Is it unhealthy to avoid sleep as long as possible, if so why?
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A good book to read about this is Sleep Thieves by Stanley Coren. He tells a few stories of people who tried to sustain wakefulness.
One famous case is the disc jockey Peter Tripp who in 1959 stayed up for more than eight days as a promotional stunt. After a few days, he began to hallucinate, seeing kittens, mice, and cobwebs. He also became paranoid, insisting that an electrician had dropped a hot electrode into his shoe.
In 1964 high school student Randy Gardner (17) attempted to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest time awake -- 260 hours. And after 11 days without sleep he suffered no hallucinations or paranoia and no psychotic symptoms. But Coren challenges this often repeated fact in his book. Coren describes the day-by-day impact on Randy, as documented by John Ross of the US Navy Medical europsychiatric Research Unit in San Diego. Randy had trouble focusing his eyes on day 2, hallucinations on day 4, and slurred speech and a short attention span by the last day.
Certainly there are drugs such as caffeine, cocaine and amphetamines that keep you awake, but these cannot sustain you for very long.
One famous case is the disc jockey Peter Tripp who in 1959 stayed up for more than eight days as a promotional stunt. After a few days, he began to hallucinate, seeing kittens, mice, and cobwebs. He also became paranoid, insisting that an electrician had dropped a hot electrode into his shoe.
In 1964 high school student Randy Gardner (17) attempted to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest time awake -- 260 hours. And after 11 days without sleep he suffered no hallucinations or paranoia and no psychotic symptoms. But Coren challenges this often repeated fact in his book. Coren describes the day-by-day impact on Randy, as documented by John Ross of the US Navy Medical europsychiatric Research Unit in San Diego. Randy had trouble focusing his eyes on day 2, hallucinations on day 4, and slurred speech and a short attention span by the last day.
Certainly there are drugs such as caffeine, cocaine and amphetamines that keep you awake, but these cannot sustain you for very long.
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Every mammal needs sleep. Humans need sleep to recharge everything from your bones to mind to blood. You cannot avoid sleep, because eventually your body will 'shut down' and automatically put you to sleep evolutionarily. Of course this is also your conscious mind, and your mind will stop working. No connections, everything will be shut down so your body can rest and rebuild everything. Of course this includes getting fat when you go to sleepAveragely a person can go to 3 days without sleep, but this will cause serious sleepiness. It's like going on without food, television, etc.
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Here is the answer to your second reason: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_depri…
as for your first: The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.
as for your first: The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.