“Human. Do you enjoy, sleep?” “Yes” “You look into the void, and enjoy it?” “Absolutely.” “What happens if you do not sleep?” “After 24 hours, we become irritable, after 48, we begin to hallucinate, after 72 who knows what we’ll do. And anything after 100 we go on a rampage until we eventually die.” “.............oh.........please, sleep some human.”

Hearing Earth being called the Deathworld just makes me think that earth is this universe’s equivalent to Australia

I think the weirdest thing is that everybody on the whole ship sleeps at the same time. It's an artificial environment, there's no day-night cycle!

"if Krill thinks that is scary, wait until he learns about hibernation and torpor" -one of the crewman

“Sleep: Those little slices of death, how I loathe them” - Edgar Allen Poe.

The Greeks and Romans absolutely did treat sleep as pretty much the “free trial version” of death-the standard Roman turn of phrase for discussing those who are asleep was that they were OPPRESSED by sleep, same as if you were oppressed by a tyrant. Which is also why the gods of Death and Sleep were siblings in their religion, and EQUALLY considered gods of the underworld.

Fun story. I'm just surprised they don't have a night crew to keep the ship running.

Im surprised none of them snored while sleeping

It's so cool to see something that is so mundane to us so dramatic to another species. I guess we really could be anomalies...

Silly aliens, that's not unique to humans. Almost every species on the planet sleeps.

Boy, wait till they find out about cats.

Empathizing with a fictional non-human sentient lifeform made me feel genuinely disturbed by something as normal as our intraspecies contagious yawns, which I had found interesting before, but never disturbing. Empathy is cool. And the rest of the sleep stuff, of course, jesus

That's a really cool way to think about sleep. "Night, dude. I'm gonna go play tag with the reaper."

This actually is a good example of how aliens would react if we were them. Its completely natural to US, but is extremely disturbing and/or horrifying to them.

... wow. I have never thought about sleep like that before. _frantically scribbling notes_

Imagine how shocked he would be if Kril learned that near every animal species on our "death planet" fell asleep as well.

Brings a whole new meaning to “Should I die before I wake”.

"Humans need death to survive." Well, kinda, yea. Everything we eat, everything we can live off, was once either a living plant or a living animal of some sort, and it's damn sure not alive for long after we swallow it. Same for everything we drink that isn't plain water, I think, if only tiny remnants.

"sleep is just a free trial of death"

"YOU WERE DYING!" "I swear this by whatever god you hold dear, little alien, if you wake me again, *I* won't be the one dying"

Heck, sometimes damaging a part of our cortical tissue makes us function even better by sheer chance; one guy hit his head on the bottom of a pool, and went from low-intelligence jock to masterful piano musician despite no past experience. This is extremely rare, so it's not a good idea to damage our brains intentionally, but yeah.

Death: "Mostly they aren't too keen to see me. They fear the sunless lands. But they enter your realm each night without fear." Dream: "And I am far more terrible than you, sister." (from The Sandman by Neil Gaiman)

I just have a hard time thinking of creatures that don't need sleep. Or sapient species that wouldn't be aware of it. Even flies and plants rest. I dont know about jellyfish. I like the stories, but some have subjects that are harder for me to really get into.

They way I think they might see it as, and how I kinda look at sleep is that: 1: due to our start as prey, every waking moment would be one of (relative to aliens, which I assume were always apex predators on their planets) extreme hyperactivity and hyper-alertness. A constant flight-or-fight. And due to that + the huge energy use of our brain and it’s complexity, the brain gets worn out without periods of rest. It’s like overclocking the entire body, if you don’t give it time to cool down it melts itself (delusions, where reality and memories meld, which could cause erratic and dangerous stuff to other humans and the individual human.). So their bodies evolved to ‘cripple’ them temporary for their own protection, just like a coma. And similar to inflammation or a fever in a way. An unconventional way of dealing with problem that only weak organisms have. Human main skill is adaptability, what dosen’t kill us makes us stronger, hell we even intentionally infect ourselves with lethal deseases to gain immunities, it’s called inoculation

This kind of felt like I was listening to a Lovecraftian tale.

As a side note, the humans' own studies of this extended dormant period indicate that the reduction or elimination of sleep has mixed results. On the one manipulator, the ability to learn physical patterns continues unabated, sometimes even becoming enhanced by the continued opportunity for repetition and revision. On another, mental and emotional processes become disturbed and erratic, some even going so far as to produce confabulation and hallucination.

Krill would be utterly terrified of hummingbirds and their torpor then.

Huh, never occured to me that other species might not know what a "sleep" is

"Sleep is just a free sample of death with a timer." -The Invinsible Camera Man

The only thing unrealistic adbout this, is the lack of a night watch making sure nothing goes wrong while everyone is sleeping.

hmm ... imagine trying to explain dreams and nightmares to a species that doesn't sleep ... i guess if they equate sleep to death then dreams really must be like the light at the end of the tunnel "those who have managed to return from the brink report seeing terrible visions of reality stitched together in terrible configurations" : putting dreams into a whole new perspective

It sounds like Krill comes from a tidally locked planet where the habitable ring is always day, ranging from morning/evening on the day side to various levels of twilight on the night side. The center of each side would be uninhabitable; with only temporary visits. Such a world would likely not have sleep cycles.

