new drug - stay awake for 48 hours

[charleski]

Useful for certain situations where you need to keep awake (narcolepsy, military uses like watching reruns of Ultimate Force) - sure
Useful for regular consumption because you want to party all night and all day - you have got to be out of your tiny mind (which will certainly get tinier).

We can certainly survive on less sleep per day, but sustained periods of no sleep will have significant effects on memory, skills and personality.

[Mike Fishcake]

I'm thinking of the phrase "too good to be true" here.

I'm with Taz - I don't think *any* drug is a replacement for a proper night's sleep.

Plus, there are probably side effects to it that haven't been discovered yet.

[Stoo]

Well, it's been out a while, and they've not found any big ones yet..

I'm interested from a scientific point of view about the direction this is going in with designer sleeping aids which aim to deliver better than natural sleep in less time, which might indeed be useful

IIRC the memory forming/restorative function of sleep only happens at a certain level, and not for the whole 8 hours of sleep, I think where the new discoveries are heading is to deliver that function in one lump, rather in chunks throughout the night..

Could be feasible

[Ben_]

ofcourse there are side effects

[charleski]

The important parts of sleep for memory are the Slow Wave Sleep cycles that are longest during the first half of the sleep period. The last half of sleep is mostly REM cycles. Losing REM cycles produces a range of metabolic side effects such as weight-gain, increased sensitivity to pain, etc

Now, it's not clear whether modefinil is capable of compensating for these effects, largely because, 15 years after its discovery we still don't know how it works ...

And just remember, Margaret Thatcher governed the country on 4 hours' sleep a night - so you see what chronic sleep loss can do to you.

Here's a good page on the science behind sleep if anyone's interested.

[Stoo]

cool, cheers chap

[nvening]

this drug + viagra = oh dear god

HAHA - Thats the funnyest thing i have heard yet this week!

[badass]

handy once in a while I guess

But yeah, not something I'd want to do on a regular basis..

Could be very useful for avoiding jetlag tho?

that sounds like an awesome plan for this kind of thing! It'll only be short term use so the chances of harmful side effects are most likely minimised

[Knoxville]

Legal pep pill's have been around for quite a while, I'd be interested to find out if it actually has a "come down" though, because any drug that keeps you awake tends to have quite a harsh one.

[Dorza]

Any drug that hinders the play time of the subconscious can't be good in my opinion. There may be little or no side effects to this drug as of yet (I haven't read anything about it yet), but it hasn't been properly tested in my view yet i.e. no one has taken them for a life time to see what affect it has on them. I think its been noted already that working shifts can take upto 10 years off your life, if you do it for a life time, but this again depends on the persons genetics.

As I said I firmly believe that the subconscious should have ample time for it to "play" as i like to say. The mind is more active during sleep than when we're awake and most of our memory's become ingrained when we sleep not when we're awake, that says something to me about the importance of sleep.

Despite my view on this I must admit that this drug would be useful from time to time.

[monkeyville]

Right this sounds like something that would be very useful to many people and think the jet lag one is a classic example. I'm curious though.

Where would you get it? I'm guessing its prescription only so what chance do you have?

[Theo]

If it's a POM for jetlag, you'd just go to your GP - say you're flying to Australia, and they'd give you the prescription for 1-2 pills. At a push you'd need to prove it, but doctors seem to give out pills like sweets nowadays.

I suffer from quite a bit of sleep deprivation, and in times of desperate need to stay awake/be alert I take a stimulant. I don't take it often, but when I do it really helps. There is a come down, but it doesn't affect my mood or personality, it just makes me feel tired - so I end up sleeping quite well after a day of dosing.

- I haven't mentioned the name of the stimulant due to the Hexus' stance on medical information. However, it is legal and it is available over the counter.

[phoenixmystic]

I am along the same lines as taz. Though I have come across stories of people staying awake for years in psychlogical stories It has been found that rats dies after being deprived of sleep for too long.

Not good for jet lag, as that is dependant upon the bodies natural sleep pattern and pills as always play havoc with it. Find waysto affect the melatonin instead, that can be done with light and adjusting body temperature.

I like sleep, I have spent some time trying to remeber dreams I have not reached 100%. I find dreamsquite interesting and it is a less harmful way of visula entertainment, they make great short stories I even manged to get a couple published, though it was in poem form and was many years ago.