• Question: Would we survive if we had no sleep?

    Asked by Lily to Hayley, Chris, Jimi on 17 Mar 2016. This question was also asked by Resh@science, ps_no1.
    • Photo: Hayley Moulding

      Hayley Moulding answered on 17 Mar 2016:

      Thanks Lily! It depends how much sleep we are missing. If we never ever had sleep then we wouldn’t survive. There is a genetic syndrome called ‘fatal familial insomnia.’ It is really sad because these people cannot sleep at all. They are unable too. What happens as they become really really sleep deprived and unable to function properly. It can lead to them dying. We all need to get our sleep to make up work properly the next day.

    • Photo: Jimi Wills

      Jimi Wills answered on 17 Mar 2016:

      There are people who have insomnia that get very little sleep… but it’s very difficult for them to function normally. If you had no sleep at all, you’d need to develop some kind of meditation that mimicked sleep if you wanted to survive.

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