Sleep Deprivation Experiences

Sesoku

Sesoku

Joined
Oct 19, 1998
Messages
498
I guess looking forward to final exams next week made me think of this subject. Does anyone have a story of needing to stay awake in a survival situation? What are some things you can do you stay awake and clear headed in an emergency? What is the longest that you have gone without sleep? What are some potential medical consequences of sleep deprivation?
 
I've never stayed awake for a marathon-length. I suppose the longest I stayed up was until 5:30 at a sleepover, and I lay down for about an hour, getting maybe fifteen minutes of sleep.

It seems to be different for people. For me, I feel like I'm high or something. I kinda feel like I'm dreaming, I don't blink much, and I don't retain much information(i.e. reading a book).
 
The problem with studying for exams is that you need, not only to stay awake, but to "function as intended" as well.
You could stay awake for maybe up to 72 hours in an emergency situation, but this has nothing to do with your case. You want a clear head and the ability to understand, evaluate and eventually learn from what you are reading, and this will degrade a lot as you grow tired and sleepy.
 
Trust me I am planning on getting plenty of sleep before my exams, I am mostly talking about survival situations.
 
Well, this isn't really a survival situation but in a way it sort of is. The longest I've ever been sleep deprived was probably just 24 hours at a time. Most of my sleep deprivation comes from extended periods with little or no sleep like at Marine OCS and/or Parris Island Recruit Training, or especially at Marine Combat Training.

Going a few months with only 4 hours a night and intense physical strain everyday really wears on you. You find yourself doing microsleep or as we call it, bobbing for c*ck.

I've seen guys fall asleep standing up during drill movements, and other inopportune times. And I've even saw 1 guy fall asleep on the range behind a Mark 19 grenade launcher (dangerous situation). It all comes down to discipline for the most part. If I'm in a fighting hole I'm NOT going to doze off. If I get tired I will drink water, stand up, pinch my inner thigh, etc. but I WILL NEVER fall asleep.

Of course I think it gets to a certain point where you probably can't control it anymore but I've yet to reach that. My guess is that w/enough motivation you can stay awake and perform, esp. if it's life and death
 
5 days and 4 nights without sleep during my first 22 day trip as a USAF Survival 'wanabe' instructor. This trip was in January during harsh winter conditions.

How did we stay awake.... hmmmmmmmmm..... there was so much to do that we had no choice... also, everytime you began to fall asleep (usually standing up), the instructor dropped you into a leaning rest position (preparing for push ups) for the rest of the lesson. By the time I was allowed to sleep I couldn't even think.... my ability to handle simple tasks became almost impossible. I would have flunk a differential equations final for sure
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Greg Davenport
Simply Survival's Wilderness Survival Forum
Simply Survival's Web Page
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?
 
I was once up for 5 days(although I only recall about 3 of them). It was a military thing. It wasn't part of the training but just happenened between performing my job,setting up the sights,moving the sights,stand to/down,and radio watch. My squad leader asked me on a saturday when I'd last slept after he heard me say something inappropriate to my commanding officer. I answered "monday, I think". He covered for my actions and told me to go hide and sleep till I was ok to get up. While I was asleep in a Hummer we were "attacked". 200 rounds of .308 blanks were fired within 5 ft of where I was sleeping and I never heard a thing.Then there was the time my wife and I drove from NY to OR in 3 days. I got abot 10 hrs of sleep on that ride
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Bill Siegle
was4u@cs.com

Bill Siegle Custom Knives
http://www.geocities.com/siegleknives
Camp and Japanese Styled Knives a Specialty
 
You can sleep standing up without support. It takes practive as the first few atempts you tend to wake when your face hits the ground. You can doze walking at night so long as you don't walk into something (you need to be very fit and well practised at walking over that type of ground).
Sleep depravation is hard work and never gets any easier. Tasks become sooooo slow and the mind takes forever to make the most basic decisions. It can become quite funky. The work you do achieve in this state is not that good and is not energy/resourse efficient.

Quickest wake up is adrenalin. Uncontrolled shivering keeps you awake quite well. Activity keeps you going. Make plans, write them down before its too late, and stick to the plan that you have written down. Easier said than done.

The more sleep loss the longer the recovery. Catch sleep whenever possible, however short, but ensure that it is safe/wise to do so. I almost missed a war (training) once; I was so out for the count. If you wake someone make sure they are awake, test them and have them standing before you leave.

Pep pills (over the counter types such as caffein) may keep you awake a little longer but cause a longer recovery. Personally, I don't rate them much and never used them. A couple of dissolvable asprin is as good as it gets.
 
Sorry Greg, but that particular standard doesn't impress me much. I've come perilously close to failing a diffy Q exam or two while wide awake.
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I fondly remember one week long Quantico field-ex where sleep was nearly impossible to come by. After a full day and night of fighting and maneuvering on Thursday, the exercise concluded with a 15 mile hump back to civilization (such as it was). We arrived pretty much exhausted at around daybreak and had our weapons cleaned and turned in by about 0830 Friday morning. I had plans to stay with some friends in D.C. that weekend, so I wanted to catch a nap before heading north. I woke up around 1300 and couldn't believe how refreshed I felt for only having had 4 hours sleep. You guys probably know where this story is going. Yeah, I had made one minor miscalculation. It was 1300 Saturday. No wonder I felt so well rested.
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Semper Fi

-Bill
 
I once gave up a "Top Gun female instructor" offer, at the end of a gruelling course, because 24 hours straight sleep was more attractive.
Ever since waking up I've regreted it - she was that nice
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I had an oddball temp job right before going back to school fulltime in 89'. A group of us ferried buses to Dallas. I had just gotten off my last 24 hr EMS shift in Gainesville Tx and figured to sleep in the van on the way up. No such luck. Eight guys farting and snoring in the back of a van all the way to Mt Pleasant IA (home of the Bluebird Bus Co) I ended up driving the last four hours because I couldn't sleep. We got there at about 0630, I was working on about 48 hour without sleep right there.

