Five days without sleep

[Mr.Reak]

So yeah, you read the title, now you thinking either of those:

a) Hey it’s another crazy story by Mr.Reak
b) Hey he will be whining about his life again

or maybe you though

c) Hey maybe I should get some sleep

Follow advice “c” and get some sleep, because I didn’t once, for almost a week, it sucked.

So, people who go to college know how stressful midterms and finals can be. Thing is, I am in art school. Well you think, how hard can that be? You see, all my classes are project oriented, and midterms can take weeks to finish. So I thought, hey let me take trip to Japan during spring brake, a time when I should have spent doing my midterm. Oh god… week after that was pure hell, I needed to accomplish so much, but I didn’t have time. Where do I waste time usually? SLEEPING! To hell with sleeping, so I charged myself with lot’s and lot’s of coffee. 5 days of hell began….

First day went smooth, did my homework, took little brakes to post some crap on HL2.net forums, check email. Was yawning all nigh long, but coffee pulled me through. So came day number too, in that point I became kind of slow in the head. Couldn’t concentrate much, but still was doing my homework. Hey, coffee… COFFEE… I am okay here…

You know what I think was the biggest mistake? To think that after that hell I will just sleep it off… ohoho, how wrong I was.

Anyway, by the end of day too I started to hear things. Haha, fun began, demons crawled from back of my mind and were talking me to go to sleep. I drank some more coffee, told them to **** off, and went back to work (haha, you can guess about my productivity level at this point). Day three became a total dream like state, where you start mixing reality with your mind. It’s kind of funky seeing something in the corner of your eye, shadows I guess, fast ones I may add. Anyway, at that point I started to talk back to voices in my head. I don’t really remember what the heck I was talking about, but I can tell you, it’s a point where you become a mentally insane. It’s like drugs, except you feel tired and like total shit. Everything goes into a total mist of uncertainty. If you ask me what I did or what I imagined that day, I can’t tell the difference.

Day four is by far the worst shit I could experience, or you can. Hey remember night terrors? Yeah it’s like that, except you can move very well… So basically I started to hallucinate on the whole level, funny spider-shadows started to crawl everywhere, some shit started to jump out of the shadows and stab me in the legs, oh yeah voices and creepy sounds all around. Hey I was doing my homework… by the way, you would already guess coffee didn’t work at that point and I was too damn tired to do anything else. Everything my eyes blinked I fell into a two second sleep and woke up, thinking where the hell am I. Oh day five… well I don’t ****ing remember day five what so ever, but I know I finished homework, called my girlfriend to tell her I love her (apparently) and went to sleep, woke up 2 days later, tired as ****.

You know, the funny thing, this totally ****ed up my sleeping cycle, now I go to sleep around 2 am and wake up at 7 in the morning, always tired and addicted to coffee. So here is a tip for college student, get some ****ING SLEEP… Oh I did well of midterm, too bad I yet to remember what was my figure drawing midterm, because teacher took it and I don’t have no recollections of what I drew.

EDIT: God so my mis-types.. too lazy to fix, sorry :/

 

[mmilo]

Interesting.

I forgot who told me this, but after a few days (3--5, I can't really remember) without sleep, you're considered to be mentally insane.

Hey! You could've used that to get an extension. Even though it's late now.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Well considering I was talking to voices in my head by day three, I think your friend is right.

 

[Maui]

I know the pain, I'm a CS major. I've only gotten to 3 and a half, but yeah, I talked to the voices, saw running shadows, etc.

You can imagine how well my programs worked the next day

'Enter the number of students.'
3
'WRONG. PRWPATE TO EAT'


java::io_error in #j3200002
abnormal program termination

etc. etc.

 

[Kangy]

Hehe.

I know this artist who had an exhibition on the Saturday of that week. He was waaay behind schedule, and got 2 hours sleep in 5 days while he finished his work. Then, he put it all in a van and went to the exhibition.

When he came home from it, he passed out for a good length of time

 

[Ecthe|ioN]

Hehe. I will take your advice and sleep I get more than enough of it in college.

But it's actually true that if you stay awake for 3 days, you're actually considered "mentally unstable". 4-5 days, and you're considered "mentally insane". Do not don't sleep and drive. It's actually considered as dangerous as drinking and driving sometimes.

