My favorite sleep anecdote is that if you take some rats and force them to not sleep (put them on a treadmill and wire them up to some electrodes that will star

My favorite sleep anecdote is that if you take some rats and force them to not sleep (put them on a treadmill and wire them up to some electrodes that will start the treadmill up and keep them awake whenever they start to doze) the rats will die within a week or so. Shorter than it takes to die of dehydration. Something about the brain overheating. Sleep is a big deal, and not just because of the memory issue. Brains are expensive!