A study came out last year about people who can get by on six hours of sleep a night; it had to do with a certain gene mutation, DEC2, that allows 5% of the population to have more efficient sleep cycles. Obviously this study validated a lot of those souls who believe they don’t have to sleep at all - members of the Warren Zevon “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” think tank - even though, more likely than not, they aren’t part of the lucky 5%.
But what would happen if there were people who had the gene mutation and didn’t realize it? Like some woman who was all, “Not tonight dear, I’ve got a big day tomorrow and I need my rest” when she could actually get by on a measly six hours of snoozing? And what would happen if, at the end of her life, she found out she could have actually stayed up two hours later or gotten up two hours earlier, every day for 80 years? How upset do you think she’d be?
Extremely upset. Came to this realization during seventh grade—that ~17% of my life was a waste, essentially—and magically started getting good grades. (Wouldjalookatdat!) It’s somewhat rare for me to get more than five hours of sleep a night, and this limits down to zero (pretty much) during the weekends. But, of course, insomnia is not usually a genetic effect. Not complaining, either way. Total night person. Scorpio & all. Good for self-induced hallucinogenic somniferous contemplation. On that note, I’ll start a cult and call it Methaqualonism. Wanna join? We bake cookies at three a.m. and discuss good literature w/ coffee on the side.
- October 13 2010 | Comments - Read More →
