the thing about deciding not sleep is that one can sleep when one feels the need (vs the want). forced deprivation is about preventing it when it is absolutely needed.

However, people who are forcefully denied food for many days fall sick and even die.

This is torture and when done to children, is particularly heinous.

imo saying sleep deprivation isn’t torture is equivalent to saying waterboarding isn’t torture.

One of the possible side effects of a continued lack of sleep is death. Usually this is the result of the fact that the immune system is weakened without sleep. The number of white blood cells within the body decreases, as does the activity of the remaining white blood cells. The body also decreases the amount of growth hormone produced (8). The ability of the body to metabolize sugar declines, turning sugar into fat. One study stated that people who sleep less than four hours per night are three times more likely to die within the next six years (11). Although the longest a human has remained awake was eleven days rats that are continually deprived of sleep die within two to five weeks, generally due to their severely weakened immune system

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1690

Sleep Deprivation

Causes a host of negative psychological effects, the most prominent is cognitive impairment.

Sleep-deprived individuals take longer to respond to stimuli and sleep loss causes attention deficits, decreases short-term memory, speech impairments, perseveration and inflexible thinking.

These symptoms may appear after one night of total sleep deprivation, after only a few nights of sleep restriction (5 hours of sleep per night).

Sleep restrictions can result in hypertension and other cardiovascular disease.

To learn more about the effects of psychological torture, read Break Them Down: Systematic use of Psychological Torture by U.S. Forces by Physicians for Human Rights. Emphasis mine

So waking the person every three hours to move them to a different cell would cause harm, physiological as well as psychological. And they did this to a child.

Sleep dep was a favored tactic of the KGB…so that’s the level we’ve sunk to at Bush’s command…

Brisingamen

Sleep deprivation is used as an interrogation technique (for example, in Pinochet-era Chile[citation needed], the Soviet Union[citation needed], or by the US on Guantanamo-held prisoners[28]).[29] Interrogation victims are kept awake for several days; when they are finally allowed to fall asleep, they are suddenly awakened and questioned. Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister from 1977-83 described his experience of sleep deprivation when a prisoner of the KGB in Russia as follows:

In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep…Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it.[citation needed]

In 2006, Australian Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock argued that sleep deprivation does not constitute torture. [30] In rats, prolonged, complete sleep deprivation increases both food intake and energy expenditure, leading to weight loss and, ultimately, death.[31] Nicole Bieske, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International Australia, has stated, “At the very least, sleep deprivation is cruel, inhumane and degrading. If used for prolonged periods of time it is torture.”[29]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…..on#Torture

In a series of studies done back in the 1980s, rats were kept awake indefinitely. After just five days, they started dying.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories…..9721.shtml

All though it varies by age and individual, we have a series of sleep cycles during the course of a night where we enter various levels of REM and non-REM sleep. When these are disrupted, there are both physiological and psychological sequelae. Memory and attention degrades. Stress levels increase. Do this long enough and you can induce psychosis and death.

When I was a university student (long ago) there were days when eight ‘moves’ were common.

The only time it was unpleasant in the extreme was when I’d not had any sleep for a while (those were the daze, remember?) and was trying to ‘catch’ a short (and respectful) nap during each class.

Gotta admit, there were times when being rudely awakened, time after time, was a bit like torture though …

Actually, rw, the above story is fiction, but prolonged sleep deprivation, not ‘moves’ per se, is what can cause severe ‘complications’, even, it is alledged by those who might know, the permanent ‘complication’ generally known and universally experienced as … ‘death’.

How long can a human being’s health hold up to sleep deprivation?

How long could any of us function, or even ’survive’ without genuine, restful sleep?

The real propblem is that we have chosen to view others as being less than human.

I cannot believe that you condone child abuse.

When put in context it is Naziesque abuse.

-G