Sleep Deprivation

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pict

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Jan 7, 2003
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I was reading the thread on getting to sleep and got curious to hear about experiences with sleep deprivation. What is the longest you have ever gone without sleep and what effects did it have on you?

I once worked as a campus police officer. I was scheduled to work with another officer over the Thanksgiving holiday. The idea was to work eight on and eight off. I only had 24 hours free on the first day and my brother was going to be home from college too so I went home for that and we stayed up for 24 hours straight. I got back to campus in time for my first shift and I was pretty beat at the end.

My relief guy didn't show up so I called my supervisor (also traveling). He said the other officer was taken to the hospital (forget why) and he was working on it. I worked another shift, light duty, nobody on campus, easy stuff. Still no relief guy, still working on it, I was on all night. The next day he called me. There is nobody coming, you are it, do your best, click.

I stayed up for a total of 72 hours,the first 24 at home catching up with my brother and the next 48 on duty. The worst of it was early Monday morning. Towards the end my eyes were playing tricks on me, seeing movement out of the corner of my eye, hearing things. In the pre-dawn I couldn't stay awake any more. I set the alarm clock off in the guard shack and then just kept hitting the snooze. I tried everything, left the door open, heat off, jacket off.

As soon as the sun came up I was OK but I couldn't think anymore. I had to go unlock the entire campus and almost totally forgot. Each building had its own master key and at that point finding them was an automatic response. I remember staring at the big ball of keys and I couldn't remember which one did what. I actually had to resort to trying different keys in the locks.

I got off at 8 AM and went to bed. I couldn't sleep! I finally fell asleep at about 9:30 and woke up 14 hours later from a virtual coma not knowing where I was. I stayed up until after my morning class and then took a nap. That nap lasted 10 hours.

I don't think I could do that now at 43. Mac
 
196 hours. I set the world's record for non-stop radio broadcasting in 1974 during that one.

I could probably write a book on sleep deprivation. By the end, it got more weird than anything you could ever imagine. Hallucinations, the works.
 
5 days right now, well 6 hours of laying down, no sleep.

I cant even concentrait right now, nor can I spell to well.:D
I need to drink something.:rolleyes::D
 
I have had a few fun times dealing with no sleep. went close to 6 days one time in the Army. Got real nutty by the end of it. Somewhere in there I told an Officer to go F himself over his request of me to go make coffee.......My sergeant intervened before the Captain could find the words or actions to deal with me. He could tell I was acting odd and asked when I had last slept as I was already on the end of a long radio watch. When I replied I had last slept on thursday and here it was now wednesday he sent me off with orders to sleep. I racked out in the back of a Hummer for 18hours. Even slept through a mock attack where some SF soldier used used my vehicle as a shooting position. He fired about 200 blank rounds from an M60 and I never stirred :) My recollection of the waking hours was more like watching myself from afar. I had stuff to do and just kept moving. After a while I think I was actually fighting going to sleep. Very surreal.
 
Had a couple of 3+ day stretches in college. Those were achieved by consumption of near-toxic levels of cafffeine. No major side-effects except for maybe a short-term bout of the trots.

While I was in the guard, our commanders were fond of "100% security" during FTXs. We NCOs faithfully drew up sleep plans for our guys every time, only to have them nullified by "hard-chargin'" :rolleyes: brASS. I often went ten or twelve days with no more than an hour of sleep per day. On one occassion, on a night patrol with our Lieutenant, we realized that we were all hallucinating, so we packed it in and went to bed. I don't recall what the other guys were seeing, but I was playing peek-a-boo with little 18" tall yellow people hiding behind trees. :confused:
 
Interesting thread.

For me, truly not getting any sleep whatsoever, probably about 40 hours.

But I also once went for about 60 hours with only a few unrewarding cat naps; it was a travel marathon: I spent about 14 hours on a bus crossing the island of Newfoundland...followed by a winter overnight ferry across the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia (a rule prevented passengers from sleeping on the floor, and the seats were no better than bus seats)...followed by a whole day stuck due to snowstorm in a small-town bus station (couldn't really sleep due to all the other stranded passengers commotions)...followed by a long busride to the Halifax airport...followed by a fitful attempt to sleep in the airport (hard to sleep with hundreds of people walking by you all the time)....followed by a 3 or 4 hour flight back to Toronto.

Followed by a slow odyssey from the airport to my apartment via mass transit bus and train.

By the end of it I'm sure I was legally drunk; I sure felt that way.

That was in January 2002. In January 2007 my son was born, and for the first several days home he was neither eating or sleeping much. Neither was his mom and dad. That was really tough.
 
