceedingly rare biological disorder called Fatal Familial Insomnia. Of course, sleep deprivation can cause errors in judgment and reduced reaction time that can lead to death, but that wasn't what the parent meant.
3) The radio DJ the parent mentions was a guy named Peter Tripp. Yes, he did a publicity stunt where he stayed awake for about 10 days and hallucinated. However, he lost his job because he was caught accepting thousands of dollars in payola from the record companies. He more likely "faded into obscurity" because of the scandal. Shortly afterwards he got out of the radio business and into other careers where he was more successful.

This doesn't mean I disagree - I think drug-induced sleep deprivation has the potential for serious side effects and needs a heck of a lot more study before we all start taking our morning Modafinil. However, don't support a good argument with bad data. (Most of this info comes from Wikipedia - see Sleep Deprivation, Peter Tripp, and Fatal Familial Insomnia. All three entries appear to be well-referenced, feel free to spend an afternoon checking it out.)

Re:Not good.....

[espressojim]

There's some complications to this. There is a physical structure to DNA. What you wind up having in populations is that segments of chromosomes travel in populations (these are haplotypes.) When you have something particularly interesting on some segment (something under positive selection), that entire segment will be kept (as the segment is slowly broken down by recombination, but that can take a LONG time.)

I'd argue that anything that takes energy to maintain but serves no function would be not be selected for. See: Antibiotic resistance in bacteria where their enviornment does not contain the resistance. Bacteria that are not resistant have more energy for reproduction, thus spread faster.

Selection is all about enviornment, though it's got a lot of interesting wrinkles that prevent us (population geneticists - though I can't call myself a 'real' one, as I do bioinformatics on population genetic data) from fully comprehending how all the inputs/outputs are wired together.

Re:Not good.....

[enderai]

Actually, tonsils serve an important role in the immune system according to research done in the past 20(?) years or so. They act collectors of new bugs so that your body can build up antibodies. In other words, they get "sick" so you don't.

Re:Not good.....

[Coulson]

It apparently works by shutting off input to half of the brain, letting that half relax.

Both eyes are connected to both hemispheres of your brain. It's not that everything seen by your left eye is processed by the right half of your brain: everything seen on the left half of your visual field -- regardless of which eye -- is processed by the right side of your brain.

Closing one eye does not cut off input to half your brain. You'd have to close the left half of both eyes, which isn't going to work unless you have some crazy eyelids.

Re:Not good.....

[Warg! The Orcs!!]

I heard once in a psychology class (but have been unable to corroborate) that we too would be able to see in the UV range were it not for our lenses. The human eye lens is apparently slightly yellow and this filters out the UV. Patients who were given early artificial lenses reported being able to see new colours because the artificial lenses were clear.

Re:Not good.....

[mabhatter654]

those are all sleep disorders with huge consequences in our awake life... the parent is a sleep researcher, that's what they do. Many, many people have those problems and even "trivial" things like snoring actually affect your progression thru the sleep levels.. they force your body into "panic" mode to change your position which stops REM sleep. Other things like the tossing and twitching are a sign of "restless leg syndrome" a combination of built up stress and lack of physical exercise... i.e. being a coding geek at a desk 16 hours a day doesn't generate the chemicals your BODY needs to function generated by large scale muscle use... muscles rebel by twitching, hearts don't like it either.

With all the sleep issues starting to come to the front of medical science lately, it's amazing ANYBODY is allowed to publish this research! OF course, look at how the "professionals" in medicine run their lives... you'd think DOCTORS would also focus on getting proper nutrition, sleep, exercise to improve themselves during internships and such...yet they are famous for 36-48 hour shifts with minimal sleep!!! Sleep researches have a steady stream of third shifters in their clinics... right about the time they start having serious physical issues like heart trouble, and anxiety attacks... due to the messed up sleep cycles. OUR 24x7 society doesn't work... it breaks tons of people. You'd think for being SMART beings we'd work WITH our biological necessities to be productive, not AGAINST them.

Re:Not good.....

[scottv67]

"restless leg syndrome" a combination of built up stress and lack of physical exercise...

Nice try. Restless Leg Syndrome is not a combination of built-up stress and lack of physical exercise. Until you become more familiar with that disorder, you would be better-off sitting quietly and reading the posts from the sleep docs....

-Scott <==Suffers from RLS

Re:Not good.....

[JonathanR]

Is RLS related to morning wood?

Re:Not good.....

[Alsee]

So, the solution is to clone some dinosaurs...
strap saddles on their backs...
watch creationists walk up and try to ride them...
and get eaten.

Well I guess that's one way to clean the gene pool.

-

Re:Not good.....

[headonfire]

In the article you yourself linked, Vermiform Appendix the first paragraph:

In human anatomy, the vermiform appendix (or appendix, pl. appendices) is a blind ended tube connected to the cecum (or internationally, "caecum"). It develops embryologically from the cecum. The term vermiform comes from Latin and means "wormlike in appearance". The cecum is the first pouch-like structure of the colon. The appendix is near the junction of the small intestines and large intestines.

The paragraph you quoted is from further down in the wiki article -

One explanation has been that the appendix is a vestigial structure with no current purpose.[citation needed] The appendix is thought to have descended from an organ in our distant herbivorous ancestors called the cecum (or caecum). The cecum is maintained in modern herbivores, where it houses the bacteria that digest cellulose, a chemically tough carbohydrate that these animals could not otherwise utilize. The human appendix contains no significant number of these bacteria, and cellulose is indigestible to us. It seems likely that the appendix lost this function before our ancestors became recognizably human.

The article is directly contradicting itself. Further, that whole paragraph is lacking citation, and should probably be removed. I'm not debating about the appendix and it's function or lack thereof, here; I'm stating that what Wikipedia says about the cecum is incorrect. Using it as evidence for your argument is fallacious, and you need to find another source.

To check out Wikipedia on the cecum, let's go to Cecum and take a look.

The cecum or caecum (from the Latin caecus meaning blind) is a pouch connected to the ascending colon of the large intestine and the ileum. It is separated from the ileum by the ileocecal valve (ICV) or Bauhin's valve, and is considered to be the beginning of the large intestine.

Which article is correct? Pick up an anatomy book, or try a google for "cecum" and pick anything but Wikipedia. From one of the higher links, Medterms.com:

Cecum: The cecum (also spelled caecum), the first portion of the large bowel, situated in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen. The cecum receives fecal material from the small bowel (ileum) which opens into it. The appendix is attached to the cecum. The word "cecum" comes from the Latin "caecus" meaning "blind." This refers to the fact that the bottom of the cecum is a blind pouch (a cul de sac) leading nowhere.

My final point: The appendix is not "descended from an organ in our distant herbivorous ancestors called the cecum". We have a cecum in our bodies currently, and it is what the appendix happens to dangle from. This is basic, high school and first-year anatomy. Is that good enough?

Re:Not good.....

[Gorshkov]

From the dictionary entry for conservative:
tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions

tending to != incapable of, or unwilling to

Isn't that kind of like saying that rocks "tend to" not move? Let me give you directions to a place I know that has witnessed many, many rockslides over the years. You can tell me how "tending to" do something means it'll never happen. But be sure to shout ... I'm gonna be off standing at a safe distance.

Thinking that it is stupid to throw out the practices of the past without examining the alternatives to see if they are better can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the "thing' involved.

From the definition of Liberal:
BROAD-MINDED; especially : not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms

"Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it"

Intentionally ignoring what has been done in the past, and changing for the sake of change, can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the "thing" involved.

Remarkable symmetry, don't you think?

Your own definition of Liberal also notably does not preclude being bound by OTHER things .... like PC, liberal orthodoxy, or ... dare I say it ... close-mindedness and intellectual arrogance.

But then again, I wouldn't know - I "tend to" be conservative.

Refreshing

[grasshoppa]

"New Scientist is running an article on lifestyle drugs that claim to help you function on little or no sleep. I'm dubious, but the interviewee in the article claims they work well. 'Yves (not his real name), a 31- year-old software developer from Seattle, often doesn't have time for a full night's sleep. So he swallows something to make sure he doesn't need one.'"

It's refreshing to see evolution still at work.

A new market

[eviloverlordx]

They should try selling this to new parents. My wife would surely love to get her hands on some.

The bugs! They are crawling up my legs!

[Qzukk]

But, sleep is where I'm a viking!

Don't worry, Taco! After 100 hours or so awake, you'll BE a viking, raping and pillaging and showing those pink elephants who's boss!

Re:The bugs! They are crawling up my legs!

[corychristison]

This reminds me of the time I tried to stay awake for as long as I could. I hit 93 hours or so. Note that this incident did not involve any drugs. Legal or otherwise.

I was still fairly young then, at the age of 14 or so. I was out with friends on the final night of my experiment and I started to see things and totally freaked out. One of the hallucinations was indeed a miniature pink elephant. As well I thought a tree was a very large spider. I have a terrible fear of spiders. After my friends managed to get me into the house and calmed me down, I suddenly got up and went out into the back yard to jump on the trampoline. It was -10 degree's Celsius or so and I was just wearing Jeans and a T-Shirt. I couldn't tell the difference. All I remember is having them waking me up and having to be rushed to the hospital. I was jumping on the trampoline and slipped. I flew off and cracked my head on a mound of ice. I'm just glad one of the springs didn't break or on the trampoline and hit me in the ass or something. It was fairly cold.

I stayed in the hospital for the night as the thought I may have had a concussion. I still don't remember any of that week. What I told you now is what my friends have told me. I also heard that earlier on in my experiment [first 24 hours I suppose] I had exclaimed to my friends that my toothpaste had started talking to me the next day at school.

Now I enjoy my sleep.

Pills? No thanks. I prefer the natural method of recovering from a hard days work writing code. :-)

Re:The bugs! They are crawling up my legs!

[Tired_Blood]

I was 18 for my marathon of 104 hours. I wrote about it here as AC. I strongly advise against any drug assistance for this type of activity.

I suddenly got up and went out into the back yard to jump on the trampoline.

In my experience, I was acutely aware of my slowed physical state (reaction times were slower and very low motivation for activity). As such, I became very cautious with my movements, and would have never thought to do something like that (walking up stairs was my most strenuous activity during that period). Part of the reason was to conserve energy, but that was only a conscious decision at the start whereas later on it simply became routine.

It was -10 degree's Celsius or so and I was just wearing Jeans and a T-Shirt. I couldn't tell the difference.

I do remember losing some sense of touch. Nothing that extreme, though.

I was out with friends on the final night of my experiment and I started to see things and totally freaked out. One of the hallucinations was indeed a miniature pink elephant. As well I thought a tree was a very large spider. ... I also heard that earlier on in my experiment [first 24 hours I suppose] I had exclaimed to my friends that my toothpaste had started talking to me the next day at school.

The hallucinations were very minor for me (I didn't expect or want them). YMMV, I guess. Sleeping through an entire day after that marathon was disorienting as well. In all, it was a weird week for me.

This is news? Did they sleep through the 1980s?

[JonTurner]

This just in: New Scientist discovers cocaine. Story at 11.

Great, now the terrorist know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jack Bauer's big secret is out. What chance does he stand next season when the terrorists can go 24 hours without sleeping as easily as he can?

The Only Profession Requiring No Sleep

[eldavojohn]

Doctor: Now, what seems to be the problem?
Patient: I got it bad, doc, I barely get any sleep ... I need some modafinil--or my life will fall apart!
Doctor: Now hold on there, I don't go around giving prescriptions of that to just anyone! You're young, you look like you're in good shape, why don't you get any sleep?
Patient: Well, it's just that ... I'm a ... software developer.
Doctor: My GOD! Why didn't you say anything? *yells out the door* Nurse! I'm going to need a lifetime's supply of modafinil--stat!
Patient: Oh thank you, doc, thank you so much!
Doctor: Everything's going to be alright, plus it seems your company's health care is willing to provide 100% of the funding for this with no deductable, can't say I've seen that before. Now you say that you're married as well? Then I'm going to recommend you take two of these every day with fifth of bourbon ...

Yikes.

[Rob T Firefly]

Modafinil is just the first of a wave of new lifestyle drugs that promise to do for sleep what the contraceptive pill did for sex

So from now on we'll have to sleep in rubber sleeping bags if we don't want it to kill us?

Old news

[WinkyN]

This story appeared in the New Scientist in mid-February 2006.

Re:Old news

[Capt James McCarthy]

"This story appeared in the New Scientist in mid-February 2006." That's because the editors thought they were hummingbirds for the last 9 months.

the flip side

[cucucu]

Sleep eradicates the need for this drug.

pills for everything

[qwijibo]

It's reassuring to see that pharmaceutical companies can make a pill to solve every problem, even ones that weren't a real problem before they came up with a pill.

OMG 10-20 years!!! Thats so close...

[antirelic]

"In 10 to 20 years we'll be able to pharmacologically turn sleep off." Wow! Right around that time I should be able to stay awake behind the wheel of my flying car powered by a comercially available fusion generator! In 10-20 years, everything will be great!

Hmmm... Not Good

[eno2001]

If it's artificially interfering with a normal function of life and it's not involved in preventing a life threatening disease, it's just a bad idea. Myself, I only need four to six hours a night and I can function well. I actually natrually wake up after six hours even without an alarm clock. I've always been that way. If I really need to puch myself I can get by with two hours sleep. This is perfectly natural. Back in the 90s I read a book on sleep and it stated that most humans need the typical eight hours of sleep. It also revealed that in a few sleep studies where the subjects are kept from knowing the real time or seeing any cues (daylight), that they tended to sleep more on the order of 10 hours a night with their sleep cycle drifting an hour later each day (ie. they would go to sleep an hour later each day without realizing it). But, they did concede that every human is different and there indeed people who don't need much sleep and others who actualy need a lot more sleep than is culturally possible (13-15 hours a day) to be at their best. Sadly, humans are WAY too flexible in their traits which means that there is no "one size fits all" approach. In the case of this drug however, I'd say that it will be revealed eventually just how detrimental it's effects are while simultaneously being denied by the pharmaceutical companies that produce it.

Re:Hmmm... Not Good

[regular_gonzalez]

If it's artificially interfering with a normal function of life and it's not involved in preventing a life threatening disease, it's just a bad idea.

I think that's a too broad standard. Wisdom teeth are a "normal" part of human development and are not life threatening, but virtually everyone gets theirs removed. And I'm sure the slashdot group think would not care to apply your standard to the question of abortion.

I am concerned about long term effects of drugs such as modafinil, but I can't help but wish it was available OTC. Sleep is the thief that steals away my life; we lose a quarter to a third of our lifespan irrevocably, something I find truly frustrating.

Obligatory Shakespeare Reference

[duh P3rf3ss3r]

"To die; to sleep; to sleep perchance to dream! Aye, there's the rub. For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil?"

Oh swell

[Mark of THE CITY]

Now your dreams will really miss you.

Painkillers?

[setirw]

The concept behind this drug seems akin to that behind painkillers: Eliminate the symptoms, not the problem. Sure, with a sufficient dose of painkillers, I could run while my foot is broken without feeling any ill effects, but that doesn't nullify the damage that would be caused by doing this.

Re:Painkillers?

[silver4]

Eliminating the symptoms while not curing the disease seems like the holy grail of drug companies.
After all, if you a drug solves your problem, you don't need to buy it again.
But, if a drug only temporarily removes the symptoms, you have to keep buying the drug, and the drug company makes major $$$.

but you won't need to stay awake, then

[artifex2004]

Right around that time I should be able to stay awake behind the wheel of my flying car powered by a comercially available fusion generator!

But the car's going to have autopilot and land automatically. So why do you want to stay awake?

Next time saving pill coming on the market

[Hoi Polloi]

Schering-Plough has just annouced the first prescription drug on the market to eliminate the need to go to the can. The drug, "Excretefree", will allow people to work and play continuously without the need for potty breaks. The drug causes the anus and urethra to close tightly preventing waste products from leaving the body. There is no chance of accidental or voluntary release for 24 hrs.

Side affects include internal rupture, massive swelling of the abdomen, oral (reversed) flatulence, abdominal pain, and epic post-medication trips to the bathroom.

The real danger...

[dropshot]

is if this works exactly as described. How long will it take until employers (or anyone who demands time in our lives) expects us to be available for 18 or 20 hour days? How disruptive would this be to society? If expectations change, anyone who doesn't want to disrupt their life to the extent that might be demanded will be at a competitive disadvantage.

There is a huge difference...

[A beautiful mind]

between not feeling sleepy, and not needing sleep.

There is quite fascinating research into this subject actually with old people. Research determined that it's not that they need less sleep in old age, but that they can't sleep more and it is speeding up the consequences of old age.

So even if you don't feel sleepy, you need sleep and the effects would be quite devastating on a medium/long term. The problem with the drug industry is that it's more profitable for them to treat/mask sympthoms than to actually cure something. There are various anti-flu pills for example that only mask the sympthoms, so it will take a month or two to recover from a simple cold instead a week or two.

Do it the natural way

[stox]

Have a newborn child. You won't be getting any sleep for a long time.

The other flip side of a no-sleep drug

[inviolet]

So this pill will surely have some side-effects, and some of them will likely be negative. Fine.

Now think about the value of your time. You get ~100 years here on Earth and that's all. You are wired to spend about a third of that time unconscious. An entire third of your life will be spent not doing or experiencing anything.

How much effort do you expend just to shave ten minutes off your commute? Or to save three minutes standing in line?

What, then, would 33 extra years be worth?

Re:The other flip side of a no-sleep drug

[SpaghettiPattern]

An entire third of your life will be spent not doing or experiencing anything.

I tend to work out problems in my sleep. I'm not shitting you.

Besides phisical recovery my believe is that sleep is needed to defragment the brain. If only we had a better file system in our brain!

Re:The other flip side of a no-sleep drug

[Austerity Empowers]

Absolutely 0. If my employers found out about all this extra time I'd just spend it all sitting in front of a screen anyway. At least this way I have a reason to come home every day.

Re:The other flip side of a no-sleep drug

[Viol8]

"What, then, would 33 extra years be worth?"

Not much if you end up spending them bouncing off padded walls in a sanatorium.

Re:The other flip side of a no-sleep drug

[njko]

But sleep is nice.

Re:The other flip side of a no-sleep drug

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The problem is that you are messing with biology without even considering potential negative consequences. There is no magic bullet in medicine. What if, instead of living to be 100, with this no-sleep pill, you die at 50 instead? Would you still think it is worthwhile?

Re:The other flip side of a no-sleep drug

[ColdWetDog]

It is certainly amusing that all of these posters wanking along about what a wonderful, productive life they would have if they didn't sleep are apparently wasting quite a bit of time, on, you guessed it -

Slashdot.