I stayed awake for 3 days on "The Gathering 99" (A huge LAN party in Norway with about 5000 attendants), and I started seing all these things running around. I fell asleep everytime I blinked too. I won't ever do it again unless it's because of having kids crying all night.

 

[Raziaar]

Hey, good advice! <snores>

 

[oldagerocker]

Do not don't sleep and drive. It's actually considered as dangerous as drinking and driving sometimes.

I really should remember to stop sleeping while i drive... i didnt realise how dangerous that could be
Anywho, i've only ever gone about 36 hours without sleep and various lans. I dont like not getting sleep for 24 hours, it makes me really fed up and i feel all slow. I only got 4 hours last night and i feel pretty poo poo at the moment. My arm aches.

 

[bern]

Just a question what the hell are you majoring in?

 

[Mr.Reak]

In 3d animation, but last year most of my homework was traditinal art.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Heh, I did something quite similar to this a while back...I even made a thread about it. It really jsut wasn't fun at all. I actually purposefully stayed awake after the first couple of nights without sleep, just to see what would happen as I thought it might be interesting to experience the hallucinations and such. It was probably one of the most horrible things I've ever done, and I don't want to go through it again.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Heh, I did something quite similar to this a while back...I even made a thread about it. It really jsut wasn't fun at all. I actually purposefully stayed awake after the first couple of nights without sleep, just to see what would happen as I thought it might be interesting to experience the hallucinations and such. It was probably one of the most horrible things I've ever done, and I don't want to go through it again.

Care to share what you have seen?

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Well one of the most prominent things was I was just staring at the wall, and then I noticed that my wall had stars on it(In fact, a very detailed night sky you would see in somewhere like a desert), and I thought 'I don't remember having stars on my wall, when did I put those there?' Then i realised that you can't have a night sky on your wall the way I was seeing it, and it came to me that I must be imagining it. But it didn't go away, and only when I looked away and literally shook my head, did it vannish.

Most of the time I just felt paranoind. It wasn't quite normal though, sometimes it felt like someone had their hand on my shoulder, but it didn't feel malicious. There were other things as well, but they were rather tame I suppose. Everything felt strrange though, not like a dream as such, but I did for those few days have a different perspective on things. I felt pretty crap most of the time though. My reactions were poor, I wasn't the sharp witted person you all know me to be...:| I didn't feel like eating much either, and I just wanted to climb into bed.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Well one of the most prominent things was I was just staring at the wall, and then I noticed that my wall had stars on it(In fact, a very detailed night sky you would see in somewhere like a desert), and I thought 'I don't remember having stars on my wall, when did I put those there?' Then i realised that you can't have a night sky on your wall the way I was seeing it, and it came to me that I must be imagining it. But it didn't go away, and only when I looked away and literally shook my head, did it vannish.

Most of the time I just felt paranoind. It wasn't quite normal though, sometimes it felt like someone had their hand on my shoulder, but it didn't feel malicious. There were other things as well, but they were rather tame I suppose. Everything felt strrange though, not like a dream as such, but I did for those few days have a different perspective on things. I felt pretty crap most of the time though. My reactions were poor, I wasn't the sharp witted person you all know me to be...:| I didn't feel like eating much either, and I just wanted to climb into bed.

Ah too bad you didn't get stabbing shadows, so much fun and you can feel it too hehe. It doesn't hurt thought, just a sharp feeling. Well at least you saw something nice looking, like a sky.

By the way, do you know why we see things like that? Is it because brain tries to clean up our memory of useless things or sort it out a bit? Like dreams, but brain just projects it because we don't sleep?

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

I'm not sure actually, but it would be interesting to know exactly why we do it, and if it helps at all.

You can go longer without food than sleep. But surely like conditioning yourself for long periods without food, you can do the same for sleep. I wonder how that would be done.

 

[bern]

3d animation? You planning on going into the video game industry or the movie industry? Im planning on going in to the same field a (New Media Design) as you. Although I have to finish highschool this year and then can finally go to college. I guess I can expect a lot of work .

 

[Ames]

I wonder what playing Doom 3 would be like without sleep.....

Weeee....

 

[mmilo]

I believe that when you're considered "mentally insane" after 4-5 sleepless nights, I think its a legal thing. Meaning, if you do something weird, its applicable in court

...the human brain is an interesting organ. Wait, is it even an organ?

