What if we never needed sleep?
You get back about 25 years of your life. The trouble is, so does your boss.
3 am, first week. The whole block is awake.
0.2%chance it
ever happens
0.2%chance this ever happens
Could it actually happen?
Every animal scientists have studied sleeps in some way, even jellyfish. The record for staying awake on purpose is about 11 days, set by a student in 1964, and by the end he could barely speak. A rare gene lets a few people feel fine on six hours a night, so the need can shrink. Removing it completely would mean rebuilding a brain that uses sleep to clean itself.
Day 1
The first night, hardly anyone notices. People go to bed out of habit, lie there wide awake, and eventually get up and make toast at 2 am.
By the second night the cities are full of lights. Supermarkets that close at ten find a queue outside at midnight.
Year 1
The working day stretches, then stretches again. A few companies try 16-hour shifts and lose their staff within weeks. The smarter ones hire a night team and double what they make.
People take up everything they never had time for: languages, guitars, second jobs, third jobs. Bedrooms turn into offices and studios, and the mattress business has a terrible year.
Year 10
Every day has 24 usable hours, and nobody agrees on what to do with them. Plenty of people feel they finally have their lives back, though many discover they were never short of time, only of rest.
The most expensive thing in the city is no longer a nice bed. It is a quiet dark room where you can do nothing at all for a few hours.
Who wins
- StudentsExams are just as hard. There is a lot more time to cram.
- Late-night businessesEvery hour is now opening hours.
- New parentsThe baby still cries at 3 am. At least nobody was asleep.
Who loses
- Mattress makersA bed is now just a sofa you lie on.
- DreamsNobody dreams any more, and nobody can say what that costs.
- Workers“Can you stay late?” no longer has a good answer.
- QuietThe city never goes quiet, not even at 4 am.
The catch
Sleep isn’t wasted time. The body uses it to repair itself, and the brain uses it to sort out the day’s memories. Lose it and you gain the hours, but lose some of what the hours were for.
Would you give up sleep?
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