Sleep deprivation

Vorophobe

You always kind of forget the effects of not having slept in a very long time... by that I mean around the area of 36 hrs plus. I mean, everyone knows the effects of fatigue, eg. not having slept at all that night, but I'm talking about serious deprivation.

I remember myself and a group of friends decided, after a night out in which none of us slept, to keep each other awake for as long as possible, the victor - we all had agreed - would be rewarded with his weight in booze. Daniel, one of the guys, was determined to see it through - he was by far the biggest of us all, and the rest of us were fearing that we'd have to take out a loan to come up with the goods. Whatever happened, we decided, he <b>must not</b> win.

Being a Saturday, we had the whole weekend for which to run this grueling gauntlet, and it was peppered with events that had to be endured. We had to attend Daniel's baseball training, for one. If <i>he</i> was going to be hallucinating under a burning sun (we are in the middle of an australian summer) he wanted us right there aswell. And of course we didn't want him sneaking any cat naps on the sly.

After getting a lift back into town, we hit an arcade, and laughed at each others complete loss of motor control. Then, en route to one of the guys houses, Daniel was the first to experience a genuine sleep-related-disorder - he was beginning to believe that he was becoming a god. And to the uninitiated, having one of your friends beginning to believe that he has latent unearthly powers really starts to grate after a while.

Long story short, we ended up at a friends place that night, a movie night having being organised by his sister upon hearing about our task (who was really getting off on seeing a potent group of young males withered away to pale, grey, fleshless husks.. funnily enough). We were put on a strict diet of B-Grade Horror, National Lampoon, and as a final hurdle - Hugh Grant comedy-romances.

Daniel had been raving through the first two movies, hardly watching them at all, expunging his new-found revelations on the universe and why it's centre now revolved around him. Blissfully, half an hour into the third movie, someone noticed his limp figure slumped in his chair, after he had taken a short break from his podium. Someone drew on his face, another put toothpaste in his ear, and we were back to watching the movies.

Around 5am, Nicolas, who was throughout all the time very quiet and resolved, had found a stocking in the house and began to talk through it. Then it kind of became the only vessel through which he did talk. He was joking, we knew it - but it became a little spooky when a few more hours later, as we left Daniel and went for an early morning walk to the convenience store, that that would be the only way he would communicate for the rest of the day. He thought it was hilarious. We thought Daniel was beginning to look sane beside this guy. Oh, the rest of us were all feeling strange, granted. Hallucinations - like seeing things moving just out of your vision, warped thinking, etc, but we were generally still acceptable by the communities standards.

Anyway, as it turns out, Nicolas, or should I say, his hand puppet, passed out in a car journey that Sunday night, leaving me and the last remaining man, Adam. He was soon to go after we dropped off Nicolas and went back to my place, passing out on the couch with my cat wedged under him.

And here's the thing - owing to the complete blur of events that transpired, memory loss, raving hand puppets and gods-among-us, many different versions of the weekends events unfolded from each person, but it all amounted to a disagreement with the wager. Nobody wanted to pay up, basically, and yeah, I wasn't too happy with that. But ****, it still was fun.

Just thought I'd get that off my chest. If anyone has had anything happen to them, or know something thats happened to someone over sleep deprivation, feel free to post.

:ninja:

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I live with people who do 36-48+ hours without sleep more often than they do actually sleep..

well actually, I only live with one of them.. the other just never goes away

amp

Did 56 hours once, then slept for 4 days. Felt like complete shit.

echomadman

I regularly do up to 48 hour stints of wakefulness, I did did 72 hours once or twice, back in my youth, by day 3 things definitely were odd.
in the last few months for me two days awake-sleep, two days-awake is the norm.
Its not good for the mental status quo, but i cant seem to get my circidian clock working

embee

After 72 hours of sleep deprivation, in some countries you are classed as 'legally insane' , and were you to go out and kill someone, you wouldnt be jailed for it. Hurrah!

Alas, you might be bouncing around in a padded cell for the rest of your days.......

Lump

DId 72 hours once..... in my younger crazy days 36 or 48 was not uncommon. That was when #fortress.ie was in its prime and we actually had decent/interesting/funny/abusive conversations and didnt worry about being kicked. Nothing odd really happened to me, once I was doing something I was fine. Felt a bit odd on the 72 hour one.



John

Caesar_Bojangle

I heard that if you go 97 hours without sleep, you'll awake from the matrix.

BKtje

i've gone a little over 48hrs (not quite the 72hrs some ppl here are on about) and never have i thought i was a god or done really stupid things. Infact the stupidist thing after 48hrs without sleep was go for a run on the beach in Zakynthos with a couple mates. (i'd been travelling 32hrs of those 48) I didnt actually feel all that tired but once i did go to sleep (after the run, a night of clubbing on the island) i slept like a baby

Dunno why any one would think they were a god after 48hrs (or whatever it was) of no sleep.
Sounded like a fun weekend tho

Barry Aldwell

Originally posted by Caesar_Bojangle
I heard that if you go 97 hours without sleep, you'll awake from the matrix.

