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The below article was sent to us by the King Mattress Brand. Bed Info.com does not endorse the use of sleeping pills, or medication without the proper consultation of a doctor or physician prior to use.

It sounds a bit like something out of the pages of Philip K. Dick: a pill that can make it so you don't have to sleep.

Modafinil, marketed in the US as Provigil, is a drug that promotes wakefulness. It's fundamentally different from most amphetamine based “uppers” in that it doesn't have a crash period, and doesn't come with the same jittery nervous feeling associated with other stimulants like Riddalin or caffeine.

The side effects of the drug have, so far, proved to be relatively minor, with users complaining most frequently of headaches.

Remarkably, Those who use Provigil to stay awake don't seem to incur a “sleep debt.” A “sleep debt” is the principle whereby sleep that is dodged (whether through pharmaceutical or natural means) still has to be made up later to return to normal cognitive function.

The drug was developed to combat narcolepsy but can be prescribed “off-label” for a wide variety of conditions. Since the drug is used to treat “shift worker sleep disorder,” depression, and ADHD it is somewhat easy for a patient to obtain, even if said patient doesn't have a legitimate need.

Given the ease with which the drug can be obtained, and the lack of readily apparent adverse results, there's a high potential for abuse.

Although it's difficult to obtain statistics on Provigil use, articles like http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/15/how-many-of-our-startup-executives-are-hopped-up-on-provigil/">this one suggest that there is a growing rate of adoption amongst workers attempting to squeeze extra hours into their day.

Even the U.S. Military has gotten into the act. http://www.boingboing.net/2003/09/19/provigil-eastern-sta.html">Fighter pilots used the drug during a 48 hour period of continually being awake, with promising results.

Provigil has taken heat recently for allegedly marketing its off label uses. While it's perfectly legal for doctors to proscribe a drug for something other than its FDA approved purpose, Cephalon, the company that makes Provigil, can't legally advertise the drug outside the FDA lines.

In the interest of science, I decided to go ahead and try Provigil myself. I often work very late at night/ early in the morning doing editing, so I was able to parlay this into a prescription. It should be noted that it is both illegal and dangerous to take a controlled substance without a prescription.

For my first use, I took 1 100mg dose after having only had about 4 hours of sleep the previous night. It took roughly one hour for the medication to kick in, but even then I didn't really feel the effects of it so much as I noticed them. I found that my focus was unusually high, and that I had actually forgotten to eat lunch entirely while working. However, in the evening I found that I wasn't particularly tired. It's not that I couldn't have slept, but I simply didn't feel tired, which leads us to day 2...

I took 2 100mg pills the following day. I'd only gotten about three hours of sleep the previous night, and given how tired I felt when I woke up, I assumed I ought to up the dosage. I found that I had a metallic taste in my mouth, which I'm familiar with from other times that I was very sleep deprived. However, in this second instance I couldn't focus the same way I could with the first application. True, I still maintained a fairly strong tunnel vision sort of approach to whatever I had in front of me at the moment, but if I got offtrack with work, I would approach idle web surfing with the same kind of determined fanaticism.

I didn't feel tired in the evening again, but this time I decided I should try to get some sleep. When I woke up the next day I had a splitting headache, so I threw 2 ibuprofen in with my 1 100mg Provigil. So at this point, I was clearly “tired” but not in a traditional sense. I could tell that my body was simply not functioning properly, and the headaches seemed to be a sign that my brain needed a break. It was remarkable that I was able to keep going, but to what end? I'd had one night were I knew that I was going to miss some sleep, and now I'd gotten myself into a Provigil-fueled three day bender.

So, it seemed to me that the pill was good for supplementing short periods of time where I wouldn't be able to get as much sleep as I wanted, it was great at this, in fact. However, any kind of habitual use would likely see me wandering the highway, tennis racket in-hand, proclaiming the coming of the almighty pill God.

The bottom line is, There's no substitute for actually getting a good night's sleep. I recently decided to upgrade my bed, and that non-drug-based solution has provided me with a lot more comfort and alertness than my previous dabblings. You'd be surprised what a memory foam mattress can do (the site King Mattress has some good recommendations).

Ultimately, as far as science has come, sleep is still a hard thing to get around. As good as Provigil is, I think I'll be turning in early tonight.