So, as someone who has stayed awake 5 days in a row multiple times and didn’t feel it, because I have extreme cases of insomnia as well as ADHD (which is preventing me from feeling it and somehow prevents me from hallucinating too? Could maybe be because of the brain happy juice (aka serotonin) is what my theory on it is, is causing/preventing it, anyways!) sleep debt is ‘very’ much a real thing. BUT! It only becomes a thing when you are awake for an ‘EXCESSIVE’ amount of time! For example, If I miss sleep for 1-2 days or only get partial sleep or rest for a week, I don’t get it, but when I stay up for 3-5 days in a row, no rest, no sleep, no meditation, no closing/resting my eyes, full on brain wired awake, ‘that’s’ when I get the sleep ‘debt’ situation and my body will crash for 16+ hours or more, this happens because my body needs more time to recover from all the bullshit I just put it through. It’s like when you’re injured or sick and your body needs more rest to get better. That is essentially what they mean by ‘sleep debt’ just means your body needs more time to heal. Also, when you have ADHD, medication, meditation, melatonin, and/or closing/resting your eyes ‘DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK’ sometimes, the brain is just waaaay too active and it won’t let you rest. Melatonin for example never worked for me. Most I can do is lay down, close my eyes, daydream and hope sleep takes me, and that can take an hour or more to fall asleep if sleep happens at all. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can even nap! But not always. And atm, currently, a new bullshit insomnia weirdness situation is happening to me where I will sleep for 2-4 hours and be fully awake and rested and will be up for 20-22 hours after non stop. So I have plenty of first hand experience with the bullshit known as insomnia and its issues. I LIVE THEM.
Also, Poor sleep ‘CAN’ kill you, but ‘only’ if you get ‘NO’ sleep for days to weeks on end, and normally you would be going crazy before that. The body ‘does’ have a limit…
Point is, what you’re talking about is correct for the ‘short’ term, aka 1-2, ‘maybe’ 3 days.
But once that 48-72+ hours hit…you know, when most people start to hallucinate? That is when it starts reaching the extremes, and your previous discussion points do not apply to it! That situation is a whole different ballgame!
Not just that, but everybody is different! Hell, I’m an oddball myself! Some people can handle lack of sleep better than others, some can’t at all hell, some people sleep perfectly well with 4 hours and have no ill effects or insomnia problems due to genetics. Point is, You can’t say a specific book or research is 100% accurate or wrong when THEY ARE STILL DOING STUDIES INTO THIS SHIT! and they are still doing it ‘CAUSE EVERYBODY IS DIFFERENT AND HAS DIFFERENT REACTIONS!!!’ Everything is pretty much a theory when it comes to sleep studies, it’s why it’s called sleep ‘studies’, People are still studying the effects and intricacies of it cause they don’t know everything about it!
So @but-the-library-of-alexandria in the future, Please make sure to clarify between short term and long term (aka the extremes). Stop claiming absolutes on theories, And please provide more than just one source into your claim. Science is peer reviewed for a ‘reason’.