I heard that if you go 1337 hours without sleep then you instantly become an admin.

Sarky

Lack of sleep does wierd things to you.

Especially if you're a security guard on a night shift.

Silent Bob

Too much lack of sleep makes you dead

Dooom

most i ever went for was about 75 hours or so...cant even remeber for how long i slept for afterwards. was one of the coolest things i ever did tho, after about 64 hours, i felt like i didnt need to sleep anymore..felt like god. all those mortals sleeping in their beds while i stalked the streets and mountains setting random things on fire and flying above the clouds....probably part of the hallucinations tho. must do it again sometime...

Cake Fiend

I've done 72 hours a few times - day 3 is when things get really weird.
I used to go 24-48 hours without sleep fairly regularly a few years back, especially working night shifts when there were games nights etc on.
There was one weekend (I think it might have been one of the CPL qualifiers) where I played quake for the best part of three days (and worked a couple of shifts that weekend on top). I was hallucinating quake sounds at the end of it.

conZ

You can die from sleep deprivation

Monty - the one and only

First of all 36-48 hrs is not sleep deprivation, anything above that is not really too smart.

And second, Spike, to be honest, your a fool...Delibratly causing yourself sleep deprivation is a pretty stupid idea...I should know longest Ive ever stayed awake is 128hrs and theres no way in hell Im ever doing that again. I slept for the following 2 days, and when I woke up, as far as I was concerned, I thought it was the same day as I fell asleep on...Not to mention I had to take sleeping tablets to get to sleep in the first place.

flogen

conz, can you really? so what you're saying is that every day people die from insomnia?? doubt it

I have heard that if you go 70 something hours without ANY sleep you can die. that means that if you are constantly active, no 'micro-sleep' where you doze off for afew seconds or so and then wake up again. supposedly there was a competition in America (of course) to see who could stay awake the longest, it involved dancing constantly, if your knees hit the ground you were out. after 1 day or something the remaining contestants began to get paranoid and think the others were cheating, and supposedly there was a stabbing or attempted stabbing because of this.....

I wouldnt mind doing something like that, it would almost me like taking drugs if all this hallucinations stuff is true.... it'd be a fun activity if you have a week or so to re-adjust yourself afterwards.

Flogen

Capt'n Midnight

"I'm so tired the walls are melting."

Sleep Deprivation is not a nice thing to do to your brain, it extreme cases it gets damaged, and you suffer from flashbacks and hallucinations etc. long afterwards.

Vorophobe

Apparently crystal meth abusers are the worst - in extreme cases, they've been known to go over a week with no sleep at all, due to the extreme alertness it causes.

Anyone seen the movie 'Spun'? Really good example of the paranoia that comes with the no-sleep territory

Lump

I think all this rubbish about going crazy is well rubbish. What about Soliders and doctors and all those people that stay awake for long periods of time. Soliders in the World wars could stay awake for days at a time. "Not sleeping will kill you".... what a load of cack.



John

eth0_

Originally posted by Lump
I think all this rubbish about going crazy is well rubbish. What about Soliders and doctors and all those people that stay awake for long periods of time. Soliders in the World wars could stay awake for days at a time. "Not sleeping will kill you".... what a load of cack.

It's not rubbish. If the brain is deprived of sleep for any great length of time, you start hallucinating, getting paranoid, lose co-ordination etc.
Soldiers are highly trained. Look at the SAS. They regularly have mock interrogations where they're captured by 'the enemy' and kept awake for days and days, being asked the same questions over and over trying to break them. Soldiers are not your average Joe public.
As for Doctors working long shifts, they do get to sleep, either in vacant private rooms or in their doctors quarters. It's rare that you'd REALLY be sleep deprived as a doctor, although it probably feels like that in your PRHO year after qualifying, as you have to live in the hospital.

Actually, I read that Ch4/E4 are going to do a reality show that's all about sleep deprivation. A group of people have to stay away for 7 days and nights, the last one to still be awake gets cash0rs.

Cake Fiend

Sleep deprivation is a popular form of torture.

Believe me, when you've been awake for three days and you're on the bus home or whatever, the fackin last thing you want is someone talking to you, never mind screaming at you and hitting you etc.

][cEMAN**

I went 5 days once with about 4 hours sleep. By the friday I decided "**** it I wanna go out and get drunk now", so I went down to call for my m8's. At this point the sleep deprivation caught up with me and I ended up sleep drunk. I was wandering around the streets getting REALLY pissed off cause nobody was talking to me, so I went home and went to sleep.

Woke up late the next day and went down to give my m8 a right bollocking for nobody talking to me. Everybody came up to me and were like "are you OK man?". Apparently they were all shouting at me to try and get me to take them on but I was obvlivious to all sound around me. I had literally gone deaf with lack of sleep. And tbh I was halucinating a bit. Was kinda cool for what it was but I wouldn't want to do it again. This was all piled on with the fact that I was working about 14 hours each day for the 5 days, so that I could make extra cash for chrimbo. Again never doing that again.

Dooom

Originally posted by Monty - the one and only
First of all 36-48 hrs is not sleep deprivation, anything above that is not really too smart.

