It’s said that we need to sleep because a waste product called adenosine builds up in our brains while we’re awake. When we sleep the brain does this thing where adenosine gets flushed out by csf. Adenosine also makes us feel sleepy and can cause hallucinations if we’ve been awake for days. I looked up adenosine and it’s a cns depressant, like a sleeping pill is. I remember reading an old news article where a man from China stayed awake for 11 days to watch football and he died. If the adenosine levels in his brain were so high to kill him why didn’t he just pass out and sleep before he died if it’s a cns depressant?