Drug that replaces sleep - hypothetical

Imagine that there exists a drug that replaces sleep. When you're tired, you can take this drug and will feel exactly as you do in the morning after sleeping for however many hours you need. Your muscles heal, your mind reorganizes itself.... whatever else happens in your sleep is accomplished by taking this drug.

The only difference is that you don't actually have to lie down and sleep. You don't remember any dreams because you didn't have any. You don't feel as though any time has passed because it hasn't.

Here is the question in mind. If this drug existed, could you really take it to replace sleep?

When I think about it, it seems that there must still be some problem, although I'm not sure what it is. It's almost like I'd just be sick of thinking consciously and living in the world and need to feel as though I've been away from it for a while.. I'm very tired now, but if I suddenly weren't tired anymore and felt alert, I'd still be exhausted, even bored, of living my waking life. I'd wish that I were tired again.

If others agree, what are the implications? Why does it feel so wrong to imagine taking a drug instead of sleeping? Is it only because we're so used to sleeping that we can't properly imagine being okay without it? Or is there some reason that we need the time to have elapsed?

I wasn't sure where to post this and I apologize if I posted it in the wrong place. I considered The Lounge, ED, Philosophy, Sleep and Health, and General Dreaming Discussion, and none seemed right for it.

Hmm. That's an interesting question. My imidiate response is that I'd want to use the drug when I was having fun and wanted to continue doing that, and sleep when that felt better. However there would be political implications to this as well. Since you no-longer needed to sleep at night, would you be expected - or even required - to work some extra hours?

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Originally Posted by khh

Hmm. That's an interesting question. My imidiate response is that I'd want to use the drug when I was having fun and wanted to continue doing that, and sleep when that felt better. However there would be political implications to this as well. Since you no-longer needed to sleep at night, would you be expected - or even required - to work some extra hours?

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Oh man...that is the worst thing I've heard all morning.

Edit: To respond to the post, I agree. Its nice to shut off conscious thought. Then again that can be done through meditation. So, maybe pop a pill, manually shut off your thoughts for a half hour and then get rolling again? Could be feasible.

As the one above me said, though, if you're having a good time there'd be no problem.I assume I speak for most of the forum when I say I'd certainly miss my dreams, though.

Pop a pill, meditate for 8 hours.

If the pill has no bad side effects, I don't see why I wouldn't use it occasionally for certain things, like working through the night on a paper or something, but indeed, shutting off your brain and just letting time fly by is nice. Dreaming is nice as well.

There was an American Dad episode about this.

That would be the drug that would give you more 25 years of waking life, since that is more or less the time that we spend sleeping. I'd certainly miss my dreams but think about the stuff that you could do if you spent every night awake. Almost unlimited fun.
Although, there isn't a better feeling than lying down on your bed after a long day, and feeling that light pain on your back :)

If this drug existed you would be lying on the floor acting out memories as your brain processes them to see if they are relevant. So I'm guessing that it wouldn't be of much use.

I don't think a lot of people in this thread understand the premise. If the drug replaces sleep, that also means it replaces the feeling of needing to shut down the brain. Otherwise, the question is pointless.

It's hard to imagine what I would do with an extra 8 hours a day, but that's only because there's no chance of me ever having an extra 8 hours. Perhaps it would be more useful to think of the problem the other way: what if you suddenly needed to sleep 16 hours a day? How would your life be affected, how would it be limited? What sorts of things would you never even think of doing?

but but but but

this makes no sense to me, I mean yeah I get it its just hypothetical, but it really makes no sense!

dreaming is how the brain reorganizes itself - so if you take a pill to simulate sleep - wouldn't you hallucinate?? o.o

okay technical stuff aside, no, sleeping is so awesome

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Originally Posted by juroara

but but but but

this makes no sense to me, I mean yeah I get it its just hypothetical, but it really makes no sense!

dreaming is how the brain reorganizes itself - so if you take a pill to simulate sleep - wouldn't you hallucinate?? o.o

okay technical stuff aside, no, sleeping is so awesome

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hypothetically, the pill would reorganize the brain.
sleeping is awesome though :)

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Originally Posted by TruMotion

hypothetically, the pill would reorganize the brain.
sleeping is awesome though :)

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I don't think you got his point. Since consciousness is a product of the brain, reorganizing said brain necessarily causes hallucinations.

