Who Needs Sleep?

Jay Manifold of A Voyage to Arcturus links to a couple of really interesting articles (here and here) about a drug called modafinil, which apparently allows people to go quite comfortably without sleep for something like 40 hours with very few side effects. It's already being used to treat chronically sleep-deprived shiftworkers, among others.

That second article is particularly good. Here's a quote:

In trials on healthy people like Army helicopter pilots, modafinil has allowed humans to stay up safely for almost two days while remaining practically as focused, alert, and capable of dealing with complex problems as the well-rested. Then, after a good eight hours' sleep, they can get up and do it again -- for another 40 hours, before finally catching up on their sleep.

Originally aimed at narcoleptics, who fall asleep frequently and uncontrollably, modafinil works without the jitter, buzz, euphoria, crash, addictive characteristics or potential for paranoid delusion of stimulants like amphetamines or cocaine or even caffeine, researchers say. As with an increasing number of the so-called superhuman, posthuman or trans-human drugs or genetic manipulations rapidly entering our lives, modafinil thus calls into question some fundamental underpinnings of hundreds of thousands of years of thought regarding what are normal human capabilities.

Personally, I feel two deeply contradictory things in response to this thought. On the one hand, being a shift-worker who right this very moment would like nothing better to be curled up in bed catching up on all the sleep I've missed lately, I find the idea of a drug like this highly appealing. It sure as hell would have made this week a lot easier on me. And there is also something seriously tempting about the idea of reclaiming some portion of that one-third of our lives that we spend uselessly unconscious and doing something with it.

On the other hand, sleep seems to be such a fundamental part of human functioning, and one that's so little understood, that I'm extremely leery about the prospect of tampering with it. Considering that nobody's life is on the line if I fall asleep at my own job, I'd be very reluctant to risk possible unknown psychological or physiological effects just for the convenience of feeling a bit perkier at 3 AM. But what if I'm in the minority there? Can you imagine the social implications if anyone can easily go for days without sleeping? I'm honestly not sure whether I find the concept attractive or terrifying.