Sleep deprivation
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: