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sleep disruption could be used to prevent memories from entering long-term storage, which could be useful for people who have recently experience

sleep disruption could be used to prevent memories from entering long-term storage, which could be useful for people who have recently experienced something traumatic, such as those with post-traumatic stress disorder This makes sense, but it's hard to see how this would work in practice. You'd have to induce this sleep deprivation right after the traumatic event. "Sorry you watched your house burn down today with your favorite hamster inside. Here's some modafinil so you won't sleep for two days. It will help you not remember this."

LoganDark 2y ago
Bleh. At that point just dissociate. By the time you've got PTSD symptoms it's usually too late to simply prevent memories from being recorded.
bitcoin_anon 2y ago
I’ve always wondered why it’s hard to sleep after stress and anxiety. Seems counterproductive, but perhaps it is adaptive.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
01100011 2y ago
> people who have recently experienced something traumatic As a parent of a 5 month old baby, I can say that nature has already provided a mechanism for this to work. If it were not for the lack of memories of the first 3 months, I would never agree to have another child. It appears evolution has found a use for this quirk of our brains already.
swatcoder 2y ago
When you say "in practice", you're thinking of artificially operationalizing it and how one would force that through medication or whatever. Of course that would be hard to sensibly apply in practice! How would you distinguish a traumatizing experience from a manageably negative one in time to formulate a prescription, how would you prescribe wakefulness to someone who didn't seek it themselves, how do you know how much wakefulness is appropriate or what other trouble you might be causing by artificially amplifying it? But if you step back, the real "in practice" is the thing that bodies already do. Sleep is often a mess after truly shocking experiences, and this mechanism suggests some reason why. For the folk that need scientific studies to justify things that their bodies naturally want to do, this is the study that says it's okay to toss and turn and have weird sleep hours when something bad happens.
- JohnBooty 2y ago
  Hmmm. I guess it is this way for a lot of people. Although, this is not usually my experience. I think it's because high stress physically exhausts me, so I sleep like a rock afterward. But (some stressful relationships aside) I've never really experienced chronic traumatic stress, like living in a warzone, where as I'm going to sleep I have to worry about my physical safety. Now that would most definitely wreck my sleep.
numpad0 2y ago
I've attempted that in the past out of similar naive idea. I didn't use any stimulants, just slept on a chair without proper blankets. It did seem to get rid of a lot of unwanted data, though it also posed cognitive penalties, possibly some permanent. I guess it's a last resort option, not something generally recommendable.
alexpotato 2y ago
I imagine this correlates somewhat with having children. It's both a "traumatic" single event (especially for the mother) and also traumatic over time in that your sleep schedule is affected, big changes to your life etc. People joke that evolution made it so we don't remember how hard it is to have small children but maybe there is some truth to that statement.
etiam 2y ago
I severely doubt messing with sense-making and coherence of traumatic episodes is going to prove beneficial.

LoganDark 2y ago

Bleh. At that point just dissociate. By the time you've got PTSD symptoms it's usually too late to simply prevent memories from being recorded.

bitcoin_anon 2y ago

I’ve always wondered why it’s hard to sleep after stress and anxiety. Seems counterproductive, but perhaps it is adaptive.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

01100011 2y ago

> people who have recently experienced something traumatic As a parent of a 5 month old baby, I can say that nature has already provided a mechanism for this to work. If it were not for the lack of memories of the first 3 months, I would never agree to have another child. It appears evolution has found a use for this quirk of our brains already.

swatcoder 2y ago

When you say "in practice", you're thinking of artificially operationalizing it and how one would force that through medication or whatever. Of course that would be hard to sensibly apply in practice! How would you distinguish a traumatizing experience from a manageably negative one in time to formulate a prescription, how would you prescribe wakefulness to someone who didn't seek it themselves, how do you know how much wakefulness is appropriate or what other trouble you might be causing by artificially amplifying it? But if you step back, the real "in practice" is the thing that bodies already do. Sleep is often a mess after truly shocking experiences, and this mechanism suggests some reason why. For the folk that need scientific studies to justify things that their bodies naturally want to do, this is the study that says it's okay to toss and turn and have weird sleep hours when something bad happens.

JohnBooty 2y ago
Hmmm. I guess it is this way for a lot of people. Although, this is not usually my experience. I think it's because high stress physically exhausts me, so I sleep like a rock afterward. But (some stressful relationships aside) I've never really experienced chronic traumatic stress, like living in a warzone, where as I'm going to sleep I have to worry about my physical safety. Now that would most definitely wreck my sleep.

numpad0 2y ago

I've attempted that in the past out of similar naive idea. I didn't use any stimulants, just slept on a chair without proper blankets. It did seem to get rid of a lot of unwanted data, though it also posed cognitive penalties, possibly some permanent. I guess it's a last resort option, not something generally recommendable.

alexpotato 2y ago

I imagine this correlates somewhat with having children. It's both a "traumatic" single event (especially for the mother) and also traumatic over time in that your sleep schedule is affected, big changes to your life etc. People joke that evolution made it so we don't remember how hard it is to have small children but maybe there is some truth to that statement.

etiam 2y ago

I severely doubt messing with sense-making and coherence of traumatic episodes is going to prove beneficial.