That's not what I meant though, polyphasic is just altering when you sleep, it isn't never sleeping.
My interesting (and entirely sci-fi) idea was that if brain cells shut down when you're tired, we could live permanently tired - brain cells would take it in turns to shut down and recover, so you'd never be quite as awake as if you were sleeping each night, but you'd also never actually be asleep.
I can't find a source right now (haven't looked particularly hard though), but I read an article a year or so back about some people who either never sleep, or sleep very rarely (and by rarely I mean, awake for weeks on end) - I don't recall. I also can't remember whether it was known to be genetic, or just assumed to be genetic, but either way I'm pretty sure it wasn't a case of "anyone could do this if they ..."
My interesting (and entirely sci-fi) idea was that if brain cells shut down when you're tired, we could live permanently tired - brain cells would take it in turns to shut down and recover, so you'd never be quite as awake as if you were sleeping each night, but you'd also never actually be asleep.
I can't find a source right now (haven't looked particularly hard though), but I read an article a year or so back about some people who either never sleep, or sleep very rarely (and by rarely I mean, awake for weeks on end) - I don't recall. I also can't remember whether it was known to be genetic, or just assumed to be genetic, but either way I'm pretty sure it wasn't a case of "anyone could do this if they ..."