Sleep deprivation is a hell of a drug

[ace99]

I've gone a couple days with little to no sleep and I gotta say there's a noticeable impact after awhile. You feel sluggish you think slower, and you do things like walk into the girls bathroom and stare around confusedly for 30 seconds because there are no urinals until some girl notices and takes pity on you by kindly explaining that you seem to be lost.

And then there are the visual hallucinations. Yep, sometimes you might see double of something and then you do a double take and its gone. Freaking strange. I gotta say if we ban driving under the influence of alcohol driving while sleep deprived has to be equally, if not more dangerous, and it's probably more widespread.

Whats the longest you've gone with little or no sleep? Whats the stupidest thing you've done while sleep deprived?

 

[Borachio]

A couple of days would seem to be my absolute limit. And I've certainly done the toilet trick.

The stupidest thing is driving. And since I used to drive for a living while almost permanently sleep-deprived, I can confidently state I'm extremely stupid. Along with most professional drivers.

 

[nc-1701]

Longest I've gone was wake up for a normal day at like 7 or 8ish, then get in a fight with my (now ex) girlfriend that night, stay awake all night because I was too upset to sleep (lame I know), and then stay up til mdinight the next night so a total of just over 40 hours... Nothing spectacular, the effects kind of sucked, but nothing really weird happened. Though on a dumb note I did try to spar with a friend on the second day, and I got dropped by a punch I would normally have shrugged off. I didn't get KO'ed, I just got hit and lost all control of my legs for half a second while staying fully conscious. Not sure if it was just really well placed, but I think the sleep deprivation had something to do with it. Usually if I take a hard shot I might grey out for a second, but my legs stay under me...

But usually I sleep, it's good for you and I hate feeling tired

 

[AlpsStranger]

I was going off a medication once and slept less than an hour a night for like five days.

My most vivid hallucination was the ability to watch Futurama in lifelike 3D. It was actually pretty awesome and it finally made me understand why some people like illegal drugs so much.

 

[The_J]

A couple of days would seem to be my absolute limit.

Not only for you. Current record is at 11 days (wiki).

My longest time must have been around 2 days, at a class trip. Can't force me to more. Probably better so.

The stupidest thing is driving.

+1.
Drove after something like 32 hours without sleep.
Don't do that. I was totally happy that I didn't kill anyone.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I don't think I've ever gone more than 30 hours without sleep, and that's been a while.
During my early to mid twenties I semi-regularly pulled all-nighters and was mostly functional during the next day until six in the evening.
The effects I noticed most were a shortened attention span and a screwed up pattern recognition coupled with auditory hallucinations. I would sometimes hear background noise as a melody or even hear wispers and voices in the wind, but I've read somewhere that this might have more to do with a high blood caffeine content than just sleep deprivation.

 

[wolfigor]

And then there are the visual hallucinations. Yep, sometimes you might see double of something and then you do a double take and its gone. Freaking strange.

read the novel Insomnia by Stephen King and you'll know the truth about those visions...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insomnia_(novel)

 

[Borachio]

Hmm. What's the name of that drug that allows you to access your dreaming consciousness while still awake?

 

[AdamCrock]

I was awake for ~48+ hours (before and after new year's eve party....) and had similar symptoms. It felt really strange like seeing the world around me like a dream. I remember vision blurs and gigantic lag in perception, had problems walking around and it seemed like hours to walk to a toilet and take a piss Someone could just smack me in the head and after a couple of seconds lag I would've sayad something like "huh ?". Also I felt totally clueless and was not making any sense when talking (very similar when being drunk except I didnt drink that much alcohol that night and it should've been metabolised by that time ) My advice is to take a solid 12 hours+ sleep -> wake up > eat a lot > drink a lot of non-alcoholic drinks and than sleep some more like 8 hours or so. You should be as good as new I am amazed You can still write all that stuff and start a new thread

And I agree being sleep deprived is very similar to being drunk

 

[Tee Kay]

It's 5am and what am I doing here

 

[AdamCrock]

It's 5am and what am I doing here

"Who am I? Where am I" a brand new TV show with cool prizes !

 

[MobBoss]

3 days during my Primary Leadership course.

 

[warpus]

That explains a lot MobBoss

Most I've done is 40-50 hours. I was so tired at the end that I couldn't even fall asleep anymore.

 

[Antilogic]

Two days max, although I've gone for prolonged periods (weeks) only getting 1-3 hour naps a night/day. I've had similar symptoms to those others described above, but also your body heals more slowly so post-workout soreness is exacerbated.

Never walked into a ladies room, though, seems like I've got a little farther to fall.

 

[JollyRoger]

My longest was probably a bit over 50 hours. My body seems to be built for the 36 hour day - 24 hours awake followed by 12 hours of sleep.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Never gone much longer than 24 hours without sleep. I did work 28 days straight split between a day job and a night job where I only got 3-4 hours of sleep a night. I felt like dog crap when it was over - and it only ended because I quit one job so I could sleep. That boss was taking advantage of me.

 

[Quackers]

Why would you ever go for two jobs if you knew you would get 3-4 hours of sleep?
Thats stupeed.

 

[Antilogic]

Americans sometimes don't have a choice--they need the money for rent, food, children's needs, etc.

 

[Synobun]

When I was healthy -- 4 days.

When I am how I am currently -- 26 hours.

It's not fun. I don't hallucinate, just more so that I lose my pain tolerance completely so the pain I'm in every day just seems that much worse, and my senses get fuzzy (and by fuzzy, I mean that by the end of 24 hours I usually can't see in one eye and can't smell anymore).

When I was healthy, it wasn't too bad. Just felt like there was a lot of pressure pressing down on my brain and jaw. Besides that, I was okay except for difficulties sleeping afterwards.

 

[_random_]

I believe many of Dali's paintings were based on hallucinations he had well sleep deprived.

So yeah.