Nothing more, your honor. The defense rests.

Re:The other flip side of a no-sleep drug

[WilliamSChips]

Actually, your experience is supported by evidence--people who concentrate on a problem right before going to sleep often figure out the solution to the problem after waking up.

Re:Sleep debit

[amrust]

I'm now in my late 40's and I can only sleep 6 hours, no more even if I try, but, I need that 6 hours or I cannot function.

I know what you mean. I'm coming up on 40, and I've noticed that I sleep less now than I did 5 years ago. Which is scary, because I always assumed that the "getting older = less sleep" thing didn't happen until you were MUCH older.

I guess we're all only as young as we feel, but still older than we think.

As someone that has actually used Modafinil

[alexfeig]

I did sleep studies for a year. I was the guy that brought patients in, hooked up electrodes for brain activity, belts for breathing, electrodes on the legs for leg movement, etc -- then I sat in a small office staring at a computer screen for sometimes 12 hours on end watching them sleep making sure nothing went wrong, as well as making notes on potential sleep disorders. Apnea, Periodic Leg Movements, mainly. Obviously this job required that I work graveyards. After about 8 months on the job, my sleep schedule began to skip. I met my wife, I was trying to maintain a social life in the afternoons, etc. I started staying up when I got home until sometimes 2PM before going back to work at 8PM. Bad news. We obviously had a doctor on the staff, and he called us sleep techs into a room and we discussed the latest discoveries, etc. What came up was Modafinil. He mentioned that while he recommended Melatonin, Modafinil is approved for graveyard workers. Shortly thereafter I started taking Modafinil. I'll tell you, it works. Caffine is a terrible substitute. I used to drink so much coffee on top of caffine pills I OD'd more than once on it. Modafinil had 0 side effects (for me), other than the occasional slight bit of anxiety. It kept me awake, and it made me feel like I didn't even need sleep. When I'd get home, I could easily go to sleep because while it made you not FEEL like you didn't need to sleep, actually falling asleep wasn't difficult. When I would wake up I felt rested. I used Modafinil for about 4 months total -- and if I ever feel compelled to ruin my life with another graveyard shift, I'll be taking it up again. It's a marvellous drug.

Re:As someone that has actually used Modafinil

[alexfeig]

I believe it is. As you pointed out I'm not a doctor so I'm not quite sure, for all I know he was just helping me out. That being said I do recall a conversation where I was informed the FDA had approved it for 3rd shift workers. I'm also not sure how many doctors are informed about the medication. The doctor that prescribed it to me was working for the company, and was a Sleep Medicine doctor. His entire practice was just devoted towards sleep disorders. As far as the rotating shift, and again I'm not a doctor, I think it would help.

Re:As someone that has actually used Modafinil

[UncleJooky]

I currently use Modafinil. I first heard about this drug about a month ago and decided it was worth looking into. I wasn't interested in staying awake for days at a time. Instead I was interested in just plain staying awake during the day. Yes, I am fully aware that getting a good night's sleep will allow me to stay awake during the day. However, I actually like doing things during the time I am not at werq. Sometimes that cuts into a good night's sleep.

I talked to a pharmacist about the drug and got his take on it. Obviously, he recommended not taking anything that wasn't prescribed, and not talking a doctor into a scrip that wasn't needed. Having covered his butt, he also told me that most OTC meds are much harsher on our bodies than Modafinil. This chat gave me enough information to base a decision on.

I got some. For those of you out there wondering how...I will only say that a credit card and an internet connection can get you just about anything.

So I have been taking it daily for about a month now. What do I get out of it? Not much. The biggest difference is that I don't spend all day wishing I could go for a nap. I just don't think about sleep anymore. I have also noticed that I tend to be more focused on what I am doing at work and have even started staying at work until I have completed a task, as opposed to leaving as soon as the clock hit the end of business hours.

I missed a dose last week. I went home for lunch, as I usually do, and slept for two hours. For those of you screaming that it happened because I was sleep deprived, hold on a moment longer. Since starting on Modafinil, I have paid a lot more attention to how much sleep I am getting. I get about 8-9 hours most nights. The short nights are about 6 hours. This is hardly sleep deprived.

I did try, half heartedly, once, to make an endurance run on Modafinil. I took my normal daily dose, a booster at lunch and then another in the evening. I finished up a project I was working on at about 0200 hours. I got bored and went to bed. At the time I felt like I could stay awake, if I wanted to, but I didn't want to, a didn't try.

The benefits of Modafinil, in my experience are:
Being alert during the day, but not hyped like with caffiene, taurine etc.
Working for a full day, resulting in higher job satisfaction and less stress
No 'crash' when the sugar, caffiene, taurine etc. have finished hyping me up.
Improved mood
The bad stuff:
I can't get this stuff legally.

So, there you go. Another opinion based on experience. I haven't addressed the long term side effects issue. I only have an opinion about that. For now, I'm not concerned. My quality of life has really improved from this. It may not sound like much, but it is a lot to me. For those of you concerned about controlling our bodies through chemistry, I challenge you to give up caffiene, nicotine, sugar, or any other of the fantastic things we use to get through the day, then you can talk about how bad controlling our bodies through chemistry is. I have given up caffiene as a requirement. I drink coffee, sometimes, socially. The sodas are gone too. The only other stim I still use in nicotine. I'm afraid I'm hooked on that one.

Hope this satisfies some of your curiosity about Modafinil.

The Horror - Watch Capitalism Adapt

[shambalagoon]

The true horror of this drug is that if it does become commonplace and people need less sleep, my bet is that capitalism will adapt itself to this new reality and we will soon be working 14-16 hour days.

Dont believe it? Look what happened as women entered the workplace in larger numbers in the last few decades (of course this is a good thing). As the number of workers increased, the relative incomes fell. When once a single worker could bring in enough money to support himself, his spouse, and his 2.5 kids, now it is almost necessary for both parents to work to be able to make ends meet. Think what it would be like if capitalism hadnt adapted to this influx of workers - each parent could work a 20-hour week and have the same relative income as 50 years ago.

Likewise, as waking time becomes less scarce, those willing and able to work longer hours will get the jobs and steadily raise the bar and the expectations of what's a normal amount to work each week. Maybe they'll get paid more and the increasing wealth will cause the cost of goods and services to rise, which increases the need for working the longer hours.

