An article from the LiveScience website speculates on what life would be like if scientists were to develop a "cure" for sleep. Reassuringly, if unsurprisingly, the piece swiftly concludes that things would be worse both on a personal level (health, relationships and well-being would suffer) and at a social/economic level (sales of pillows and duvets would plummet). Probably the most interesting thread in the article is the distinction it draws between busyness and genuine productivity; in a world without sleep, it seems that we'd have more of the former and less of the latter. All of which might lead us to ask a new question: not "What would it be like to live in a world without sleep?" but "What would it be like to live in a world that didn't need to instrumentalize sleep in the name of productivity?".
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