Sleep Deprivation and the Vision Quest of Native North America

Abstract

Psychologists have long argued that sleep deprivation is a gateway to “delirium” –– unintentional episodes of delusional fantasy. Psychological testing has demonstrated that after at least two or three days of sleeplessness, perception becomes increasingly clouded with auditory and visual “hallucinations” (Oswald 1962, 187–189). Hobson (1999 [1994]) argues that delirium is in fact a natural part of our circadian rhythm—that is, biological rhythms of sleep and arousal that are “a fundamental adaptation to the solar cycle of light and dark” on earth (Moore 1990, 3). In Hobson’s paradigm, delirium is said to express itself nightly during Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM sleep), the phase of sleep in which we dream most actively (Wehr 1990, 70–71).