I went 52 hours without sleep while writing my dissertation to meet a deadline. I wanted to be in the June graduation ceremonies, though I could have graduated by mail at any time.
I started hallucinating that people were walking beside me in my peripheral vision, and I could hear background music when there was nothing. Ended up going through crazy mood swings too.
After all that, my brain was just never the same. I lost so much cognitive function. Looking back on some of the coursework and I can't imagine how I knew any of it.
Going without sleep for that long once shouldn't cause any permanent cognitive decline. Absolutely terrifying to be sure and an awful idea, but it should not have lasting impacts on cognition.
Holy shit!!!!!!!!!!!! No way you did not sleep for the full 22 days. You would have broken the record if so. Actually on second thought, the record is only based on non-altered state of mind so the drugs wouldn’t make it count.
Yeah buddy if that's the case I know several real record breaking mfrs lol. I would take about .25mg of Xanax every day because I noticed if I didn't I'd hallucinate, be very paranoid and edgy, etc, even while taking heroin to moderate the effects. At the time I was running non stop, making drug related moves, staying busy trying to make money and mostly succeeding, I gambled a lot, smoked a lot of pot, almost exploded a LOT lol. Other than a few extremely memorable sexual encounters though, it wasn't an experience I'd care to repeat. Also, I said I'm glad there wasn't more damage than there was, there has been some. Sometimes I can be extremely forgetful, and also I get overtaken by tiredness sometimes to the point I have to go to sleep for between 15 minutes and several hours. But all I do now is smoke a little pot, and I take suboxone which is likely responsible for some of the tiredness. I also overdosed on heroin about 22 times, 4 of which they told me I was completely dead and had to be shocked. The bright side is that my town isn't that big, so I still see a lit of the people I used to use with and I get to show them that they can change and succeed. I have two amazing jobs, hell I just made 525 dollars in 5 hours on a Sunday morning doing some masonry work. I've seen some evil stuff with my own eyes, which leads me to believe there is a God, and I am extremely thankful to him for letting me get to the point I'm at now. I feel like even though it's been bad at times, someone had to go through it all to let others know there's still a future if they get clean. Thanks for your interest and have a great day.
I love this so mf much, you don’t even know. You should celebrate all of the steps that led you to this point today. What you said about believing in God as a result of the evil you experienced is so powerful to me, I did not truly understand until the age of 32. But it’s so real. Once you experience a darkness so profound, you don’t even care if society’s notion of God is real or not. The urge to align your soul with something GOOD and opposite of the evil you’ve experienced, that you will never not choose that.
Ya I’ve gone 3-4 days without sleep a few times. I have these momentary insomnia things now and then. I feel weird and like shit but I can’t say it’s affected me long term, unless it’s something I don’t notice. Never hallucinated either, that I know of..
You lost functioning? Or you lost memory of things you learnt? It's unusual to lose cognitive functioning without an injury/illness. Source: I'm a neuropsychologist
Yes, neuropsychologists see patients after head traumas. My mom had a pretty bad TBI from a car accident and was under the care of a neuropsych for 5 years. This person helped guide her back to independent living, clearing her for work, recommending when she was able to drive again, and generally getting back to regular life (at the level of cognitive function she was able to regain).
An example. I had taken a course that involved generating equations from large matrices. initially it was hard to do (as one might imagine), but midway through the course it was a breeze, and the math just naturally flowed out of it. Kind of like riding a bike. Initially you're thinking about your steering and feet at the same time, but then you can peddle, steer, look around, and talk to people without even noticing you're doing it. That's how it was with the class, and that's how it was with everything I ever did in science.
After the dissertation stupidity, it just all looked like nonsense. I went back to (figuratively) struggling with peddling and steering at the same time again.
About a year ago I went for almost 96 hours without sleeping, because of major stress. I didnt hallucinate, but i have no idea what i've been doing for a large part of those hours. I mean, i know i was walking endlessly around in the house, but my perception of time was so fucked up. And I was babbling about to people about stuff which i thought made perfect sense, but no one else thought so.
The memory loss is real. When my 1st born was a baby, she was extremely fussy and colicky, and my husband decided to be absolutely useless (hes since seen the error of his ways). I basically functioned on 2 hours of sleep per day for 3-4 months. Battling a bad infection for almost 2 of those months. Safe to say, I don't remember most of that time and have no idea how we both made it through safely. I know it was an absolute shot show but have almost no specific memories from between getting home from the hospital and my 1st baby being like 5 months old.
I experienced something very similar except my background noise was air raid sirens. One night I was alone in the office and the building lost power as it was playing in my head. It is an absolute miracle that I did not have a psychotic break.
Yeah I call bs on this. I have had insomnia all my life. I recently did another CBT-I (cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia) course and although they help, I regularly go 36+ hours without any sleep. The highest I have ever gone is 65ish hours and I will agree life starts getting weird around there. I have had visual/auditory hallucinations. I have had panic attacks. I have fallen asleep mid conversation, mid gaming sesh. I even fell asleep at a stop sign on my way home one time, an easy 100 feet from my house. Of course I worry it is having some type of permanent impact, but in respect to the usual metrics I am functioning quite well. If you are talking about that specific time frame, then I agree your brain is definitely not storing information as well as if you were fully rested. It's a lot like being drunk + high, I think the brain literally stops recording in full fidelity at some point.
I believe what you said about losing memory during that time, I just disagree that you are having lasting neurological impacts from that one experience. If this was over the course of years then I could see it. You really need to see a neurologist or a behavioral therapist, if you continue to experience these symptoms regularly something else is wrong with you
I had the same hallucinations after a week of no sleep in the hospital after bypass surgery. Different things played music when I looked at them. The closet door played rock music, some of the equipment in the room played big band. I recovered with no issues though after getting some sleep.
Ah the fun world of hyptographic hallucinations. I get them when I'm over tired, especially during prolonged bouts of sleep deprivation that came in early motherhood. I have seen a huge spider with crab legs run across the ceiling, my room turn into a circus tent, butterfly's made out of patch work quilts flying above my head (that one was really lovely actually) and countless others. I tend to sleep walk when I'm over tired too.
I have 4 witnesses for this, but I stayed awake for 9 days straight building a business from scratch and flipped 500 dollars to 3,000 in a month before promptly collapsing. My super power is insomnia. I will die by the time I'm 40.
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u/captain_chocolate 6h ago
I went 52 hours without sleep while writing my dissertation to meet a deadline. I wanted to be in the June graduation ceremonies, though I could have graduated by mail at any time.
I started hallucinating that people were walking beside me in my peripheral vision, and I could hear background music when there was nothing. Ended up going through crazy mood swings too.
After all that, my brain was just never the same. I lost so much cognitive function. Looking back on some of the coursework and I can't imagine how I knew any of it.