Imagining a Cure to Sleep
Would it be better to live with or without?
Sleep rules our lives. Most of us spend one-third of lives asleep. For me, there have been weeks — if not months — where I’ve spent one-half (or more) asleep; but we’re not here to talk about our sleeping habits. I would like to discuss, however, what a cure to sleep would look like; and how it would affect our lives.
A cure to sleep sounds ingenious. At least it did to me at first. Think about how many coffee-fueled all nighters you’ve pulled in school and often later at work, wishing the only thing holding you back wasn’t such a hurdle in the first place. What if someone simply removed that mind-softneing, lulling idea all-together?
Well, this is what I think a sleep-cure would look like.
Work-Life Balance
First thing, we’d have to adjust what our daily schedules looked like. We would no longer have the luxury of our already-much-dreaded 8-hour work-shifts. If you’re awake of more hours, functioning fully for more hours, you’d be expected to be productive for more hours. Why not. We can expect mega-corp to be the first to take advantage of such an innovation.
Shutting the Door to the Brain
I don’t know about you, but being awake forever sounds excruciating. Imagine your mind never stopping, always perceptive. Instead of sleeping, people would take respites. Drawing the curtains, dimming the lights, silencing their phones. Something like being submerged in a water tank with minimal perception would probably be something strived for outside the Matrix franchise. De-submerging ourselves from outside connection and into ourselves in such a way where our senses can be turned (almost) all the way down and the only thing receptive is our metabolism. That would be one real peaceful way to recuperate from our newly-minted, excruciating schedules.
Pathways to Dreams
We would, of course, need new ways to dream. So a rise in the use of opioids would be expected, even legalized kinds. Imagine hubs of people coming and going freely to partake in little dreaming sessions. This would become a gateway into greater research into lucid dreaming, with corporations taking over the industry over from decrepit occultists. Dreaming, however, would become an object for the rich, if not the super-rich. The poor would still be working immense hours every day and be left out to dream of dreaming, resorting to the lower grade illegal drugs to get by. Because what it life if not one big chase for our dreams, often led through insanity when not achieved realistically.
What is your take on the topic? I’m interested in knowing if there is any pre-exisiting literature on the topic already out there.
