Thread: Sleep Deprivation Effects

That doesn't sound like fun. At least be careful and don't operate heavy machinery. Let us know how it goes. Maybe you will get some good LD from REM-rebound at least. I wouldn't push it too far just to hallucinate, that's overrated.

P.S. That really doesn't sound like much fun at all.

Yech. Please, at least don't go past the 72 hour mark. You are at some serious risks after that. I hope you're in spring break right now!

Originally Posted by wendylove

I will now sleep deprive myself for four days and I will try controlling expriments. I heard Hallucination can be seen when sleep deprived off two days I will try and control the hallucinations. Also I will see how my brain power stands against sleep deprivation. I will update in the mouring and explain more.

P.S. I don't care if their are health risks to this.[/b]

I tried this once with some friends. We wanted to see what would happen (we had also heard about hallucinations). But we didn't make it. (I think we got through 1 and a half days). Your going to need an iron will and probably, if possible, other people to make sure that you never sleep. For example, at one point, I was playing cards with my friend while we were trying to stay up and he kept falling asleep in the middle of our game. I had to keep telling him it was his turn.

Good luck. You're gonna need it.

Edit:

Originally Posted by wendylove

Yech. Please, at least don't go past the 72 hour mark. You are at some serious risks after that. I hope you're in spring break right now![/b]

Yeah, that's what my friends and I were trying to do. One probably should not go beyond that point. You will probably regret it. Plus, I think that 3 days is enough to induce hallucinations.

-LUX

I have decided what to do to test myself so I will start now. Plus I had to work out a way to guard against falling asleep randomly, which is playing classical music in my ear. Note playing music non stop causes audio hallucinations http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2005/07/ipod...ease_likel.html so I will get audio and visual hallucinations.

Good luck with the experiment. Keep posting here as you go. One way to stay awake is to never put yourself in a position (seated or lying down) that's too comfortable.

Oh and make sure you have someone there watching out for you I don't want a "ripper" on my board.

-asher

Good luck with the experiment. Keep posting here as you go. One way to stay awake is to never put yourself in a position (seated or lying down) that's too comfortable.[/b]

That were I failed the last two times. Although I don't know what sleep deprivation does too the muscles I will do some Tai Chi and muscle relaxing techniques.

Ah... sleep deprivation! I had two friends who sleep deprived themselves for 40 hours. I think they were sucessful but were exhausted for a few days afterwards. They reported hallucinating And crazy images, so I have a feeling WILD's would go hand in hand with that. See if you can find a friend to do it with you, they said they kept starting to nod off about 2-3am especially.

Good Luck!

first post by wendy was april 4 now it is the april 7

you got 1 day to go care to post any results so far?

I didn't last a day. Well I was sitting up and suddenly woke up five hours later, however I did have a lucid dream. I am trying the complete opposite now by sleep more I will make a post about it.

Sleeping more is nice, I do that a lot [I take 10 hours 'naps']. Is staying awake past 72 hours bad for you? I never knew... the longest I've gone without sleep is about three-four days... I was having a bad period of insomnia and was eating and drinking just about the whole time I was awake to keep myself energized... I was having some hallucinations but my eyes seemed glued open though my mind had silenced itself [a rare event]. I was just on auto-drive or something like that. But it did make it easier that I was flying on a plane for two of those days [easier to stay up] I did have a deep, deep sleep with a long lucid dream [until my parents shook me awake rather violently].

Good luck with your next experiment, I really want to read your results

So I get all my work done and don't get screwed at school I need to sleep deprive myself to finish work. Now I can do this intill thursday so it would be monday to thursday of sleep deprivation I will report tomorrow.

Originally Posted by wendylove

So I get all my work done and don't get screwed at school I need to sleep deprive myself to finish work. Now I can do this intill thursday so it would be monday to thursday of sleep deprivation I will report tomorrow.[/b]

I have pulled all-nighters before, and it ain't pleasant the day-after. My awareness of things around me wasn't as good, seeing things at the corners of my eyes. Though one thing that made one experience interesting was the effect of a lot of caffiene. I was in a london underground train to Gatwick once, and because I pulled an all-nighter the night before with the help of a lot of coffee, I had nearly collasped on the train just falling asleep. Only managed to realise it as I hit the hypnogogic state, so I just managed to jerk myself awake. Thankfully, nobody was looking in my direction.

I have deprived myself of sleep in the past, simple experiments. But please, do exercise caution after the 48 hr mark. I made it to 72+ hours but I don't remember anything from the last 12 or so. I left for class that morning and made it to class...but thats the last thing I remember. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in my bed at my dorm not knowing how I got there or what I had done that day. A fun experience though, I would recommend that everyone try it at least once.

