When I don’t sleep the world becomes profoundly unsafe. If food were withdrawn, or water, you would feel unsafe; if withdrawn often enough – not long enough to kill you, but often enough to diminish you – you would begin to wonder what the point of life was, if all it does is threaten you with scarcity. There’s terror when a basic animal need isn’t met. At first you fear death, then a worse thing happens – you fear life. You no longer want your life, not on these terms.