IANAE (I am not an Economist) so I'm probably wrong on some details, but this seems like a likely general trend, IMHO.

Re:The Horror - Watch Capitalism Adapt

[LunaticTippy]

I disagree. You're comparing different lifestyles. The stay-at-home-mom generation had one small house, one car, and a couple of appliances. They ate out rarely, packed lunches, and had one telephone.

If a typical family lived in a 1200 square foot home, had one car, only the home phone, no cable/internet/cellphone, and didn't blow money on dining out and buying things they'd only need one income to do it.

I know there has been flat/declining real wages for some time now, but our standards are higher.

I think some people would be better off working less. You end up paying a lot for child care, eating out, 2nd car, etc.

Re:The Horror - Watch Capitalism Adapt

[rgoldste]

I disagree, and I'll quote you a source: Elizabeth Warren, "The Two Income Trap" (Warren is a bankruptcy professor at Harvard Law School). Warren goes through the data and shows that your argument is false: families today do not spend more money on luxuries than in the 1950s, and the two cars come from needing both to get to work.

In fact, Warren argues that capitalism adapted just as the grandparent predicted: when some women went to work, some families had more disposable income. By and large, those families spent that income on buying houses in better school districts (which are of course more expensive). To compete with those families, and make sure Junior went to a good public school, all the other families had to send the wife to work to snag a house in the good school districts. Of course, that just spurred a bidding war for houses in good school districts, driving the prices up so much that the middle class family had to cut down on luxuries to afford the house in the good school district.

Moral of the story: if you create more wealth (whether by doubling the labor force, doubling the number of hours we work, or whathever), you cause inflation. It's not necessarily a zero-sum game, but it can be, as Warren demonstrates.

Re:The Horror - Watch Capitalism Adapt

[Steve525]

As the Grandparent points out, housing prices are what kills you. Pretty much everything else (cars, toys, eating out) has not increased at the rate of real estate. This is particularly true if you want to live near a city where there is no room to build any more, and if you want your kids to go to decent schools. A large home under these conditions isn't an option even if you have two incomes, unless you are very well off. Just ask anyone living in or near NY, Boston, or San Francisco or many other citys.

My own experience is that I make a lot more in real dollars than my father did, and yet, my house is much smaller. A large part of that may be due to the fact that I live near a city and I grew up way out in the suburbs. However, if you look at the older people in my neighborhood, it was strictly blue collar at one time. The people moving in today are all professionals, often with two incomes. There is no way the people who lived in my neighborhood 25 years ago could afford to move there today.

My wife also works, even though we probably could squeek by if she didn't and we didn't haven't to pay for daycare. Because she works, we can afford many luxuries I didn't have as a kid. We can afford nicer cars, clothes, eat out a lot, etc. However, buying a signficantly nicer house would be tough even with her additional income.

There is some validity to that statement

[everphilski]

I tend to agree with you. However I find the same phenomenon occurs for me when I'm playing with my kids, playing Everquest, and reading articles that aren't in my field.

drug the followers

[zogger]

Germans used amphetamines in ww2. It's not much of a secret that armies have used drugs since they became available. Originally all they had was booze and stuff like magic mushrooms (berserkers), but it's been going on a long time. The scary stuff to me is the reverse manchurian candidate stuff,the work to make drugs that make them lose all sense of right or wrong, just follow orders, no matter what the orders might be.....anything... then blank out the memories so they don't suffer remorse or PTSD type effects.

Re:drug the followers

[drinkypoo]

Germans used amphetamines in ww2.

I swear it's like you people are deliberately living in denial.

In WWII, the Germans and the US both used stimulants.

The US used Benzedrine (aka "Bennies") and the Germans used Methedrine (now called Methamphetamine.)

"Ethics" and transhumanism

[Sloppy]

we are gaining the technology to enhance ourselves, and it will be a game of constant one-upmanship. Ethical discussions will prevent us from moving too fast..

"Ethical" discussions tend to take the ironic form of, "Hey, stop doing that. I get to say how you live."

..but I fear these concerns would have no impact on a slow progression towards turning ourselves into something unrecognizable as human by today's standards.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

From a meth addict's perspective

[halo1982]

I'm 24 now and has been prescribed amphetamines and various stimulants since I was six years old due to ADHD. First Ritalin, then as a teen I moved onto adderall, and then about two years ago I discovered this wonderful (italics for emphasis on sarcasm) drug called methamphetamine. I thought it was great, I could go 48-72 hours programming and get more work than I ever thought possible done and then crash for 8 hours, repeat. This wears on you after a few weeks and I'd start sleeping 14 hours, then 24, etc. Eventually I just kinda went crazy, lost my job, etc. At first I don't think it was the euphoria the drug induces that made it so hard to quit, it was the productivity it induced. I became addicted to getting 6 days of work done in 2, and then it all kind of went down hill from there. I've been clean 277 days and half of the time thats just because I cut off contact with all the people I could get it from. This is not something you want to mess with. While I think "meth is bad" is pretty universal, you would be surprised how many software developers I bought/sold to for the exact same reason as I. And I live in a smaller city, I'd think this would be much more rampant in major areas such as LA, New York, Seattle.
Anyway the article this drug is about is Modafinil, also known as Provigil, a narcolepsy drug, which I've been prescribed for ADHD. And it does the same damn thing. Your body needs sleep, trust me I know, no matter what it is after two or three days your mind begins to break down. This drug certainly doesn't help with that, and if you RTFA (what are the chances of that?) the software developer in question mentions some of the things I pointed out. This worries me, greatly, because after going through a year of hell I'm now seeing articles like this discussing the potential for a "sleep-free" lifestyle, I have very little doubt in my mind that such a thing is not possible without great damage to the brain.

I am not everyman and I do have an extremely addictive personality, but I've seen friends who don't (have addictive personalities) fall into the same trap as I did under the allusion of "work more, work faster, sleep is for wimps!"
Anyway this is just my experience, but I thought I would share...

Re:From a meth addict's perspective

[furry_marmot]

Couple of things I thought I'd share. First, I've seen several of these articles, and I've also used modafinil on and off for almost three years. Sleep-free is an exaggeration. It can make a significant difference, but it does have side-effects (mostly headache and nausea) and it's not like your performance is quite normal, though it depends on what you're doing.