EDIT: I did not use any substances to try to stay awake.

Originally Posted by wendylove

So I get all my work done and don't get screwed at school I need to sleep deprive myself to finish work. Now I can do this intill thursday so it would be monday to thursday of sleep deprivation I will report tomorrow.[/b]

Are you using any substances to try to stay awake or are you just trying to do it with sheer will?

-asher

Good luck with the sleep dep. If you can handle 4 days of it, then you can handle uberman, I reckon.
You say you failed after a day, but did you do anything other than just pure willpower to keep awake?
Cos if not, I could have told you that you won't pull it off that way. The mind is sneaky

Suggestions to help:
- A little coffee... don't overdo it, otherwise it's gonna get very rocky.
- Exercise. I have a treadmill which helps. Otherwise go for a jog around the property. 10 minutes is fine.
Do 1 minute run, 1 minute walk, etc. Saves the muscles a bit, but gives you that wakeup.
- Set a schedule on your computer to play a sound every 5 minutes.
- Decide in advance what it will take before you decide to stop. Stick to it. No exceptions. Your mind is made up, etc.
- Listening to loud music helps me too.
- Find something engrossing to do. If you have a game that gets you hooked and keeps you on edge, use it. As soon as you find yourself struggling, do the jog.
- Don't let yourself be talked into lying down - you'll start making up excuses why you just have to lie down. That'll be the end. Don't bath. Shower. If you have to bath, do it fast.

Also keep some eyedrops handy. Your eyes are gonna get pretty sore, if it's anything like me.

It's a bit of an art to keep awake though. As soon as you realise your eyes are struggling... force yourself to go for a jog IMMEDIATELY.
You nod off so quickly, and then kick yourself afterwards.

Day 2 and I am feeling fine, it was a piece of cake and I didn't need to use caffine or any other drugs and I feel amazing now, with no tiredness. Okay their has been four interesting phenomena happening these have been very vivid hallucination, which in order are; a hallucination of a dark man i.e. shadow figure, another shadow figure but taller, thirdly when walking to school I saw a gorilla getting pulled along like a dog then suddenly the hallucination went and I saw it was a dog and finally my teacher was making a cycle shape with his hand and I saw a red ball in his hand.
At night I was tired, however I visualized myself moving like walking or fighting someone with a sword, this worked and kept me up, however I did get really tired at five and I notice that my memory was going. I stood up and standing looked at the clock and the time increased at a very fast rate, ten miautes seemed like a blink this happen intill a hour when it stoped. I didn't fall asleep then as I was standing up and if I did fall asleep I would hit my head on the wall.
My biggest problem is when I had to go to school as my body was not reacting to anything. Then I realized I had to treat my body like a piece on a board of chess, and plan everything by visulizing what I am doing next. Reminds me of malcolm in the middle when a girl asks malcolm do you plan everything.
Well tomorrow the symptoms will be more dramatic and my grammar will become worser, so I will report tomorrow.
At nine oclock I felt really tired and it was hard to shake myself out of it, however looking at my hand and moving it helped me to focus, now I am alright. My typing has got slower and I feel weaker, however I think I can overcome this easily. I took heyfever medicine and I think this made me weak as it is a seditive, the medicine didn't work so I won't take it tomorrow.
P.S. If everything stays like it is then I might switch to ubersleep instead of normal sleep.

Originally Posted by wendylove

Day 2 and I am feeling fine, it was a piece of cake and I didn't need to use caffine or any other drugs and I feel amazing now, with no tiredness. Okay their has been four interesting phenomena happening these have been very vivid hallucination, which in order are; a hallucination of a dark man i.e. shadow figure, another shadow figure but taller, thirdly when walking to school I saw a gorilla getting pulled along like a dog then suddenly the hallucination went and I saw it was a dog and finally my teacher was making a cycle shape with his hand and I saw a red ball in his hand.
At night I was tired, however I visualized myself moving like walking or fighting someone with a sword, this worked and kept me up, however I did get really tired at five and I notice that my memory was going. I stood up and standing looked at the clock and the time increased at a very fast rate, ten miautes seemed like a blink this happen intill a hour when it stoped. I didn't fall asleep then as I was standing up and if I did fall asleep I would hit my head on the wall.
My biggest problem is when I had to go to school as my body was not reacting to anything. Then I realized I had to treat my body like a piece on a board of chess, and plan everything by visulizing what I am doing next. Reminds me of malcolm in the middle when a girl asks malcolm do you plan everything.
Well tomorrow the symptoms will be more dramatic and my grammar will become worser, so I will report tomorrow.
At nine oclock I felt really tired and it was hard to shake myself out of it, however looking at my hand and moving it helped me to focus, now I am alright. My typing has got slower and I feel weaker, however I think I can overcome this easily. I took heyfever medicine and I think this made me weak as it is a seditive, the medicine didn't work so I won't take it tomorrow.
P.S. If everything stays like it is then I might switch to ubersleep instead of normal sleep.[/b]

