ELi5: Experts say you can’t “pre-sleep” and also can’t catch up on lost sleep; what exactly does that mean? Since it’s not like I feel tired for the rest of my life after missing a night’s sleep, after a few days of good sleep I’m back to normal.

Question

Does “not being able to catch up on lost sleep” mean that every night of lost sleep accumulates to a shorter life span, more illness, or something of the sort?

In: Biology

Answer 1

From my understanding, REM is like a purge and sleeplessness ruins memory and learning. If you go without sleep long enough, you can hallucinate. As far as I’m aware this is mostly reversible damage but you obviously won’t get memories back.