My imagination has gotten the better of me, probably because of sleep deprivation. Honestly, during vacations I usually turn my internal clock upside down. For a simple explanation, let’s just say that I indulge myself during this time of the year by watching movies non-stop, cooking and intensive holiday cleaning (the last one does not enter the above mentioned category of indulgence). This also means going to sleep at around 5 am and waking up around 11 or 12 the next day. I am like this for the entire 2 weeks of Christmas vacation since, probably, high-school.

So, of course, the madness that my subconscious has become, has also brought into focus one of my long obsessions regarding sleep. For a while, I have thought sleep as a complete waste of time or, better said, a weakness in the human body. We all know that 8 hours of sleep per night are essential for a healthy lifestyle. A study demonstrated that cognitive performance declines with fewer than 8 hours of sleep.

All of this led to me imagining a world where rest was not needed. That would imply that out of the 24 hours in a day, we would not be ‘wasting’ at least 8 of them doing ‘nothing’. In the ever-moving society that we inhabit, work takes at least 8 hours per day, but of course, considering the fact that big companies and multinationals have a very competitive working environment, employees are forced, in a way, to do everything they can to get ahead of their rivals, that also meaning working overtime. Successful people usually work up to 11 or 12 hours in a day. In a world where sleep is not needed, I have an inkling suspicion that no one would actually increase the percentage of free time in a day, but rather the work hours put in at the office.

The thing is that in my utopian little world, everyone works in a multinational or a big company. If you can not sense the sarcasm, let me make it clear: I am ironic. Maybe there are persons that are going to take advantage of all of this, maybe factory people that will be happy to get out, to spend more time with their families, to have hobbies, to enjoy life. That is, if nobody will increase the number of work hours.

I have to consider poverty also. When you sleep, you tend to forget about everything, about the hard life that is waiting outside of your dreams, about the hunger in your stomach, about the pains in your body. You sleep more with the intention to numb your senses, to dull everything to a simple ache. Without even the notion of sleep, reality would literally devour you, with all its hardships.

Another aspect that I should examine when eliminating the need for sleep, is the lack of dreams, or even nightmares. People dream to let their subconscious analyse whatever happened during the day, and prepare them for the next one, at the same time. Without rest, the subliminal will, of course, just have to work at the same time with the conscious part of our brain, in order to take the amount of time it needs to analyse everything. But dreams would disappear. No more staying in bed just imagining what could be, hopping for a better future; there would be no more nightmares for the troubled minds, no more sleepless nights for those with a heavy mind. In a way I would be eliminating our conscience, because when you keep busy, you tend to not have enough time to stop and think everything through, to consider the consequences of your actions. All of us would require a Jiminy Cricket of our own. Joke aside, where would our society be, in such a world?

There are so many aspects that should be analyzed in such a situation, but this is not an essay, it is just a post, with a lot of economic influences, for which college is to be blamed.

[photo: www.photobucket.com, Kurt Halsey Frederiksen]