I also think sleep is a waste of time. I've tried it both ways for a year at a time though: sleeping 6 hours a day and trying to be productive and sleeping 8 hours a day and trying to be productive. I actually accomplished more on average each day after sleeping 8 hours. For now I'll sleep .
Sleep needs are different for everyone. Best thing is to experiment. I sleep 6 hours. Bob and my Mom sleep 3-4 My Dad needs 12 hours. I like my dreams. Where everyone is gorgeous and well endowed! Aphie, you should see yourself in mine! Oh baby!
Remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer tried to duplicate the sleep patterns of Da Vinci and napped something like 20 minutes every 4 hours? You could try that. Of course Kramer ended up in a bag in the Hudson River as a result.
I think you may have "needs" confused with "wants". 12 hrs sleep/day is a hellava lot of "need". I doubt anyone needs that much. I do believe a few want that much however.
these different numbers are just naturally how long these examples tend to sleep. what i'm putting into question is WHAT these needs are based on. just because you naturally sleep 6 does not necessarily mean you NEED 6 hours of sleep to survive. if you sleep 6 hours because your cave men ancestors did due to something that doesn't really apply today, wouldn't it be a waste of time? again, i'm not saying i know this to be the case, i'm just saying think about it. i don't know the answer either.
Gordon... A full cycle of sleep is 45 minutes. If you slept only that long, you are able to get up and function. Probably have to do it a few times in 24 hours. A doctor told me this. Guess he learned this when he was an intern. When I was a teenager, I could go days without sleeping with no problem at all. My Mom has never grown out of this and she is 72. My dad is nearly 80 and he always slept a lot.....we all think he doe it to get away from my mom bugging him. So the answer is 45 minutes.