For example, I've found that when I'm trapped at my desk and have to pull an all-nighter, it just doesn't keep me up all night. I think it's because of the lack of general physical movement. For all night sessions, I find working as late as I can (1am or 2am, usually), followed by 2-4 hours of sleep, gives me far more energy for the task than trying to get by with caffeine alone. And I'm far more productive than trying to push through without sleep at all. But your reasoning will get fuzzy, your memory will play tricks on you, and you can get kind of distracted after a while. The longest I stayed up with it was 38 hours straight. At the end of that time, I knew I was in a pretty bad place. I had a glass of wine, faded fast, and hopped into bed. I woke after 5 1/2 hours fairly refreshed. I was kind of out of it the next day, and I wouldn't want to make any important decisions or presentations in that state, but it wasn't bad.

Recently, we decided to remodel the kitchen. We were running behind schedule (who doesn't), I was burning the candle at both ends because of work, and I needed to get part of the plumbing done to get the cabinets in place for the Corian people who were coming in two days. I used a half dose around dinner time and kept going with good energy until 3am. At that point I could have taken more and kept going, but I slept and finished the next night. An important point to note is that Modafinil/Provigil can stave off the urge to sleep, but cannot eliminate the need to sleep.

When I was young and stupid, I would indulge in a variety of drugs for no particular reason. Meth (and I presume the somewhat more legal varieties of amphetamine) are good for focus and staying awake, but along with not eliminating the need for sleep, they also make subtle changes to your brain chemistry. My brother got hooked on meth, took it all the time, thought he was real cool. Then he started talking about "the mob" wanting to kill him, and how every dark sedan he'd see on the road was the FBI keeping an eye on him. When I, my other brother, and some of his friends tried to convince him to get off the drugs, he thought it was some kind of plot. He finally got sent home on a forced vacation and laid off the drugs for a while. It was about 2 weeks before he started questioning his delusions.

It may sound like a joke, but amphetamine psychosis due to chronic use really isn't. It wears off after a couple of weeks, but while you're in it, you're particular form of crazy (my brother became obviously and overtly paranoid) will be absolutely indistinguishable from the real thing (that is, organic and not going away).

Anyway (sorry if I got off-topic), Modafinil definitely does not have these side effects. And it won't leave you burned out or sleeping 24 hours, but prolonged lack of sleep definitely is not good for your brain and you will find yourself misplacing IQ points after a while.

--marmot

Polyphasic/"Uberman" sleeping

[SlightlyMadman]

What's interesting about this drug, is that it seems to do something very similar to what people have been doing with polyphasic sleeping for years now. Basically, you only "need" 2 hours of sleep, but it has to be almost 100% REM. If you can trick your body into denying itself all the rest of the "unnecessary" sleep cycles, you can get by with just those two.

Polyphasic sleeping accomplishes this by limiting yourself to brief 15-20 minute naps, which are far more efficient than sleeping in large blocks because the brain can be trained to go directly into REM. Unfortunately, this training can take weeks or months (depending on how fastidious you are with your schedule), and the adjustment period can be extremely unpleasant.

A drug like this could be very useful for those of us who do don't experience much physical exertion and sleep very little as it is anyways, but couldn't get past the adjustment hump of the polyphasic cycle.

You're right

[LunaticTippy]

Most people grow when they sleep. Then, their vertebrae compress during the day and they go to bed shorter. While horozontal the discs uncompress, resulting in "growth." Astronauts get about 2 inches taller in low gravity, but for us earthbound folk it is less, maybe 1-2 cm. Here is a link I found.

Need for sleep

[dargaud]

I read a paper in computational theory that went more or less like this. They proved via lambda calculus (the base maths of computational theory) that any sufficiently complex system needs a 'cleanup function'. In practical computer terms, it's the infamous garbage disposal process where lost pointers are dropped, unused pages are flushed from memory, seldom used memory commited to long term storage (mem to cache, cache to disk, disk to tape, etc...), data reorganised (in databases) or compressed, etc... During this period few, if any, real computing activity can continue; this translates as "if you don't reboot regularly, your computer will crash or you need a good garbage disposal process which will slow down your system for a while".

Now if you believe (like many) that the brain is no more than a big computing unit, then it must abides by those rules and the sleep is nothing else than the physical manifestation of 'garbage disposal'. Keep it up for too long and it will... crash.

Gotta go with....no.

[biggomez777]

Being bipolar, when my medication doesn't work I can go for days without sleep. This is not good. The brain starts doing strange things after day 3 or so. I can only imagine what would happen WHEN, not IF, people start abusing something like this. Sleep is incredibly important to anyone with an illness of any kind, be it physical or mental. Without it, the condition worsens.
Imagine what would happen if this became commonplace. There's a reason that they don't give anti-depressants to make everyone happy. In a small % of the population it can/will cause a psychotic episode. Severe sleep deprivation can do the same thing, set off things in the brain that a person only had a tendency for before. Your great grand-mother was a paranoid schizophrenic? Great, now that you decided to cram for a test for 3 days, you set it off. The chances are low, granted, but do you really want to play with something like that? Get your 8 hours and be happy that you can.

The bunnies are plotting against me!

[Anonymous Coward]

I did 8 days awake once (with nothing stronger than moderate quantities of Red Bull, a little booze, some really nice fried breakfasts and cups of tea, and a lot of distraction, parties, and sheer bloody-minded determination).

It was a sort of experiment; I was the control, and a friend was the "experiment", who did the same 8 days awake, but "aided" by dropping a 100mg-150mg pill of methylenedioxymethamphetamine phosphate (pretty good ecstasy) every time the previous pill wore off (and, of course, remaining appropriately hydrated - I don't remember how many he got through, but it was definitely over 50 in total, and looking back, I find it amazing he didn't die - by the end, they weren't having any effect except monging him out and despite frankly loving the drug, he couldn't bear touching it for the next 6 months afterwards - "too much of a good thing").

Of the two of us, I think I actually got the weirder experience. Sleep deprivation is fucked up.

I could feel myself lapse slightly after a couple of days, and really didn't know what day it was after about 2 and a half. 3 days in, I swear the rabbits that were native to the university campus (for where else do you conduct such crazy experiments?) were plotting against me.

I've done drugs since then, and I would really equate sleep deprivation to magic mushrooms in terms of the sheer depth of hallucinations - we're talking some deeply weird, very convincing stuff here. Fortunately I've always been aware that I was hallucinating because I had a pretty good idea what I was getting into - so it didn't actually turn my mind into slushie (permanently).

