What's the deal with sleep anyway? How long have you gone for without it? How much do you get a night?

We sleep so we dream. We dream to live out those things that in 'real life' we didn't do, for example thumping the bloke who gave you a nasty look in the corridor, or kissing the woman you took a fancy to on the bus. But if at some stage in the future it becomes socially acceptable to kiss strange women on the bus, and through a lack of war we lost our lust for violence, would we therefore loose the need for dreaming, and thus the need for sleeping. In essance, would sleep would become redundant?

It's that time again, a World Famous Incredible Tim Partridge Philisophical... Hmmmmmmmm (tm)

-- Tim (tim@almighty.co.uk), October 25, 2000

Answers

No. We'd always dream. We'd just dream about *not* kissing the girl on the bus. And you'd always dream about acceptance. You may kiss the girl but she'll probably not want to be kissed.

Erm, I'm sleepy.

-- Krys (krysten@geek.com), October 25, 2000.

just had to say that last night...err morning, I went to bed at 5am...woke up at 1pm and my head is fuzzy. cool, yo!

I must say I've never slept till 2pm but I have stayed in bed for half a day just laying there. eh.

I like dreams. they are great. I'd still want to dream nevertheless.

-- Amber (starlight@wellyeah.org), October 25, 2000.

uh... I'm typing this at about 1:40 A.M. I generally don't get a whole lot of sleep, maybe 5 hours at the most.

It's an odd pattern. For maybe three nights in a row I'll stay up until 2 AM. Then the next night I'll go to bed at about 6 PM, wake up at 1 AM, and go to bed at 3 AM. Lather, wash, rinse, and repeat.

My dreams aren't so much what isn't going on in real life as an amalgam of everything inside of my head. Which, of course, isn't going on in real life, but most of it is too far out there to be in reality even if it were possible or acceptable...

uh, yeah. That makes a whole lot of sense.

-- Lauren (lauren@blueshoe.org), October 26, 2000.

I agree with you, sometimes sleep does seem like a major waste of time. And although I've never slept in until two, I have felt the angst of spending a day in bed. Sometimes I do wish I was an insomniac (well, only if I could get a permanent Internet connection).

But then there are other times when I'm glad there's sleep, usually related to dreams I have. Most of mine aren't centred around things I wish I'd done, they're just bizarre happenings. Quite entertaining sometimes. Last night, I dreamt I was reading a book (or possibly watching a movie) which started out as a Neighbours thing, then rapidly turned into a story about Napoleon's daughter. The two were related, trust me. Anyway, the latter half of the dream was so poignant that I remembered being amazed at the writer's (so I guess it was a book) talent. I woke up, realised such a story had never existed, and therefore immediately wanted to create it. However, as time passes, the dream is fading. Geh.

Anyway, even if it wasn't for dreams, sleeping is still a good thing. V. refreshing.

-- Sarah Joy (sarahjoy@squirrel-net.co.uk), October 26, 2000.

Having to sleep does waste a lot of time, but it's pretty good for alleviating boredom.

I've been without sleep for about sixty hours on two occasions. It was not nice, especially since I had to use public transport both times and started having nasty hallucinations mid-journey, probably causing me to cry out in distress. I usually get/need about eight hours sleep a night.

After the second sixty hour drought, I went to bed at 8.30pm and slept until 3.30pm the following day. Usually, though, I can't remain in a state of slumber later any than about 10.30am. A couple of nights ago, I dreamt I didn't wake up until 1.15pm and missed all my lectures, but I woke up at 9am, worse luck.

-- Zed (zed@swansongs.net), October 26, 2000.

Dude, I'm a college student. My sleep "cycle" if you can call it that, is by definition screwed up. if I could be nocturnal, I totally would... and lately I might as well have been. Longest I've been without was something like 40 hours, on a trip to England (hi Tim :] ) and that wasn't very good. I love sleep... I love pillows and blankets and being all warm and comfy. I also have ti arranged so that I have no classes before 11:50 3 days a week and 12:40 the other two (like today) so I can easily stay up till 3 and get baout 6 or 7 hours sleep. Then I sleep till like 1:30 or 2 on the weekends, to make up for the rest of the week. Hmmm. I just got up, I think I'm babbling.

-- Libbet (allegreta@hotmail.com), October 26, 2000.

flibble

-- Sean (sean.c@fatal.co.uk), October 26, 2000.

About that dreaming of a book... I once dreamed that I was about to sit down and watch a movie. I woke up before the film started, but had I not, would my mind have actually created the entire film?

Do you remember your dreams? I tend to over the holidays when I get full nights sleep more often. Apparently remembering your dreams is all to do with the cycles you sleep in. We go through the sleep cycle a number of times a night, and if you are 'artifically' woken up in the middle of a cycle then you will not remember what you were dreaming. If, however, you let yourself wake up when you want to, you will. I'm not sure how much truth there is in that!

-- Tim (tim@almighty.co.uk), October 26, 2000.

Longest ever without sleep was a full 36 hours. Back in college, writing a paper on nothing but coffee -- the only time, I might add, that I've forced myself to stay up using coffee. Before that I'd stayed up for a full 24, gaming online and then going to class the following day.

Generally I sleep for 8-10 hours per night. I'm not very functional on less than eight and my natural cycle seems to involve going to bed between midnight and two am and getting up around 10am.

-- Beth Kelleher (owl@littleowl.com), October 26, 2000.

The longest IB4ve gone without sleep is about 60 hours and by then, things tend to get a *little* weird... I started to see things that werenB4t there are failed to see things that were there, if you see what I mean. When I finally went to sleep, I had one of those paralysation dreams, and it was rather freaky (but unlike TimB4s dreams, did not contain James...)

-- Sean (sean.c@fatal.co.uk), October 27, 2000.

sorry about the B4s on last message, they were meant to be apostrophes.

-- Sean (sean.c@fatal.co.uk), October 27, 2000.

Like someone's already said, university and college students' sleep cycles are by definition screwed, mine sure as hell is - in fact, worse than most because I'm a medical student with 9am starts EVERY DAY (I hate you Zed). My usual sleeping hours during the week are 2.30am to 7.30am, an early night is 12.30am and a late one is about 4am (although I did have one dire night when it was 5.30am). At the weekend I sleep until they start serving lunch at 12noon. Needless to say, I'm exhausted all the time and have learnt to do what I swore I'd never do till I was 60, nap whenever I have a couple of hours spare. Gah.

-- Helen (breathe@oceanic.nu), October 27, 2000.

Hey my name is tommy scriver and this is my second night going without sleep (approx 42 hours so far) and i will be the first person in history to go without sleep for 1 and a half months!!! White back on my progress at 100 hours!!!

-- tommy scriver (tscriver@csolve.net), March 25, 2001.