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Originally Posted by cmind

I don't think you got his point. Since consciousness is a product of the brain, reorganizing said brain necessarily causes hallucinations.

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Still, I don't see how that is relevant to the topic...

I think a drug like that is really a bad idea.

-Humans are bored so quickly in this world. We should see sleep as a blessing, it keeps us busy.

-This may sound a little silly, but a lot of idea's that helped this world came from dreams.

-People would probably 'abuse' it.

-Side effects

-Lucid dreaming would be even less populair then it is now. (:eek:)


Basicly my reaction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0...eature=related

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Originally Posted by Heavy Sleeper

There was an American Dad episode about this.

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Haha, yeah, I watched that a couple weeks ago and it's what made me start thinking about it.

I get what people mean who are saying the question doesn't make much sense. It's hard to know how much of that 'wanting to be away from the world' feeling is just a craving for the brain to organize its thoughts. And now that I'm awake, I almost feel as though I could take the drug.

And there would be strange political implications. Perhaps sleeping would even be made illegal because it wastes time, and we probably would be required to work for longer hours. That relates to another question I was going to put in the OP. If the drug existed, but there were some minor consequences, maybe like those similar to not exercising and eating poorly, how common would sleeping be? I'm guessing that, like those other bad habits, society would do them anyway. People who slept every night would be considered a weird fringe and be looked upon as lazy. Sleep would be advised as a cure for depression and other things, but popping the pill would be so easy that hardly anyone would actually do it.

Imagine if the drug caused a dream build up, so when you finally went for some sleep, you'd have tons of extremely vivid and intense dreams. Man.

It's impossible to answer whether the need for sleep is due to needing some time away from being alert the rest of the time.
And if this drug did exist, it would have to take that away. If it did not, then we would still need sleep. Pretty simple.

And no I wouldn't take that. I love dreams. If I could take pill to make me lucid, I would. But not to keep me awake forever.
That said, it would be interesting to try. Just continuous consciousness for weeks. Then I'd stop.

But the mind isn't the only reason we sleep. Even if the pill was completely side-effect free, and you didn't get any adverse mental effects from not sleeping, the body needs rest too. Sleep is when most healing and regeneration happens. Now as far as I'm aware there's no reason you couldn't be concious during this process, but being awake and doing absolutely nothing for hours on end suck. We all know that from those evenings we just can't get to sleep.

This is why I find these types of conversation quite pointless. Except to correct people's bad thought processes.

We're assuming this drug would do everything sleep does. Including any bodily healing.

While most of the time, this hypothetical drug would be cool as fuck to use, there's really no better feeling than crawling into bed after an exhausting day and just falling asleep.

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Originally Posted by tommo

This is why I find these types of conversation quite pointless. Except to correct people's bad thought processes.

We're assuming this drug would do everything sleep does. Including any bodily healing.

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Soma! Soma!

Wait, soma's a real drug now? What? When?

There are already drugs that do this being researched, actually.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it at all. I don't sleep because I want to sleep per se, I sleep because I'm getting too tired to continue, not because I want my brain to shut up. Being an extreme night owl has also meant I'm very good at entertaining or occupying myself. This would be made even easier if most people were constantly awake as well.

Assuming it could be done with no negative health consequences I would only see this as a positive thing. It would effectively be the equivalent of giving everyone an extra 20-30 years of life (assuming 8 hours sleep per day).

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Originally Posted by Photolysis

Assuming it could be done with no negative health consequences I would only see this as a positive thing. It would effectively be the equivalent of giving everyone an extra 20-30 years of life (assuming 8 hours sleep per day).

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To most people that would probably be seen as a good thing. But to us, lucid dreamers, would those extra 20 years actually be worth it? No dreams?
You could obviously choose to take the pill one night, and not in another. But if you had to choose between having lucid dreams or having 20 extra years, what would you choose?
I'd choose dreams!
DREAMS FTW!