You're telling me not a single person on that ship snores? That's the hardest thing to believe

This is for the algorithm and for the narrator! My sleep record is 17h. My father's is 27h, he was in the army and was on watch duty during the war.

"unmoving" So your're saying kicking people in your sleep is rare? I actually sleepwalked to the bathroom once so if I was there I might have been kicking or walking around lifelessly asking for my mom. Edit: If the ship was like 60 degrees or more I would have my shirt/dress up while im sleeping

"Lying as in death" *several loud snores* "Ah yes, the familiar death snores that other species are known to make"

Just wait until they find out about hibernation, which is quite common here. Or even better, wood frogs, which allow themselves to freeze and thaw with their surroundings in the winter, experiencing no adverse affects when they thaw. If I remember correctly, they have a way of increasing the sugar levels in their blood so it doesn't freeze. Other than blood and maybe a couple of other necessary functions, they freeze solid for months at a time, then thaw and hop around like it's nothing.

Humanity fuck yeah indeed.

Sleep is just Death: the demo

A ship with >20 crew but no watch/watch/watch cycle seems a little implausible. Why don't they have locks?

"The humans had been terrifying, but they had also been friendly, smiling at him with their sharp teeth" Me: hahaha! You think our teeth are sharp! Hahaha! Wait until you see a jaguar's teeth!

This is a very weird ship, unless it's basically the Serenity with a crew of about 5, there should be someone awake at all times, the various watches just rotate when they sleep

Let's reformulate "Humans are space orcs" To "Humans are Nightmarish space orcs, with a smile" It's more fitting in my opinion.

Gods I love this series. Humans are full of crazy features and traits, but it takes an outside perspective to really appreciate it. Even excluding human-specific stuff, we can even point to the traits of all races on our world... And those aspects we have in common with them might be absurd or rare outside of our own world. And this series? It perfectly highlights it, shows us in a bad-ass light we'd never recognize for ourselves.

Going without sleep is very interesting; it only takes a day and a half or so for genuine psychosis to set in. Hallucinations, muddled thinking, mood swings, you name it - and all completely temporary. Even going to the brink of what is survivable in terms of sleep deprivation leaves no lasting impact on someone, as long as they don't make it a regular occurance. But loose just a little sleep every night, and you WILL see damage done over time. If you ever want to know what some of the symptoms of psychosis are like, just pull a true all-nighter and keep at it until the next night. I experienced a lot of visual hallucinations of people walking past windows and shadows moving, which I found pretty cool, but decided enough was enough when I casually saw a moth fly out of my phone screen. I wouldn't want to be one of the people the US government tortures with sleep deprivation in Guantanamo, that's for sure.

If that scares them, then how about the various forms hibernation and torpor.

Nobody tell Krill about the Russian Sleep Experiment; poor guy would be scared to death.

That was great, yeah, sleep is good, it's a free trial of death.

Sleep is a trial run of death, its why I like it so much

i enjoy these little tidbits. In college, we often went on this wild tangent with the Cellular Biology Professor and the Sociology-Psychology Professor. It was determined, by a pretty much unanimous vote that the five things Aliens would find most disturbing about humans would be. 1) Sleep. Even among the other creatures of Earth, humans are among only a dozen or so species that dream. And the only one among those that sleeps more than 4 hours at a time. 2) Monogamy. While largely considered a Social Behavior, its deeply rooted into our DNA, to seek a single partner as we age, while seeking multiple when first reaching sexual maturity. Outside of birds a few fish, and handful of mammals, no other animals do this. And no other animal with comparable intelligence does this at all. Its likely an alien race would have a polyamory style culture, with couplings being rare, and mostly short lived. 3) Year Round Sexual Fertility in both males and females. This is actually a weird thing among most predators, because winter means a lack of food to care for a newborn. Its far more likely an alien race that found us, would have a regular period of fertility, rather than simply being fertile all the time. 4) Our diets. We essentially carbon-coat our food with heat. While this is still something other evolved species might do, its unlikely to be a mainstay, and more of a process used for special meals and treats.They would probably eat raw meat and veggies, and view cooking as something weird. 5) Our hairlessness. We live on a planet that is actually on the cooler side, believe it or not, for planets in the 'Goldilocks Zone'. Given that, most aliens coming to earth would expect our planet to be blazing hot all the time, across all livable landmasses, if all they had to go on was a human specimen, without clothing on.

And then Krill hasnt even done brain scans during the REM phase yet, when brain activity literally goes through the roof! ^^

"Various poses of distress" LMAO

The thought that there could be sapient species that don’t need sleep scares me

I love how poetic these are lol

Show them people who survived having meta poles stab through their brain, show them hibernation for wood frogs

"Sleep is the cousin of death, my dear squid"

Not going to lie. I thought we were one of the weakest species. Only making up for it with our “intelligence” which is superior to most of all other animals. But at least now I know we are kinda special, other than our brain. But I would still like a tale.