I needed about 1 and a half days' sleep afterwards, by the way, and woke up pretty groggy but triumphant, ate a little, played a few games to wind down again, went back to sleep for another half day, then I was pretty much back to normal.

(Posting anonymously, for obvious reasons, but this really happened (in 2001). I am not as insane as I used to be, but, as many do, had a wild experimental phase in university. Do not try this at home. You might die.)

NO! ADHD is not a myth!

[ebers]

My brother is brilliant but couldn't concentrate on a book long enough to read 15 pages of it. Writing was similarly impossible. He figured he was a lazy and disorganized, and just couldn't concentrate due to insufficient moral fiber. So, despite being brilliant, he counted himself out of any kind of intelectually rewarding career. Then he learned about ADHD and tried some medication. It was like throwing a switch- now he can concentrate and work hard, and he does. ADHD meds made it possible for him to thrive at law school, where so much counselling, introspection, self-blame, and "lifestyle changes" did nothing.

Overdiagnosed as ADHD is, there are lots of cases out there like my brother's, and you cannot dismiss the reality of ADHD without considering them.

Try neurofeedback

[cheros]

The problem with Ritalin (ie speed) is that it's an 'always on' drug, and ADHD appears to either lack or activity or overactivity of certain brain regions (both types of ADHD exist, which is why Ritalin doesn't always help). With neurofeedback you end up trainign those brain parts to perform as required (ie switch on and off as required) which is much more effective, and the results are permanent.

The nice thing is that you'll know within one or two sessions if it works, no need for months to wait before you know it works. I've seen plenty of kids being more or less 'rescued' from a life with Ritalin, that alone is worth a try..

Better than oldborn

[Siker]

I think most new children are newborn by default.

So...

[GungaDan]

sleep is where I'm a maths genius half the time and a poet the other half?

Dreams

[Intrinsic]

I have been studying dreams for a couple of years now, and for me sleep is vital. I record my dreams after I wake up and use their symbolism to better understand what my unconscious is trying to help me understand. I believe that the unconscious mind uses dreams to send messages to the conscious mind to help humans become more successful and live longer.

If that were removed I can imagine our psychology would find another way to send messages to the conscious mind while we were awake, which might me much more dangerous and stressful on our biology.

This drug really sounds pretty dangerous if someone were to use for extended periods of time.

Re:Hallucinations.

[Shads]

I also did some sleep deprivation self-studies when i was in high school (over the summer mostly)... my longest stint with no chemical assistance was a bit over 9 days (221 hours.)

Things I've noticed several times I've went sleep deprived
Day 1) Hard to stay up at "Bedtime".
o Normal functioning
o Memory, Speech, and Physical abilities normal
Day 2) Easy to stay up
o Normal functioning
o Memory, Speech, and physical abilities mostly-normal
o Trouble concentrating on complex mental things, like programming a simple 3d game
Day 3) Easy to stay up
o Normal functioning
o Memory, Speech, anad physical abilities mostly-normal
o Trouble concentrating on complex mental things, like programming a simple 3d game
o Minor issues with memory and extremely complex speech (like most complex poetry or tongue twisters)
Day 4) Tired, can't get comfortable or will fall asleep
o Impaired functioning
o Memory, Speech, and physical abilities considerably lessened
o Can't concentrate longer than a few minutes
o Complex speech is impossible you sound like you had a stroke
o Physically exhausted and "sore"
o Minor visual only halucinations
Day 5) Tired, can't get comfortable or will fall asleep
o Impaired functioning
o Memory, Speech, and physical abilities considerably lessened
o Can't concentrate longer than a few minutes
o Complex speech is impossible you sound like you had a stroke
o Physically exhausted and "sore"
o Hallucinations getting severe with all senses hard to tell from reality
o Diminished appetite
Day 6) Exhausted, effort required to stay awake
o extremely impaired functioning
o Memory, Speech, and Physical abilities are crap
o can't concentrate for over a minute
o speech is going in the crapper
o body is sore like you've worked out for hours
o Hallucinations are so severe you can't tell them from reality at all
o time lag when in conversations
o everything takes on a surreal cast, nothing seems like its normal
o Pissy and angry, snapping at people
o Diminished appetite
Day 7) Exhausted, effort required to stay awake
o extremely impaired functioning
o Memory, Speech, and Physical abilities are crap
o can't concentrate for more than a few seconds
o speech is horrible, monotone, and increasingly rare, very start and stop
o no energy hard to move
o Hallucinations are so severe you can't tell them from reality at all
o time lag when in conversations
o everything takes on a surreal cast, nothing seems like its normal
o Lethargic and slow to respond
o No appetite
Day 8) Exhausted, effort required to stay awake
o extremely impaired functioning
o Memory, Speech, and Physical abilities are crap
o can't concentrate for more than a few seconds
o speech is horrible, monotone, and increasingly rare, very start and stop
o no energy hard to move
o Hallucinations are so severe you can't tell them from reality at all
o time lag when in conversations
o everything takes on a surreal cast, nothing seems like its normal
o Lethargic and slow to respond
o No appetit

STOP THE HYPE

[The MESMERIC]

I am aware that Cephalon is spending a fortune on viral marketing.

Without the hype induced placebo this drug is nothing more than a MDMA/Ephedra mix without the bad music.

Stop buying into the hype.

Fed up of seeing the same exaggerated claims appearing repeatedly, recycled specially in Slashdot.

signed: An ex-modafinil user.

Sorry I'm so late to the party

[viewtouch]

Sleep is NOT behavior that has evolved 'for some reason'. Sleep is a metabolic imperative. It is the 'normal' state of life. Being awake is a temporary state that is actually destructive to the metabolism of cell life. Being awake is necessary to move around and obtain food and to procreate, but being awake is not necessary for anything beyond this. After the food has been obtained and the procreative act is complete then the life form able to end the destructive metabolic state of 'being awake' and return to the constructive metabolic state, otherwise known as sleep. Asking the question why do we sleep is akin to asking the question why do we live. The answer is that we do. Asking the question why do we wake up is a question that actually makes sense and can be answered with ease.