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Originally Posted by TruMotion

To most people that would probably be seen as a good thing. But to us, lucid dreamers, would those extra 20 years actually be worth it? No dreams?
You could obviously choose to take the pill one night, and not in another. But if you had to choose between having lucid dreams or having 20 extra years, what would you choose?
I'd choose dreams!
DREAMS FTW!

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Even if you had the maximum amount of lucid dreams possible 100% of the time, that would still amount to something like 4 hours of dreaming per night due to REM sleep only taking up a percentage of sleep. Then as you say, one can choose not to take the drug if they wanted to experiment with lucid dreaming.

As someone who finds it extremely difficult to have lucid dreams (something I find ironic given the level of control I have over them them when I do), I'd gladly take never having to sleep again unless by choice over the alternative.

I also don't have a lot of lucids, but I enjoy waking up and recalling a crazy-ass dream, even if it's not lucid.

I believe that's called meth

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Originally Posted by tommo

This is why I find these types of conversation quite pointless. Except to correct people's bad thought processes.

We're assuming this drug would do everything sleep does. Including any bodily healing.

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Oh, right, I forgot that part. That's what you get for posting at 4 AM.

edit:
@omnus Wouldn't amphetamine be more suited?

I want a drug that replaces the need to be awake.

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Originally Posted by ♥Mark

I want a drug that replaces the need to be awake.

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That exists already. Unfortunately they kill you. But hey, you're not awake :D

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Originally Posted by Dianeva

...The only difference is that you don't actually have to lie down and sleep. You don't remember any dreams because you didn't have any. You don't feel as though any time has passed because it hasn't.

Here is the question in mind. If this drug existed, could you really take it to replace sleep?

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Hypothetically, you would only need your bed to have sex in! :hump:

(Men take note: You wouldn't need to fall asleep after making love either. So no excuses there then?) ;)

If such a thing were possible I wouldn't give up sleep entirely, but I would almost certainly stay up for days and weeks at a time most of the time. I've always had issues with the 24 hour day--I did a whole semester in college breaking up the week into four waking/sleeping cycles of varying lengths. I do enjoy sleeping and dreams, but there's a lot more to do with your eyes open.

Fuck it sometimes I sleep just because I'm bored. Although I suppose people would start meeting up during night and all. Imagine walking through the streets at 3am while everyone is still outside shopping and shit.

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Originally Posted by Photolysis

There are already drugs that do this being researched, actually.

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Yep, and there's one drug available already called Modafinil. You can buy it on the net.

Oh and yeah I would choose ~20 years of lucid dreams over ~20 years of extra waking life for sure.

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Originally Posted by ♥Mark

I want a drug that replaces the need to be awake.

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That's called heroin

You guys need to stop hypothetically wondering about drugs that already exist. Next you'll want a drug that turns all your bad problems into good problems.

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Originally Posted by Original Poster

That's called heroin

You guys need to stop hypothetically wondering about drugs that already exist. Next you'll want a drug that turns all your bad problems into good problems.

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That's weed.

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Originally Posted by tommo

Yep, and there's one drug available already called Modafinil. You can buy it on the net.

Oh and yeah I would choose ~20 years of lucid dreams over ~20 years of extra waking life for sure.

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It's impossible that you get 20 extra years of lucid dreams, due to REM stages, but if you could lucid dream in every REM minute you had, you'd probably get around 7 extra years.

> Post question in a lucid dream forum
> Ignore dreams

Dreams are awesome! Maybe it's really important for unconscious processing that helps you function IRL. Though, I think being able to make imagination so vivid is beautiful/useful enough to make dreaming worth while.

Sleep freaks me out. It's like a voluntary period of death. Scratch that, it's a voluntary permament death. Your consciousness was destroyed last night; you only think you're the same person today because the physical neurons of that person's memories are still inside your head. I don't know why more people aren't freaked out by sleep.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Your consciousness was destroyed last night; you only think you're the same person today because the physical neurons of that person's memories are still inside your head.

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What? lol

It's true. You were born when you woke up today and you will die when you go to sleep tonight. Why not? Prove me wrong bro.

qO.Op

woah.

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Originally Posted by Xei

It's true. You were born when you woke up today and you will die when you go to sleep tonight. Why not? Prove me wrong bro.