 

[Toffee]

Being awake 24 hours resembles 1 per milles drunk as someone sometimes sayed.
I´t pretty similiar thing, when you drink about 3 days sequential you start seeing, hallucinating things. One guy started seeing small green men that scared the hell out of him so that he quitted drinking. (well almost, at least for a week or so..)
I´m still amazed how people manage to stay awake for so long. I hardly can stay up one single night!

 

[CyberSh33p]

Well one of the most prominent things was I was just staring at the wall, and then I noticed that my wall had stars on it(In fact, a very detailed night sky you would see in somewhere like a desert), and I thought 'I don't remember having stars on my wall, when did I put those there?' Then i realised that you can't have a night sky on your wall the way I was seeing it, and it came to me that I must be imagining it. But it didn't go away, and only when I looked away and literally shook my head, did it vannish.

Most of the time I just felt paranoind. It wasn't quite normal though, sometimes it felt like someone had their hand on my shoulder, but it didn't feel malicious. There were other things as well, but they were rather tame I suppose. Everything felt strrange though, not like a dream as such, but I did for those few days have a different perspective on things. I felt pretty crap most of the time though. My reactions were poor, I wasn't the sharp witted person you all know me to be...:| I didn't feel like eating much either, and I just wanted to climb into bed.

I wanna try

 

[Mr.Headcrab]

Its cool like when you stay up late enough so that it seams like a dream, everything looks to be moving slow, but you feel like you are moving really fast. Ever happen to anyone? Happens to me alot after staying up for long times

 

[Blublu]

I've only gone for about 40 hours without sleep, and didn't experience any hallucinations. But I really felt like poo and was "waking up" every 10 seconds, feeling like everything that happened before had been a dream, only it wasn't! Yeah, I think I had that slow effect as well, though I can't be sure since it's all in a blur.

By the way, if you're going to stay up for this long, make sure you're wearing comfortable shoes, or preferably no shoes at all. I was wearing these sandals and they got "engraved" in my foot completely messing them up. I didn't feel it until I went to take them off. I was fine the next day though, but I hate to think what would have happened if I had had them on longer.

 

[B.Calhoun]

I know the pain, I'm a CS major. I've only gotten to 3 and a half, but yeah, I talked to the voices, saw running shadows, etc.

I play counter-strike too, but i dont consider it my major....


Just kidding

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

get some sleep reak

 

[Swift]

Im a perpetual insomniac, Hasnt anyone noticed me posting at 4:30 in the morning? I wake for school usually about 3 or 4 hours after I fall asleep. Guess I just don't need much sleep.

 

[Raziaar]

Im a perpetual insomniac, Hasnt anyone noticed me posting at 4:30 in the morning? I wake for school usually about 3 or 4 hours after I fall asleep. Guess I just don't need much sleep.

Nothing special, I do that all the time. Even up until 11:00 AM in the morning sometimes before passing out to sleep :cheers:

 

[Mr.Reak]

3d animation? You planning on going into the video game industry or the movie industry? Im planning on going in to the same field a (New Media Design) as you. Although I have to finish highschool this year and then can finally go to college. I guess I can expect a lot of work .

Doesn’t really matter to me, depends on how good I am. I would love to do games, but heck I don’t want to work for generic shitty EA or some other crap. Oh well..A lot of work? It depends how much work you want to do personally. You can do minimum, but in the end of the college you will be with a degree and a demo reel. Better have something amazing. I am in my sophomore year and I yet to have anything good to show for a job. I will get right into making some animation during winter brake. I hope though, to get into Pixar internship next summer, our school offers that, but you have to be good.

Anyway, to people who want to “experiment” with being in dreamy like state and see shit all over the place. I recommend you to get high, it’s faster, you actually don’t feel like complete shit during that experience and you can sleep afterwards.

 

[johnnypoopoopant]

^^

hahahaha 5 days is just crazy
btw was everything dark in your room while you were up 5 days Mr. Reak?

