I believe last night broke the record for the longest I’ve gone without sleep. It wasn’t a terribly long time (final tally: 31 hours, but eight of them were spent driving). And, besides, it allowed me to go to the Bridge Diner (again) at 4:30am and eat apple sauce with Pinger Robert.
However, one interesting thing I noticed about sleep deprivation: when you finally do fall asleep, it’s a totally different kind of sleep. When someone wakes you up (because you will never wake yourself up with an alarm or something after this long without sleep), the sleep is so heavy that you actually feel like you’re a part of a the bed. This afternoon when I woke up from the three-hour-nap-that-was-supposed-to-be-one-hour that broke my sleeplessness, I felt like I had sunk four feet into the bed… I didn’t feel like moving any extremities and it would have been the perfect time to check for a drool puddle.
The world record for sleeplessness was 11 days (with no physiological or physical damage!) set by a high school senior in 1964, but was supposedly broken a few years back. Interestingly, rats die after three weeks without sleep. Other interesting sleep-related info can be found at Sleepnet.com (“Everything you wanted to know about sleep but were too tired to ask”).
How long have you gone without sleep? Did you have any particularly cool hallucinations as a result? -ram
Posted in Everyday Life
John February 25, 2007, 2:24 am
Hey all …. 24 Feb ’07
Because of major sinus surgery on Decmber 5, (I am 12 weeksa PO now,) I developed a inability to sleep for days at a time! Multichemical sensitivity, air too dry … too cold … not moistened enough, lung spasams … heart palpitations – etc. Panic Anxiety due to sleeplessness increased my adrenaline and sleeplessness – and so the cycle continued! This went on for several weeks and I wound up being sleepless at one point for 9 days (126 straight hours and man it was frightening!)
I began to be delusional, forget things, slurred speech, personality alteration s – etc. Forgetting to eat and drink. (All without caffine!) dangerous.
Put on Xanax and later Ativan to return sleep cycle! Hopefully just mellatonin will work later.
Semper Fidelis!
USMC
1975 – 1981
John
Matt February 28, 2007, 7:01 pm
What’s a good site for information on sleeping. And dreaming. I often sleep for large periods of time. Around 14 hours a night. Then I’ll have days like today, and I won’t sleep for 30 hours. I never remember my dreams. I think it’s because I have many periods of REM sleep? What happens when you stay up for a certain amount of days? 3? 5? 7? WHat’s the current record? My eyes get puffy? What will keep my awake, and motivated to do things, other than sit. Even reading makes me tired. Help me, haha.
Kirsten April 29, 2007, 1:46 am
hey all
dear Matt
ppl have been known to stay up for very long periods of time,
my mother told me once she remembers when she was….i guess around your age she remembers staying up for a full week….the only thing was she says that her friends told her later that she had started talking to people that weren’t there,so you can stay up for a long period of time its just that your body needs sleep to reboot
if you have any other questons E-mail me at XXLovesNotRealXX@aol.com