roadrunnertwice

From:

Yeah, those are the two things that I'd be worried about. I seem to remember hearing that a whole lot of body repair and cellular regeneration goes on during sleep. And haven't people keeled over and died on account of getting no REM? (Plus, that scene with Dr. Crusher in the morgue with all the sheet-covered dead bodies sitting bolt-upright still gives me the shrieking heebies, too. Shared culture, woo!)

I researched (and experimented [unsuccessfully] a bit with) alternative sleep management schedules a few years ago, and if you get that REM, there're ways to squirm out of the repair phases of sleep. None of them seem to work very well unless you're over 30, and they force some pretty drastic diet changes; I think you have to take in more calories, but simultaneously jack up the nutrient density to about what people on those crazy calorie-restricted diets eat. (Plus some weird stuff; apparently you crave large amounts of grape juice.) I think the best-case scenario with this new stuff -- at least in its role as a smart drug -- is for a healthy person over 30 who wants to reduce their sleep to 2-3 hours a night and is willing to pay the price of a permanent major diet overhaul. And the price of an increased cancer risk (as per that other recent science article, about shift workers getting it more often than daylighters).

There'd also be a lot of people hitting it moderately during finals and sleeping normally the rest of the year, and I don't think they'd be in any big danger. But I can foresee a whole lot of Korean Warcraft players keeling over in internet cafés. That's your worst-case scenario. (That, and those damn sitting corpses down in the hold. Ugh.)