 

[egon]

after staying up for about 24 hrs you fee like youre walking in a dream, somehow you're in some kind of an exalted superawareness state, you can hear the smallest sound. you dont feel tired, but you cant do anything physically taxing, your body feels incapable of it.

interestingly you never get the feeling like you normally do when youre sleepy, your eyelids dont feel heavy. if you try to lie down you dont fall asleep immediately, or course once you do.....

its kind of fun

 

[Phisionary]

after staying up for about 24 hrs you fee like youre walking in a dream, somehow you're in some kind of an exalted superawareness state, you can hear the smallest sound. you dont feel tired, but you cant do anything physically taxing, your body feels incapable of it.

interestingly you never get the feeling like you normally do when youre sleepy, your eyelids dont feel heavy. if you try to lie down you dont fall asleep immediately, or course once you do.....

its kind of fun

I second that.

never gone near the 5 day mark, but sleep deprevation is some miserable feeling shit sometimes. I did about 48 hours to finish some schoolwork last term. drank cofee all night. woke, up drove to school, all wired. couldn't stop my legs and arms from bein all twitchy. almost fell asleep twice in class. drank two pepsi's, felt like crap (dangerousr-to-myself-and-others crap) on the drive home. hope not to do that again.

wtf am i doing!!!! I'm up now to work on an assignment! I can't waste my time here! Aaarghh! :x

luckily i can just email it in. gonna skip my other class today. :|]

P.S. interesting story Mr. Reak and others....

 

[Redjackel]

Being awake 24 hours resembles 1 per milles drunk as someone sometimes sayed.
I´t pretty similiar thing, when you drink about 3 days sequential you start seeing, hallucinating things. One guy started seeing small green men that scared the hell out of him so that he quitted drinking. (well almost, at least for a week or so..)
I´m still amazed how people manage to stay awake for so long. I hardly can stay up one single night!

lol, that reminds me of this one time when I was on morphine after surgery, i started seeing little green men who played tennis on the end of my bed. I sat there for hours watching them play. It was really weird and when i look back on it, very scary lol.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Im a perpetual insomniac, Hasnt anyone noticed me posting at 4:30 in the morning? I wake for school usually about 3 or 4 hours after I fall asleep. Guess I just don't need much sleep.

Ditto.

 

[Phisionary]

lol, that reminds me of this one time when I was on morphine after surgery, i started seeing little green men who played tennis on the end of my bed. I sat there for hours watching them play. It was really weird and when i look back on it, very scary lol.

ROFL!
if you ever get surgeried again, and got some extra, hook me up yo! :thumbs:

Also: since going back to school, I've found I can operate on much less sleep than I expected. I used to sleep 7-8 hours a night. Was pretty nice, but I didn't have shit to do so it didn't matter much. Now I stay up till 1:30 - 3:30 (varies) and get up at 6. It sucked at first, but I got used to it mostly. Still hard as **** to get up that early, for me :\
Of course, I usually sleep 12 hours on my first free day to make up for it....

 

[johnnypoopoopant]

lol, that reminds me of this one time when I was on morphine after surgery, i started seeing little green men who played tennis on the end of my bed. I sat there for hours watching them play. It was really weird and when i look back on it, very scary lol.

hahaha, that is awesome, i wish i had experiences like this in my life. the only thing i got that was pretty bad was a sissorlock (don't know if thats the right word and the spelling is incorrect)...but its when your body is asleep but mind is awake

 

[Danimal]

About 10-6 years ago I was so hyped up about christmas I coudn't sleep for hours and hours. I lost track of time and I started seing soldiers running around with weapons whenever I looked down...

That christmas sucked too btw, I got a towel.

 

[johnnypoopoopant]

how long were you up for danimal?

 

[Phisionary]

probally 18 hours, or even more, right Danimal???

eheheh j/k. trollin.

I remember the first time I played quake2 multiplayer (my first real FPS MP gamin, beside the odd doom match), I was halucinating at school. I'd be walking around and it was like I was in the game, moving felt like I was playing a game, and I kept hearing sounds. Specifically, the sound of the plasma cannon (with the funny rotating barrel thingy) and the sound of a launched grenade stuck between two surfaces. Was having flashbacks to this one map I played CTF on for 12 hours strait.

It wasn't a sleep deprevation thing really, but it was wierd as ****.

 

[Mr.Headcrab]

Once i was staying up really late, and i dunno i was going on 50 hours or something, and it was about 3:30AM and i just went outside, and down our hill. I woke up and i was still down the hill and it was about 6 PM. I never recall going to sleep, i just did i guess.

 

[we11er]

I heard not sleeping for too long straight (I NO sleep at all) can have permanent psychological side effects.

There was this guy a couple of decades ago I think who did a Radio station and he stayed awake and broadcasting for 7 days straight, not a wink of sleep.

He slept for over 24 hours afterwards, but from then on he was much more quiet and distant - people said he was never the same again......... :O