The most I’ve been able to find on the internet are brief lectures on not driving while tired and large directories of basic sleep studies, nothing around the specific effects of self-induced sleep deprivation. I was told one that sleep deprivation was a very effective torture, is this true? why/why not?
Also, how long can you go without sleep before you die? And what would be the permanent effects of say a 5 day sleep deprivation experiement?
I know from some friends of mine that prolonged sleep deprivation can lead to depression and sometimes psychosis.
These commments are from friends of mine who worked overnight shifts. One ended up in a mental hospital for two weeks (though maybe it was due to factors other than his miserable job with miserable hours).
One friend described this, this never-seeing-daylight condition as being similar to suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder year-round.
Another friend of mine once went five days without sleep when he was a teenager and was hospitalized because he threw a hammer at his mother. He must have been very tired and irritable. I wouldn’t recommend a self-conducted, self-induced sleep deprivation experiment because that’s what this kid was doing. I think it would only be safe (safer???) under lab conditions.
I also read about a sleep-deprivation experiment in which the subject began to hallucinate after not being allowed to sleep for five days. He saw cobwebs all over his hands.
I don’t know what the permanent effects may be.
Speaking from personal experience, it can foul up your sense of time and space, making it hard to navigate, hard to keep track of where you are and what you were trying to accomplish. You definitely get an “edge” crudely akin to the courage that comes out of the bottle, and if someone is fucking with you you may do totally outrageous things in response. (At 2:30 AM, I kicked, with my heavy hiking boots, the door of a rapper who was practicing his stuff and hanging out with about 3 of his homeboys, and when they opened the fracturing splintered door I gave them whatfor concerning my need for sleep because I had finals the next afternoon. They had previously threatened to kill me if I complained again. I grabbed their audio equipment and said I’d throw it out the damn window after beating them over the head with it. I think they were so in shock that it didn’t occur to them to kick my butt).
I do also remember suddenly collapsing to my knees outside the cafeteria and giggling my head off for no particular reason.
All in all, I don’t recommend it as a high.
I’ve gone three nights without sleep. After the second night, however, I went about things as usual and didn’t have any problems staying awake. I think I kind of got used to it. In fact, I really struggled getting to sleep that fourth night, although I got 5 hours.
With that, I am pretty certain I could have gone without sleep for longer than three days.
I have heard that meth users will stay up for days at a time, like four or five.
I never did anything psychotic, but I did drive for 900 miles the next day and almost got in a horrible accident because I wasn’t paying any attention.
Ah yes. Good old self-induced sleep deprivation. I’ve stayed up willingly, for roughly 4-5 nights in a row once.
After the first night, you can function relatively normally, although you are a bit tired.
After the second night you seem even more tired, like you REALLY need to sleep.
If you can get past this, after the third-fourth night you become so tired that it’s very hard to get to sleep.
And finally, on the fifth night, you cease to function like a normal human being and can pass out anywhere that seems appropriate.
I think I slept for ~48 hours after my 5 days of being awake.
I also noticed that staying awake seems to act as a natural high after the first night or so, it’s similar to being tipsy.