"Taunting the darkness" absolutely slayed me for some reason.

It's interesting to think about how sleep is basically almost dying to conserve energy and basically process information, heal, etc in a low energy state. So low you are unconsious.

So what I gather is that the phrase “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” is legitimately more accurate the other way around.

"The humans need death to survive"

I swear to god, a golden opportunity to have someone snore was sorely missed

Freelance ships run differently than others might, a military one would have three shifts. Battle stations are not manned constantly because it cuts into sleep cycles. While one shift works on maintenance, navigation and sensor observations. the other two will relax and sleep, so until actual battle, about one third of the crew is sleeping. Once battle is engaged all systems are fully manned with backup stations for redundancy also manned. A species that doesn't sleep as we do might have smaller ship crews for similar missions but would not be able to suddenly change available personnel in emergencies either.

One of the problem with fiction like Mass Effect is how humans are always the “medium”. The base that other species are built off. So it’s fun to see the examples where we’re the weird outlier.

the most unrealistic part of this story is how the entire crew of a ship is going to sleep at the same time, rather than taking shifts to maintain the ship's operation

I am so showing these videos to a friend who loves sci-fi, you lady, got another subscriber.

I've only recently discovered this series of videos but I love the absolutely unique perspective that is offered here. I love your work and I applaud your creativity, bravo @DiamondWillow !

Randomly was recommended this by KZfaq. I'm pleasantly surprised. I'm subscribing.

ok, this is cool from now on I'll be "dancing with Death" instead of sleeping

Have you heard of the "stoned ape" hypothesis? The idea is that part of what propelled our ancestors toward tool use was consuming magic mushrooms and thereby gaining perspective on their lives.

One of my favorite chapters.

It fun to think that we as a species are the one who rest in the most Metal way and we our selfs have stated that sleeping is like getting a sneak peak at death.

this is the type of thing that should be on tv. it very well done. good wrighting and an ingineus idea

I'd LOVE to see what he thinks about us casually discussing our dreams. "I had another dream about shooting fire out of my hands, do you think it means anything?" "Nah, we've all had drama where we can do some random magic thing. It'll probably go away in a few weeks." Krill, in the background: *very confused horror*

This series is one of the best of this genre I've heard (or read myself). Your delivery is great as well.

As I get older, I start to suspect more and more that the 40k version of the future is more accurate than Star Trek or Star Wars.

"Squishy Bench" made me laugh, Ive never heard anyone call a bed that before

"Sleep is a construct invented by the Jedi," *wheeze* "I don't even know how to spell it!" - Palpatine, probably

“Sleep is just death being shy”- extrub1a

This is one of the best humans are space orcs

I imagine getting put to sleep before an surgical procedure is something close to what death feels like. One second you are laying on a table getting injected with something, the next several hours have passed and you're in a bed with tubes sticking out. The time in betwen is just "nothingness" it doesnt exist because the "me" didnt exist during that time. During sleep you still have something in your brain, but not during an operation, or at least very little.

What ARE these...? Just found out about these "Humans are space orcs" stories, and I'm in freaking love with them!

I'm going to have the most epic night of sleep after this video.

I've just started watching these videos and I LOVE THEM, subbed, gonna go watch them all!

This is the 1st thing I have ever seen from this channel and it is the coolest thing I have ever heard. I will be curious to watch the rest of your videos.

It's fun seeing ourselves through the eyes of others.

Thats...strangely comforting.

Pierce Anthony wrote three books in the 90s basically explaining how humans are space Orcs for 3 entire books

I think about this story every time I try to sleep just the way you told it and the way they wrote it was so impactful I struggle alot with staying asleep constantly waking up and going back to sleep so I dream a lot and it’s helps me deal with it all mentally to imagine my self dancing with death each time I rest

It's so refreshing to get to know the reaction to sleeping from a completely different point of view of one who is completely alien to the mere concept. The more I think about it the more it is apparent that it is quite unusual. But I guess it is a human thing to be able to sympathize with even a fictional being.

3:07 the yawn description. Did you yawn? Freaking frak yawns are contagious!

"Their species draws energy from death" thats the most metal thing i heard someone say when talking about sleeping

I want all these types of videos complied into a ship log for this poor alien I keep finding and losing this videos.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i just love it and this channel!!! im like now two episodes new but i already love this channel!!!!!!

Pretty sure on a ship of this scale they would have a night crew but also maybe every one all agreed to prank Kirll as a sort of right of passage.

The more I listen to these the more I think if would be a blessing or a nightmare we meet another species that descended from mammals

Just found these series of videos! They're absolutely BRILLIANT! I'm loving them!!

a whole crew sleeping together and not a one snores amazing~

Hey, You posted this on my birthday! Thanks. I enjoyed it very much.

The chain reaction of yawns was neat