Selective deprivation of REM sleep in rats leads to death in approximately 40 days, while non-REM sleep deprivation leads to death in approximately 60 days.

“what they found was that Rats on average will die somewhere between about 13 to 17 days after total sleep deprivation in other words rats will die almost as quickly from sleep deprivation as they will from food deprivation”

“they found that if they selectively deprive rats just of non-rem sleep they did die but it took them longer they died after about 60 days if you deprive them of REM sleep dream sleep they died after 40 days versus 60 days”

“they selectively deprived them of either just non-rapid eye movement sleep or rapid eye movement sleep and what they found is that the rats were dead within about nine to ten days with total sleep deprivation they were dead within just about the same period of time from REM sleep deprivation duration was kept constant or also reduced it was still reduced somewhat but you could probably look at a control that had a same duration without a selectable yeah and there is a what's called a yolked paradigm it's a very clever technique where you can mimic the total amount of sleep deprivation in one other animal but the other animal is still getting the chance to get REM sleep REM sleep selectively removed the rats diet basically almost as quickly as they did from total sleep deprivation and then non REM sleep deprivation was deathly ultimately it just took longer it took about twenty days total sleep deprivation let's just say for argument's sake you die in nine days sleep reduction but selective REM deprivation you die in the same period of time basically a sleep reduction but deep deprivation you live maybe twice as long yeah”