User talk:70.172.229.170

Its perfectly acceptable for the sleepless to be crazy. But as some other anon has already pointed out, there is an entire chapter comprised of sleepless marines who are NOT crazy. (IE the Doom warriors) GW canon implies that being without sleep for a space marine does not cause you to go insane. They need something else. Perhaps the defective catalipsean node has started to incite neural decay? Or something, but lack of sleep wont do it. --

Its not sleep deprivation alone that affects the nightmares so much. The catalepsian node mutation did more than just give them an abnormal sleep cycle. It also gives each marine heightened awareness and perception. The longer they stay awake, the sharper these senses become. Until finally the marine drops into a comatose sleep with barely a few seconds warning. A month or so later they wake up and the cycle repeats. When a marine turns sleepless he still retains the heightened senses. But because he never sleeps there is no periodic "reset" to dampen them back to normal again. His senses become more and more powerful, spiraling into infinity. In other words, complete and utter sensory overload. This is what causes the Sleepless to go nuts.

Modern science suspects that sleep is also the time the body uses to organize and store memories. Dreams are though to be a side effect of this process. Without sleep, the ability for sleepless marines to process and store memories and information is degraded. Causing them to become delusional and possibly attack other battle brothers.

The sheer amount of incoming information overwhelms the mind. Its as if you are concentrating as hard as you can, on everything you can, all at once. It gets to the point that you can simply look at someone and your brain will start to count how many individual hairs they have on their head. You can't stop yourself from doing it, its just another piece of information you are painfully aware of and can't ignore. Imagine living like this for decades.

The Doom warriors seem to suffer from something different. What the catalepsian node usually does is allow a marine to rest half of his brain at once. This "combat" sleep can be used to rest up without taking a nap and leaving your post. What I think happened to the Doom Warriors, is that when their nodes mutate this process never shuts off. In effect they are ALWAYS awake and resting at the same time. This would explain why they never actually sleep, and why they don't go crazy from sleep deprivation like the Nightmares do.

In any case, its an important point to raise. Something we should explain in more detail on the main page. I'm almost done editing the Nightmare Fandex into a finished draft. I'll start a new discussion thread about it when I'm done. We can talk more of this there if you'd like.

-- (Sorry for the double post in the original, don't know how I could make that mistake) I am not finding any evidence saying just how degraded the DW's Node is degraded, or how it functions, even after much searching. A couple theories on how they manage to stay combat active on top of your own theory a) perhaps the apothecaries are better able to study and handle its affect or b)Perhaps they are singularly one minded to their mission? They are exterminatus specialists after all.

Getting back towards the sleepless so that I can try to help be productive.

Several reasons I think that could cause a sleepless marines insanity. A) The viewpoint of the chapter is so ingrained into their being and psyche, that when they find themselves to be sleepless, that they truly believe themselves to be walking dead. They go insane because they accept it as an inevitability. IE they believe it, so it happens. B) Perhaps the Chapter Librarians who guard the dreamers have a calming effect on the mind of those under their protection, and being unable to feel that any more could have an adverse reaction?

Another question I would like to ask (this ones mainly for my own curiosity) How would the Right of Pure Thought affect a sleepless? It could potentially help them to keep their sanity, in a way. But it also cuts out the creativity, wich could affect their combat performance. What about stasis? Keeping the Sleepless brothers in stasis while off the combat field (not unlike a dreadnoughts sleep) Could potentially give the chosen marine more time before he becomes too far gone.