What would happen if we could replace sleep with drugs? DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)-funded researchers think they’ve found a hormone that resets the brain, making sleep-deprived laboratory monkeys perform as though well-rested. Deane at Gadgetopia seems pretty excited by the idea:
I hate having to sleep so much that I asked my coworkers once if “just a little bit of meth would be so bad.” I was only half-kidding.
But I have my doubts it would be that much of a good thing. First of all, sleep is a vital self-defense mechanism when faced with a movie directed by Kevin Costner. But perhaps more importantly, when technology has found ways of giving us time we’ve been very good at finding new ways to fill it. Mostly with more work. Without reliable electric lights, we couldn’t have twenty-four-hour grocery stores. Computers haven’t given us more free time (as promised), instead they’ve allowed us to do more work in less time. If we don’t need sleep, what’s to keep us from working (or being required to work by the pressures of economy) 12 to 16-hour shifts?
Usually we worry about new drugs making it to the under-privileged, but a no-sleep drug… would this make sleep a luxury activity? One only the rich could afford?