We each picked out a bus, fueled up, and started back after breakfast.

Long trip, lots of caffeine -this was in the days of Jolt Cola.

The hallucinations started while driving through the Arbuckle Mtns, OK at about hour 66. They were pretty mild i.e. the roof of the bus disappeared and I imagined seeing the stars and snow falling directly overhead.
I sang a lot -mostly Christmas songs because thats all I really knew the words to. A couple of years later, and it would have been bawdy rugby songs
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We hit Denton right at my 72 hour mark. We finished up in Dallas, I got home and couldn't sleep right away, it took at least two more hours. caffeine over load I guess. I was physically sick for several days afterward -diarhea and headache mainly.

24hr shifts with no sleep were a regular thing for me until a couple of years ago, my regular schedule was two 12 hr shifts followed by a 24hr shift. 48 hrs in 3 days and four days off. Sleep on the 24 hr shift was when/if, and very frequently it just didn't happen.

I'm amazed at what the human body can tolerate.
 
Sender
Halucinations in Oklahoma is probably a good thing They distract you from the state and provide a bit of entertainment.

My personal no sleep record is 36 hours. But I've gone a while with just small perods of sleep. When I'm tired and don't have to function my body will stay in 'low-power mode' but if I have to funtion for some reason, I get really hyper. It's almost like my body stores up all the caffine that I drink and then releases it when I need it.


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Joshua, aka Feneris,'Destroyer of Whisky' of the Terrible Ironic Horde
If whisky don't kill me,
I'll live 'till I die
 
I've had a few 3 and four day runs without sleep, usually travelling on a tight schedule. I think the worst was a three day trip from Washington DC to Atlanta, Georgia and back , the ride back was on interstate 81 at night in a snow storm. I was hallucinating people walking along next to the truck (at 50-60mph)! Hell, why waste good money on drugs? A few days without rest and you get the same effect for free!
 
Back in college about 15 years ago I went through some very "good" fraternity hazing. The end of which culminated in Hell Week. I went 7 days with almost no sleep at all. Was able to cut class a couple of times and catch a 30 minute nap.

By the end, you get to hallucinate to vering degrees. It was not that bad staying awake during the day when busy, the nights were tough but many hours of forced exercising precluded thinking about it too much.

I saw a TV documentery 3 or 4 years ago dealing with the topic. Sudied a Radio DJ and some POWs. There can be bad long term effects from sleep depervation. It should be avoided if at all possible.

I do not believe I suffered any long term effects and gleefully subjected others to it in subsequent college years. Mostly good clean fun but more dangerouse than we realized at the time.
 
Tejas7,

Man! I thought SERE school was bad, but that was only 4, or 5, might have been 6 days w/out sleep. It all started to blend together after a while
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Dan




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Go Get 'em Gear
 
Practice. 'Yesterday' was 48 hours long, folled by sleeping from 11:30 to 23:30 Saturday. This sisn't feel strange, and hte only way anyone could tell that I had been up that long was that as soon as I layed down, I went right to sleep, instead of sitting up a few minutes going over the previous day's activities.

With a decent amount of experience, and proper discipline, you can stay up a loooong time without diminished capacity, although you will pay for it later, if you push the matter. Or, if you're too lazy to learn on your own, you could try and find a reputable hypnotist (not one of the hacks who give hte enitre field of hypnosis a bad name) in your area and get some help skipping the process of learning how to control your level of consciousness by yourself. Actually, I would recommend either personal or professional training in this to anyone who knows s/he may be entering a 'survival' situation at some point in the future. Being able to force yourself to stay awake when tired (or be really alert when you've had a decent amount of sleep) is a useful survival skill.

--JB

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e_utopia@hotmail.com
 
The longest I ever stayed up was about 35 hours. I woke up at seven in the morning and at seven at night left for The San Francisco area in Califonia. I was leaving from Tampa Florida. I drove all night and into the next day. I stopped in the middle of Texas at about six O'clock at night. I knew it was time to pull over when I started to doze off. The next day I was in California by dusk after getting fouteen hours of sleep. So yeah, it is possible to drive coast to coast in two days. Jeff
 
After Hurricane Andrew hit went for a few days getting only "cat naps" but to wake up from them somebody had to shake me. It took me about a week after I got home to get back to normal sleep patterns. When you are exhausted even the front seat of a Ford LTD looks good to lay down on.
 
I'm a little late but i'll chime in here. I once went almost four days without sleep. GREENJACKET mentioned shivering as a good way to stay awake. I have usually found this to be true, however this occasion it didn't pan out. I dozed off sitting outside of a hospital after stepping outside for some air and time alone. It was around 10 degrees F and I was wearing a t-shirt. Anyways, afer a couple of minutes I began to shiver but didn't wake up until an ER nurse began cutting off my shirt. Apparently, a nurse stepped outside to smoke and thought I was convulsing on the sidewalk! At least I woke up before anything bad happened.
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Regards, Clayton Hufford
 
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