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You could argue this whenever any neurons are created or destroyed (i.e. almost constantly), or take it even further and argue that it occurs when any neurochemical change occurs, thus creating an almost infinite amount of separate consciousnesses that exist for tiny fractions of a second.

I would like to hear your argument for this belief though.

That wasn't really the basis of what I was trying to communicate though; it wasn't really an argument about the physical basis (that was just to show that you can't appeal to a physical argument), it's more about the subjective experience. We experience a continuity of consciousness during waking life. That is indubitable. But when we go to sleep, that consciousness is destroyed. There is zero awareness. There's no perception of time (or anything else), and yet we still think we wake up a period of time later. But what does a period of time mean if we can't percieve it..? Was that period of time finite; did it even exist, are you the same person? Another weird thing is that you can't ever pinpoint the moment that you do become conscious again. You just seem to fade in. So in that respect it is also like birth.

It's not a genuine 'belief'. It's just that thinking about it freaks me out and I don't see why it doesn't freak out other people very much. The whole thing is as impossibly insane as consciousness itself... though interestingly, philosophers don't seem very bothered about it, even though they are bothered about consciousness, birth, and death. I think that's simply because sleep is so common.

In this thread: Xei has a psychotic episode for our entertainment.

Xei,
I wonder are the subconscious and conscious really that separate. The conscious never really shuts off, does it?

The brain activity is totally different actually. During wakefulness it's localised to various areas (depending on what you're doing and what your attention is on), whereas during sleep there is no order or localisation of brain activity. I'm talking about consciousness in the sense of experience. I think it's obvious that during your sleep there is a period for which there is no experience.

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Originally Posted by TruMotion

It's impossible that you get 20 extra years of lucid dreams, due to REM stages, but if you could lucid dream in every REM minute you had, you'd probably get around 7 extra years.

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That's irrelevant, we were talking about which would you rather. I was just going off the numbers provided by whoever posed the question.
And you still dream during non-REM. Also time-dilation.

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Originally Posted by Xei

We experience a continuity of consciousness during waking life. That is indubitable. But when we go to sleep, that consciousness is destroyed. There is zero awareness. There's no perception of time (or anything else), and yet we still think we wake up a period of time later. But what does a period of time mean if we can't percieve it..? Was that period of time finite; did it even exist, are you the same person? Another weird thing is that you can't ever pinpoint the moment that you do become conscious again. You just seem to fade in. So in that respect it is also like birth.

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Woah.... okay Poe's law. I thought you were joking in the previous post.

Most people do not experience a continuity of consciousness IRL. They'll day dream constantly and not even pay attention to where they're driving because they're thinking about something else, they are not aware.
So no it's not indubitable.
I'd also argue we're only slightly less conscious during normal dreams. Only slightly.
When dreaming we still make decisions etc. it's not a movie.
Even if we ourselves are not in the dream occasionally, we still choose to move "the camera" around and see what's happening etc.
The only thing we usually don't realise is that we are dreaming.

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Originally Posted by Xei

It's not a genuine 'belief'. It's just that thinking about it freaks me out and I don't see why it doesn't freak out other people very much. The whole thing is as impossibly insane as consciousness itself... though interestingly, philosophers don't seem very bothered about it, even though they are bothered about consciousness, birth, and death. I think that's simply because sleep is so common.

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Consciousnesses, birth and death are common too.

Philosophers should be bothered by none of these things. I don't see why you find it so intriguing.
Stop thinking that your ego is separate from the rest of the world.
Some neurons in your brain shut off. They turn back on again.

The end.

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Originally Posted by tommo

Most people do not experience a continuity of consciousness IRL. They'll day dream constantly and not even pay attention to where they're driving because they're thinking about something else, they are not aware.
So no it's not indubitable.

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I'm not sure what you mean by consciousness but it's not what I mean. What I mean is simply the state of being conscious of something; experiencing something. It doesn't have to be a perception, like seeing a tree. When you're thinking or daydreaming, clearly you're not unconscious in the sense I am talking about. Your environment isn't within your attention, but that doesn't matter, your attention is focused on plenty of other things, like thoughts, memories, and imagined scenes.

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I'd also argue we're only slightly less conscious during normal dreams. Only slightly.
When dreaming we still make decisions etc. it's not a movie.
Even if we ourselves are not in the dream occasionally, we still choose to move "the camera" around and see what's happening etc.
The only thing we usually don't realise is that we are dreaming.

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I'm not talking about dreaming, I'm talking about sleeping... :/

You are conscious whilst you are dreaming, but the majority of the sleep cycle is dreamless.

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Consciousnesses, birth and death are common too.

Philosophers should be bothered by none of these things. I don't see why you find it so intriguing.

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Huh? Consciousness is a very popular topic in philosophy, throughout history and even moreso in contemporary philosophy. I don't see why it shouldn't be, it's probably the most inexplicable thing we know of and there are all sorts of problems associated with it.

When I say sleep is common, I mean it's something that's commonly experienced.

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Stop thinking that your ego is separate from the rest of the world.
Some neurons in your brain shut off. They turn back on again.

The end.

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Haha... no that's not how the brain works, there is not a 'you clump' of neurons deep inside your brain where your soul chills out, and which turns off when you're not conscious. It's kinda funny that in your first sentence you were so forcible about the ego being a separate entity, and then in the second you made the classic error of dualists.

I don't really know what it means for an 'ego to be separate from the rest of the world'. All I'm talking about is the state of experiencing things. You accept that such a state exists, right..? I guess it's separate from the world insofar as the state of your web browser software as either running or not is 'separate from the world'...

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Originally Posted by Xei

Haha... no that's not how the brain works, there is not a 'you clump' of neurons deep inside your brain where your soul chills out, and which turns off when you're not conscious. It's kinda funny that in your first sentence you were so forcible about the ego being a separate entity, and then in the second you made the classic error of dualists.

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If it's not neurons than what is it? Of course it's neurons that cause consciousness.
In my first sentence I did not say the ego is separate.
In my second I said nothing of dualism. I really don't know what you're talking about.

I did however tell you to stop thinking of your ego as a separate entity.

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Originally Posted by Xei

I don't really know what it means for an 'ego to be separate from the rest of the world'. All I'm talking about is the state of experiencing things. You accept that such a state exists, right..? I guess it's separate from the world insofar as the state of your web browser software as either running or not is 'separate from the world'...

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What I mean is you always assume consciousness is somehow different from other things. Do you think it's weird that a computer can just turn off and come back on with everything in tact?
Of course not. Consciousness is no different. You only think it is because you treat "you" as different, as somewhat removed from the rest of the universe, which is an egotistic phenomenon.

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Originally Posted by Xei

I'm not sure what you mean by consciousness but it's not what I mean. What I mean is simply the state of being conscious of something; experiencing something. It doesn't have to be a perception, like seeing a tree. When you're thinking or daydreaming, clearly you're not unconscious in the sense I am talking about. Your environment isn't within your attention, but that doesn't matter, your attention is focused on plenty of other things, like thoughts, memories, and imagined scenes.

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Ok.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Huh? Consciousness is a very popular topic in philosophy, throughout history and even moreso in contemporary philosophy. I don't see why it shouldn't be, it's probably the most inexplicable thing we know of and there are all sorts of problems associated with it.

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What are these problems and why is it inexplicable? Tell me exactly why consciousness is so special.

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Originally Posted by Xei

When I say sleep is common, I mean it's something that's commonly experienced.

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Yeah I know. Wasn't a serious point anyway.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Sleep freaks me out. It's like a voluntary period of death. Scratch that, it's a voluntary permament death. Your consciousness was destroyed last night; you only think you're the same person today because the physical neurons of that person's memories are still inside your head.

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Maybe that's all the concept of reincarnation really is. They say when you do good, you're next life will be better; do wrong, and you're reborn a lesser being. Rather than coming back as some sort of spiritual kangaroo or a dung beetle, maybe all it refers to is just that, you waking up or being "reborn" the next day. You work hard and have a good day today, and the next one is bound to be better (or more satisfying). ie. You're reborn as a higher being. But if you commit some foul deed, you're next day or "life" is obviously going to be worse (since by then the consequences and repercussions of your actions will have caught up with you).

Huh... either I've just solved one of life's great mysteries, or I'm a just a little too high. .-.