It sounds like day two was pretty wild for you. I know one thing that helps at night is to be in a well lit area so your body won't start producing melatonin. Your hallucinations sound very interesting, kind of funny in ways, not to be rude or random or anything but are you normally a paranoid person? Because I know that even paranoid people with full amounts of sleep tend to see non-existent people and animals out of the corner of their eyes. Not trying to say that what happened was that instead of hallucinations because they certainly are, but I'm just curious [sorry if I'm ranting].

Originally Posted by wendylove

Then I realized I had to treat my body like a piece on a board of chess, and plan everything by visulizing what I am doing next.[/b]

Nice image. Keep the updates coming.

-asher

Your hallucinations sound very interesting, kind of funny in ways, not to be rude or random or anything but are you normally a paranoid person? Because I know that even paranoid people with full amounts of sleep tend to see non-existent people and animals out of the corner of their eyes.[/b]

No I am not paranoid, I do understand what you mean, but I think paranoid people see what they want to see. I am a bit of a hypochondric.
My eyes were hurting and I got a really vivid hallucination so I stoped this and will continue in two days. Without sleep your eyes hurt really badly so I had to close them and sit in the dark, however suddenly everything lit up really bright. In pitch black everything lighting up scared me alot so I decided to stop. Well I will work on a way so my eyes don't hurt and continue then, I might were sun glasses or alterntively just don't focus my eyes and relax them. My body felt really heavy so I will need to solve that.

P.S. I really don't want to do ubersleep, but I know it would solve my eye problem, however it will leave me with no hallucination. Oh and the three hours I slept last night were really vivid and about 80% of the three hours were lucid.

I've heard about some strange techniques for lucid dreams that involve sleep deprivation. Obviously not healthy, and I don't think it works on me - I just crash after that.

Originally Posted by wendylove

Without sleep your eyes hurt really badly so I had to close them and sit in the dark, however suddenly everything lit up really bright. In pitch black everything lighting up scared me alot so I decided to stop. Well I will work on a way so my eyes don't hurt and continue then, I might were sun glasses or alterntively just don't focus my eyes and relax them.[/b]

Oh, that's always a bad side-effect. Your eyes become more sensitive to light when you go all insomniac, but sun glasses do help, I think tea and natural relaxants work too but you don't want to get too relaxed or you'll doze off and fall asleep.

Good luck on continuing your tests, I hope you actually get to control those hallucinations completely [that'd be pretty cool]

Really ill I am not going to do this again as I can't swallow as my throat hurts.

Hey guys,

I figured I might be able to contribute a bit to this (older) thread, and there doesn't seem to be too much going on in this part of the forum, so I don't feel bad resurrecting an old thread (it's still on the first page!)

I did a sleep deprivation experiment on myself about three years ago back when I was in university. I wound up staying awake for a little under 4 days before I crashed, and kept a log of what was going on up to 90 hours.

This was done in my apartment-style school residence, and because there was always some sort of action going on, I was only alone from about 3-6am, except for the day I eventually crashed. Being alone is what eventually did me in. If anyone is considering doing this, it's a lot easier if you have people around to talk to you or that can do something with you, just so your mind doesn't drift off. Just make sure they know you'll get irritable so they don't get offended. During my alone hours I tried to watch a movies or TV, or play video games, to keep myself from sleeping. Try not to do too much physical activity (although sometimes a bit is useful for waking up), and wear loose comfortable clothing. After 48 hours or so you probably don't want to leave your home.

I've edited this for spelling/grammar, as well as clarity for those who don't know my room setup,etc. Anything in italics was written while I was staying awake.

PROLOGUE: THE FIRST 48 HOURS

Saturday, 6PM -0 HR- After a late Friday night, I wound up in bed in the early morning and then slept till 6PM. I got up, and decided that I would stay up till around 9 or 10 the next night to "reboot" my sleep schedule.

Sunday, 12PM -18 HR- Decided that I would try to stay up as long as I could.

I'd often pulled all-nighters for school, so the first day wasn't remarkable for anything.

Monday, 5AM -37 HR- Was feeling tired, so I took a shower. The shower really woke me up; it wasn't cold or anything, but made me much more alert.

Monday, 2PM - 40-44 HR- In class, periodically I had very heavy eyelids, and had difficulty paying attention. Jumpy legs. At other times, didn't feel tired at all.

THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS: STRANGE THINGS BEGIN TO HAPPEN

Tuesday, 12AM -54 HR- Accidentally put away two of my textbooks with my socks, after doing laundry. I can't remember doing it, and this is the first example of me doing something a little strange.

Tuesday, 6AM -60 HR- (Note: I was sitting in my room watching a movie on my computer, I looked over at my door and the wall. The door and the wall were painted the same solid blue colour, with a dartboard mounted on the back of the door.) First visual anomaly: I looked at the wall, the dartboard appeared normal, but the wall was different, like without distance... it wasn't close to me, or far away, and it didn't line up with where the dartboard was (so the dartboard appeared to be floating), I really couldn't judge how far away it appeared. The dartboard was the proper distance.

Tuesday, 6AM -60 HR- Shortly after the above, a strange smell, like nothing I've ever smelled before, suddenly appeared and then suddenly disappears. Smell was not pleasant, nor offensive - I really can't describe it.

Tuesday, 7AM -61 HR- Feeling very tired, so decided to take another shower to wake me up. Shower woke me up again, my imagination seems to be running wild - a hair on the wall of the shower with a drop of water on top immediately appeared to me to be a nose and moustache. I needed to actually think to figure out what it was. I seemed to read a lot into shapes, seeing especially faces in random folds of the shower curtain, etc.

(Note: I was not been under any impressions that what I saw there actually happened, i.e. i didn't think "there is a face on the wall" i thought "that looks like a face on the wall," but knew that it wasn't. Seeing faces in things was sort of a recurring thing after this point. Anything that was even remotely shaped like a face I would see like a face. At one point I confused a roommate by calling the taps in the kitchen sink "eyes" - the taps were the eyes and the faucet was the nose, you see.)

Tuesday, 10AM -64 HR- Got really tired, fairly quickly. Balance feels a bit off for the first time

Tuesday, 3PM -69 HR- fully awake and alert for some time

Tuesday, 4PM -70 HR- zoned out, balance off again

Tuesday, 7PM -73 HR- still dizzy, very sleepy, eyelids heavy, eyes burning

Tuesday, 10PM -76 HR- easily spaced out by anything, shifting gaze makes me dizzy, peripheral vision appears slightly "wavy."

Wednesday, 2AM -80 HR- Sensations feel different, like they're felt by another person and delivered to me over a large distance and with a short delay. (Note: I don't think that that was a very good description of what I was feeling... it was almost as if I was seeing and feeling through a TV set, kind of removed from myself) Peripheral vision changed from "wavy" to "jumpy"

Wednesday, 6AM -84 HR- Watching a movie is difficult, my mind keeps wanting to wander off, and it's like i'm watching half of the movie, and inventing the other half it doesn't really make sense.

Wednesday, 7AM -85 HR- While watching a movie, the people "stopped speaking english", it sounded like they were speaking gibberish, but I still understood what they were saying.

EPILOGUE: I GO A LITTLE CRAZY

Wednesday, 10AM -88 HR- Pile of clothing on bed seems like it's trying to jump on me... I had to mess it up so it won't.

Wednesday, 2?PM -90? HR- Felt threatened by pile of clothing on bed, it wanted to "grow a new dimension." I tried to reason with myself but it still bothered me. Messed the clothes up.


These last two deserve some explanation: I had put a big pile of clothes on my bed to keep myself from laying on it and falling asleep. From the desk in my room where I was sitting, this pile was just in my peripheral vision, and it seemed like the pile would keep jerking towards me, startling me and making me turn towards the clothes. Eventually I had to mess the pile up so I didn't feel like it was going to jump on me. After a few hours, I felt very threatened by the clothes on my bed, believing them to be plotting against me (I know... crazy)

Unfortunately, all of my roommates were out of the apartment at class (I was in no shape to go to class) so I was alone on Wednesday, and that proved my undoing. When my roommates got home a couple of hours later, they found me passed out on my bed, clothes scattered all over the floor. They let me sleep.

Even though I didn't mention it, I felt very irritable after about 48 hours, and staying awake wasn't a pleasant experience. I'd recommend it if you want to see how far you can push yourself (the record for staying awake is like 11 days) but it's not something to do for fun.

I dont understand how you could have been seeing stuff after only 2 days , now i dont suffer from insomnia or nothing , ive had maybe a few mild cases of it throught my life, but i do sometimes decide to stay awake for 2-3 days at a time, just because i sometimes feel sleep is stealing away my precious minutes, and i rarely get anything at the 3 days mark, i feel completely zoned and basicly stoned, but hallucination are very rare, as far as im concerned inless you count seeing random things like erm a black sblodge here and there, if u get what im tryin to say.