The only way to understand sleep / awake is to first understand anabolism / catabolism, balancing metabolic states. Sleep and Awake are balancing metabolic states, nothing more, nothing less. Just because we can exhibit 'behavior' when we are awake does NOT mean that sleep has anything to do the the notion of behavior. And just because we can measure brain activity during periods when we are awake or asleep does NOT mean that sleep is anything more than a metabolic state. Sleep is the Normal, Natural state of any living organism. Awake is just heightened activity and enhanced skills necessary to obtain food and procreate. Making too much of what being awake is is the source of all the confusion and misunderstanding about what sleep is.

High school understanding of the eye is wrong

[melchoir55]

Cones do not detect color, rods do not detect black and white.

Cones are sensitive to daylight conditions while rods are sensitive to low-light conditions. Your cones are inactive during night lighting conditions and you still construct your visual field in color. As a result of being keyed to daylight, cones are also used for edge perception. As such, you will find it quite impossible to read by moonlight, as reading requires your cones to distinguish very fine edges and your cones are inactive in nigh-light. (regardless of how bright the moon is.)
Rods are particularly good at sensing motion, though not edges. As you may guess, this means humans are better at sensing motion *at night*. As such, you will not be able to tell which claw a bear is swinging at you in your peripheral vision, though you will be able to tell a large object is hurtling toward you. In fact, due to the physical setup of your eye, it is advisable to "look" at objects in night conditions without focusing directly at them. You have a .3mm concentration of cones in the center of your eye, thus the center of your eye is completely incapable of helping you in these conditions.
This setup (being able to distinguish edges and detail better during the day and being better at detecting motion at night) seems to suggest that humans were on the defensive at night and actively engaged in the world during the day.
The human vision system is much more effective (for things that we need to be spending time on) in daylight conditions, I find it *highly* unlikely humans were nocturnal in anything that might resemble recent history.

We also do not detect 3 colors and then construct other colors out of a combination of these. Our S, L and M cones are tuned to respond most agressively to specific wavelengths of light, though they are still responsive to wavelengths that are "near" those. There is even a theory that some women posses a gene (that can only be carried on a second x chromosome) that produces a fourth type of cone. These cones are tuned to detect light in between the wavelengths of the L and M cones, giving these women the ability to distinguish between colors that a tri-chromatic individual would see as identicle. These women are ingeniously deemed "Tetrochromatic superwomen".

Don't be sad if all this contradicts what you were told in high school. High school teachers, by and large, aren't on the bleeding edge of cognitive science.

As a user

[runcible]

I have a diagnosed "sleep disorder", but the actual root cause is my job -- I run an OPS group, so insanely long and/or irregular hours are the norm ( guaranteed to have to work 48 hours straight about once every three months, and have to run on 2-3 hours of sleep pretty regularly ).

To "manage" this, I have a perscription for Ambien ( just switched to CR, `cause it makes it easier to go back to sleep after having to wake up and work for two hours in the middle of the night ) and a perscription for Provigil ( 400 mg/dy ). The pharma is what lets me cope with this schedule when I need to, otherwise I'd be jello.

I have nothing but good things to say about Provigil, it lets me do what I need to do without worrying about whether or not my body can keep up. Not to mention the newfound ability to drive from NYC to Miami with nothing but gas an bathroom breaks. However, there are a couple big things that get overrepresented, or that don't get considered:

1) This stuff lets you operate for long periods of time without sleep and more-or-less without accruing sleep debt, and it lets you function semi-normally on very little sleep. However, it does not keep extended periods of sleeplessness from taking a mental toll -- the longer you go without sleep the more your cognitive ability and short-term memory suffer, modafinil doesn't change that. So yeah, I can run 40 hours straight no problem taking 400 mg of this shit every 12-14 hours, but you get gradually dumber over that span even though you can stay alert and responsive. By the end of a 40-hour run I'm functioning at low-normal to low intelligence, my short term memory is basically nonexistant, and I'm extremely distractable...to the point where sometimes I trail off in the middle of a sentence. So if you do anything other than long-haul trucking, your work will suffer as time goes on.

2) Potential for psychological dependency is very high among the subset of the population likely to use it for its "lifestyle" effects. It improves your concentration by orders of magnitude and lets you run at that high level for quite a while before secondary fatigue effects (see above) start taking a bite out of your performance. For people who derive large portions of their self-worth from their mental abilities, this shit is anabolic steroids -- won't hook you physically, but it makes you *way* better at what you do. And you start to miss it if it isn't there.

3) It gives you headaches -- not all the time, but often enough. Since I started regular use, I get headaches at least 30% more than I used to. Also it can make you really nauseous -- although it also seems to have an appetite supressant effect, and an empty stomach combined with coffee consumption and smoking more heavily than normal could explain the nausea. Also, it makes your urine smell really bad, which has a nice synergistic thing with the nausea...

You don't need REM Sleep

[Jugurtha]

There was a case of a woman who lost the ability to have REM sleep for over a year. It was thought for years that a person needed to enter this period of sleep but it turns out you don't, because she didn't suffer any serious effects. I don't doubt that in 50 years we will have a complete understanding of the human brain and how it works. At that point we can manipulate our genetics through drugs or gene therapy to eliminate the need for sleep. I know personally that I hate sleeping and would gladly do away with it if I could. From the article. "The study also backs up reports of patients who lost both their dreams and their REM sleep for up to a year after taking certain antidepressant drugs. "These people don't go mad," says Horne. They are completely normal and have no memory problems."

Coding for 100 hours without sleep

[tttonyyy]

When I was at uni, I left an OpenGL software project too late before deadline. I underestimated the massive amount of work it would take. It was due in Friday, I realised Sunday evening. I worked late into the night, until it was so late, I figured I might as well not bother sleeping. So I didn't. I stayed up for five days coding solidly, including throughout the night (coffee fuelled), stopping just to fulfil basic body functions. The project got done, and it looked great.

But, I learnt a few things.

My body followed the daily cycles despite not sleeping. Each day I would be at my least attentive between 4am-8am. Then, by mid-day I'd be feeling a lot more awake and alert. I did not hallucinate in any way, but I did feel like crap pretty much all the time.

In hindsight, because I waas so tired during the days, I'd have probably got exactly the same amount of work done if I'd followed the normal cycles and slept during the nights. It definitely doesn't do you any favours to skimp on the sleep.

And on the fifth day, after I handed it in, I slept very well. :) (But it did take another week to fully recover from my sleep depravation).

Do not try this at home kids.