AIBU to think it's fascinating that humans NEED sleep, and

[bbcessex]

To wonder what life would be like if we didn't?

I love my bed but often wonder what an alternative life spent round the clock would feel like!!

how awful to be awake 24/7 and I'd hate to see my heating and elec bill being on all day and night !

Between myself and my partner we are awake 24 hours (I only sleep for about 4 hours) he sleeps odd hours, its ok, the problem we do have is how cold it does get, but we just throw blankets round ourselves

I am fairly sure I saw somewhere that we don't know why we sleep, if you think about it, we are basically allowing predators to attack us for no real reason, it doesn't recharge the body like we once thought

I was just thinking the same thing the other day, why on earth would evolution think it was a good idea for everyone to be unconscious for 6-8 hours every night, and how did we survive not being eaten by sabre tooth tigers in our sleep, surely short naps during the day and night would have been safer

Did cave people take turns to sleep to defend against predators?

I guess we needed 2 sleeps to fill the whole of the long dark night. Apparently the gap between the two sleeps was when people often had sex.

@Venger 😂 so true!! Such a funny way to think of it!

@Mammylamb - why (and how) did you stay awake for 3 days?

I googled the dolphin thing, and it's true. uk.whales.org/whales-dolphins/how-do-dolphins-sleep/

I find it weird that sleep is so imperative to our wellbeing/health/functioning and yet human babies are complete sleep thieves. Like how does that work Mother Nature? I feel like it's a really bad design flaw.

I've though exactly the same before @fairybeagle. But I wonder, did primitive babies wake their mothers? Or did they just sleep nestled into their breasts and wake and feed, without much if any disturbance to their mothers.

@Instagrrr - that's it...
maybe that's why we haven't evolved - our brains won't allow us to!

The cave people were either night owls or larks. That’s where it came from. The night owls would protect overnight and the larks would take over in the morning.

OP you would be amazed how many different sleep patterns `I have experimented with trying to find the optimal sleep pattern! I still haven’t cracked it. I WFH and get to choose my own hours so am free to experiment as much as I want. And yet I still revert to sleeping overnight, with the odd nap in the day I think alarm clocks are very unnatural and I am not convinced it’s the “healthiest” way to live our lives. However, for most people, it’s not a choice but a necessity.

@littlehappyhippo the thought of NOT have sleep to switch off is actually terrifying to me.. I'm far too boring to have to occupy another 8 hours a day too!!

I think I would run out of things to do without sleep. Sometimes I have tea and there's nothing good on the telly and it's dark and cold outside so I just go to bed for want of anything else to do.

I would guess co-sleeping was standard in prehistoric times.

@thatmustbenigelwiththebrie - absolutely.

Reality / science aside, our LOVE of sleep, instead of / in addition to our NEED for it
, is another thing that distinguishes us from other mammals..

Did anyone watch Shattered back in the early 2000s? Like Big Brother without sleep. Fascinating.

My favourite thing I’ve seen on this was something someone posted on Twitter which said

“Isn’t it mad how, in order to get to sleep, you have to pretend to do it?”

Often pops into my head when I’m trying to get to sleep and then I can’t

but it still feels bizarre that we haven't evolved to eradicate the need.

It would have to be a significant hindrance. It isn’t, so it hasn’t.

I once worked round the clock for 72 hours, on my feet the whole time. I was popping those stay-awake pills (forgotten the name, you could buy them in the chemist) and in the end I was taking a pill every 10-15 minutes and my legs were literally collapsing under me. I don't think I had started hallucinating though.

They've done sleep deprivation studies; I can't remember what they showed, but I know it's really dangerous if you go without deep sleep for whatever time. I'm sure it would be easy to look up, it's not new.

I bloody love being asleep

In fact why am I still on MN at 10.53?! Night everyone 😴

There's an instagram celeb, Caroline Calloway. She had an Adderall addiction and eventually ended up having days that were 3 days long- awake for 72hrs at a stretch before sleeping. It sounds horrendous!

They did an experiment on cats once. Every time they fell asleep they woke them

I'm only surprised the testers survived long enough to write the final report

And with that I'm off to bed ... once I can persuade the cats to give me space, that is ...

As well as humans having our special sleep routine and shelf I also find it really odd when I’ve walked home in the early hours to think most of the humans in the vicinity have all chosen to be unconscious at the same time. It freaks me out at bit to think if you took the roof off all the houses you’d see them all lying down down, recharging like machines

I remember the cat experiment. They actually cut their eyelids off

I find it fascinating what we need to survive. Food being less urgent than air, sleep, water.

I often think about thousands of years ago, waking up with the sunrise, going to bed with sunset. We’re awake much longer than we’re supposed to be now.
TV in the 70’s finished about 11 pm, you went to bed, now you can stay up being entertained 24 hours.
Sunset at the moment is approximately 4.15, sunrise is 7.15, in the olden days you would go to bed. We’re up much later.