I ended up pulling an "all nighter" accidentally last night. It really was an accident -- I went to bed at a normal time, but because I had slept in till noon on Monday I couldn't go to sleep. The reason I slept so late on Monday was that I had been sick on Sunday, and apparently a combination of a generic Day-quil knock off during the day and Nyquil at night make me sleep for 15+ hours.
So anyway, I got up at noon, I went to bed at midnight, and I couldn't sleep. I got up, did some work for a couple hours, and tried again. Still no good. I didn't want to take more Nyquil and risk sleeping for another 15 hours so I got up and started reading a John Grisham book (that I ended up with because my roommate's girlfriend was going to donate it to charity but it got left on our kitchen table instead... but I digress from my perfectly streamlined story...). And then of course I just kept reading until I finished. (I have a little problem with "moderation" sometimes... good thing I don't drink... or play Word Twist on Facebook...)
I don't remember how many all nighters I pulled in college, I know there were quite a few. But I always got to sleep the next day as soon as I could. This time I started getting phone calls around 8 AM, and I thought, "What the Heck? I'll just see how long I last." So I went to work (meaning I commuted to my home office 20 feet away) and acted like it was a normal day.
About 3 in the afternoon it started really hitting me. By about 4 PM (hour 28) I crashed. I got up at 8 PM (and of course had 6 voice mails...can't you people leave me alone while I'm doing SCIENCE?).
So I guess 28 hours is my reasonable limit. (I could have pushed it further if really necessary but I wouldn't have been at all effective.) Which leads me to wonder about this policy of having doctors work 36 hour shifts in hospitals. How safe can that really be? How many patients have been killed or harmed because the doctor hadn't slept and didn't know what he/she was doing?
I think Barak should look into this... but hopefully he'll worry about more important things first -- instituting PLAYOFFS IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL!
2 comments:
So, did you hallucinate at all? I see things when I run on no sleep. I imagine that's what being high must feel like. I slur my speech and run into stuff. Maybe it's like being drunk. I wouldn't know, but I'm guessing...
Who needs drugs when you can just not sleep?
I've heard you can actually die if you go something like 36 hours or more with no sleep. One of my favorite radio shows (years and years ago - I hate radio now) tried an experiment where they had one of their employees stay awake for as many days as he could stand to. After about 24 hours he was hallucinating. I think he completely crashed out on them before he hit the 48-hour mark. Good stuff. Good stuff.
world of warcraft players die from not enough sleep lol...
Its really addicting game...
Some people played it for 50+ hours non-stop with no hallucinations.
I don't even know what u guys are talking about. I passed the 30 hour mark many times, but there wasn't any hallucinations.
The only weird part of my experience was stopping to feel sleepy after 40+ hours and feeling fresh..
That was really weird.
And I couldn't touch objects that were in front of me. When I tried to touch them my arm ended up hitting some other part of a wall/table around the object.
Well anyway my longest was 55 hours.
there wow players who have gone even past that.
the world record is 11 days.
11*24=264 hours without sleep basically.
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