And second, Spike, to be honest, your a fool...Delibratly causing yourself sleep deprivation is a pretty stupid idea...I should know longest Ive ever stayed awake is 128hrs and theres no way in hell Im ever doing that again. I slept for the following 2 days, and when I woke up, as far as I was concerned, I thought it was the same day as I fell asleep on...Not to mention I had to take sleeping tablets to get to sleep in the first place.

well €70 was up for stakes and it was between me and someone else...yeah i know it was stupid but meh, we're teenagers so we like to do stupid things to prove a point and get money

kano476

me prolly bout 36hours coming home from u.s. slept for 22 hours after it though!

Tellox

48hrs... I slept most nights for 15/16hrs after that for about a week or so. Im really really bad with lack of sleep you see, as I love my bed. It was a 48hr lan,and I doubt I'd do it again.

first 16hrs: no problems
16-18hrs: sleepy.
18-24hrs: I was quite fine until it got bright out. Then I was ****ed. This is the stage where I went into a trance-like state. Was probably swaying at the time. All I know is this is when I most wanted sleep.
24hrs-28hrs: I was awake again at this stage, I could sleep by just laying my head down, but didnt want to. I was actually happy at this time, Getting on well with people that I usually wouldnt ect. I think it was battlefield that kept me awake
28hrs-31hrs: I went home to sleep for "7hrs", but woke up 3hrs later, and felt too awake to go back to sleep. So I went back to the lanhouse, and went back to gaming
31-36hrs: fairly sleepy,but more alert then most people in there. Happiness was no longer.
36-38hrs: I was hearing battlefield noises in my head...I thought they were coming from one of the machines, but I went around to check "who had their headphones up really really really loud" , and absolutly no-one was playing battlefield... most were either playing a game of RA2, the rest were sleeping. And no,the sounds werent coming from RA2.
38hrs-41hrs: just about everyone went asleep at this time,including myself
41hrs-42hrs: I think I "rested my eyes" during this time.
42-44hrs: Lan wasnt fun any more. I played a couple of games, quit out fairly fast. I was dizzy, in that trance again, but didnt want to sleep. Just very narky.
44-48hrs: I wanted to go home more then anything at this stage. Played some q3 and cs, but only lasted 1 or 2 rounds before quitting out
48hrs: I got home, but I didnt want to sleep. I went upstairs, set up my PC, and went back downstairs and watched some telly. Went back upstairs about 15mins later, booted up my PC, wanted to see what kind of porn I leeched at the lan. So I typed in my password at the login promt, and whenever I usually do this, I usually just fall back onto my bed and lie there for a minute while everything loads up. And of course, that time was no exception. So I fell back onto my bed. About a minute later, I opened my eyes, went over to my PC...and oh dear, about 5hrs have passed since I went for a lie down.

Took me about 3hrs of lying down before I actually got back asleep, mustve been bright out(again) when I actually did doze off. Slept for another 7hrs...and for about 3 weeks after that I got in 10-16hr sleeping sessions, which I felt quite angry at myself for.

Not a hope in hell would I do it again.

neonitrix

my worst was 72 hours straight. about 2 years ago

worked 48 hours straight then flew to London for drinks with mates

I have never been so sick in my life but it was a class weekend - dont know if I would like to do it again tho. All I can remember is we visited about 10 nightclubs were drinking jugs of blue green and red cocktails in a place called tiger tiger. and wandered around covent garden at 6am in the morning talking to random people.

riding around on the London undergroud when you havent slept in 3 days is a surreal experience.

when I did eventually go to sleep - I only slept for 4 hours - we then left hotel and went drinking again. & for some reason we ended up in the wax work museum. many hours later we were to be found running from one end of gatwick airport to the other to catch our plance back to Dublin

I dont know if I would choose to do it again tho. I started talking to myself and ordinary things didnt make sense at all.

Neonitrix - I would like to give that E4 thing a try tho - I likes money.

I wonder what is the longest sum1 has ever stayed awake? - I tried searching on next but am finding conflicting reports

Tivoli

i have been awake since 10am yesterday, and i don't finish work for half an hour (7:15am), and i have to drive in to rathmines from blanchardstown, drink a beer and then go to bed (about 9:00am),

oh by the way you can pray to me now, because i am a god, nah just messing,

Grom

I have stayed awake for about 60-65 hours regulary a few times didnt feeel that bad however one thing that was annoying is that i started hearing the counter-strike footsteps and gun shots in my head which is really annoying on a 3 hour trip on a train.

I normally get up at 11pm and stay awake tille 5-6 am im just wondering if im getting enough sleep and if 5 hours a night could do me permanent damage (thas to say if it has not allready)

woosaysdan

i work in a niteclub and over the christmas patch i'll be lucky to see my bed at all except for on xmas day!!! last xmas i worked 15 days on the trot starting about 12 noon and finishing about 3 am the next morning then we would have a few drinks after work and i would get home at about 6 or 7 in the morning, and on xmas eve i was pissed all day and night and got home and everyone was up opening their xmas presents!!!!