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I've done really long periods, 72+ hours regularly. During high school, I was working full time plus and going to school along with taking classes at the college. Very little time to sleep, very little effect on my performance.

Later on, I worked for the pipefitters union and a few times I worked 36 and 48 hours at a time when we were shutting down a road for a tie in. Add to that the drive time and time to shower and eat and it ended up being about 60 hours between sleep. I hated it, but I had no kids at home to tend to so it wasn't all that bad.

Most recently, I did a year long stint of midnight shift. 11pm to whenever am. Most shifts were 10-12 hours and I would say that that year was the worst of my life. The lack of sleep really took it's toll on my body and mind. Not that I didn't sleep regularly, but just not for long enough at any given time for a long period.
 
5 days 3hours and some change. I was worthless the last two days of that though... I really couldn't even drive my truck. Started seeing things and hearing noises that weren't there. I never WENT to sleep either... the last thing I remember was sitting on the couch and I must have just fell over. I woke up over 13 hours later on my side with my legs hanging off the couch. I also had the worst headache and was so weak I was shaking. Took about two days to get to really feeling normal again. You're brain needs REM sleep... without it, you really do start to go a little crazy and you also become as dumb as a box of dirt.
 
Samael said:
196 hours. I set the world's record for non-stop radio broadcasting in 1974 during that one.

I could probably write a book on sleep deprivation. By the end, it got more weird than anything you could ever imagine. Hallucinations, the works.
Click to expand...


Holy crap. That's more than 8 days. I didn't even think that was physically possible. Did it have any effects on your health at all?
 
Steel-Junky said:
Holy crap. That's more than 8 days. I didn't even think that was physically possible. Did it have any effects on your health at all?
Click to expand...

If you call sleeping for almost two days afterwards "ill effects," then yes. Otherwise, no.
 
I went about 62 hours with no sleep, and no rest at all. I was roaming around the Shuswap lake looking for old abandoned cabins back in the mid 70's, and I just could NOT sleep. I still don't know what was keeping me up, but it was awful. Like others have mentioned, I too started seeing and hearing things that were not real, my sense of taste and smell disappeared, and I was having difficulty thinking in general. I finally went into shutdown mode and crashed in the middle of the forest somewhere once it started raining. It musta rained like hell that night, because when I woke up half a day later, I found that a massive cedar tree had fallen over and crashed onto the ground about 6 feet away from my tent. I could have easily been mashed potatoes, scary stuff. What's funny about it is, I never heard a thing... :eek:
 
The first time I was in the arctic during the summer, I went through about 55 hours of continuous daylight before realizing I hadn't slept. I had kind of a euphoric feeling going and didn't really feel tired. With the sun constantly up and things going on, you subconsciously have the feeling that if you go to sleep, you're going to miss something.

I concluded I should sleep even though I didn't feel like I needed to. I figured I'd be out about 10-12 hours. After 5 hours I woke up feeling quite well rested and went back to hiking, photography, fishing, etc. After that, I tried not to go sleepless for more than about 20 hours at a time. Strange experience up there!

DancesWithKnives
 
DWK2, it sure is a strange thing up North in the summer eh? It's amazing how the lack of nightfall can do funny things to your inner clock. Have you ever been up North in winter? It is sooooo depressing. Constantly night, it makes it difficult to even have the energy to get up to pee, you just want to stay in bed til it's light again. :yawn:
 
Funny you should mention that because I almost noted in my post that I have never been up in the arctic during complete darkness but have heard that it produces pretty much the inverse of the euphoria that I experienced. Your remarks confirm that!

DancesWithKnives
 
Samael said:
196 hours. I set the world's record for non-stop radio broadcasting in 1974 during that one.
Click to expand...

Did you break Art Bell's record with that? I seem to recall he held the record at one point in the late 60s.
 
Remember that it's used in torture and the cults use it too. It does have serious effects !
 
True, but I wonder how reliable any information can be when the victim is rendered as mentally off balance as these experiences suggest?

DancesWithKnives
 
80 hrs
When I was in college

Things I notice when I am sleep deprived:
1)Auditory hallucinations
2)When I close my eyes I see these purple haze like swirling
Like the old psychedelic stuff form the 60's
Sorta like this===>
[youtube]10JGRe_QlVU[/youtube]
3)"Sparkles" of light in the corners of my eyes


I've never had visual hallucinations
Except for part 2 above

I think it is good to know the SIGNS when you are sleep deprived

Good thread:thumbup:
Good stuff to know for survivalism.....
 
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