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Sometimes, in books, our poor characters are forced to go without sleep. We know this will affect them somehow, but how, exactly?

I know that, out of the hundreds of members here, some of us know what it is like to go without sleep. So, please share! What effect does sleep deprivation have on the mind and the body?

I was once up until about 11:45pm...And then slept in until 8am the next day. During that entire day, I felt very tired, and my reflexes were low.

I wasn't very well the other night, and I probably got about 2 hours sleep; the night after I was so tired, I just wanted to sleep and I still didn't feel well, so I had another night with only a couple of hours sleep. The next night I went to bed at 10:30pm with a migrane and I slept 'til 9:30am. I can't remember sleeping for that long in quite some time. I really need my sleep (I don't function well if I don't get 7-8 hours sleep), so I must have just crashed out after having two nights with very little sleep.

Coming back from a trip to Asia, I stayed awake the day until we left the country at night, the entire plane trip including two layovers and the entire drive home, so it equaled staying awake about two days straight. I tried to sleep during the flights, but I was restless. I was really...really...really grumpy and miserable and I don't remember anything from the trip, just faint glimpses of what happened. I had my family fill me in on the details afterwards.

Also, as a college student, I rarely/never go to bed before midnight, often staying up till 2-ish, especially on the weekends. Sadly enough, I'm getting used to it and coping with the fogginess in the morning and the random points of exhaustion throughout the day (that two o'clock feeling...).

I've stayed up most of the night for slumber parties more than once, but those were always followed by major sleeping in. However, I do have experience with running on four to two hours of sleep for multiple nights (never for a good reason ). The first day, I can feel okay, but generally weaker than usual. The second day my brain gets slower, and I tire easily. If this goes on for three days, I crash a few hours after getting up, then feel completely useless the rest of the day.

My trip back from Africa a few weeks ago took about forty hours, and I only slept two or three hours on the plane. Curiously, I felt pretty perky. The first few hours of it were the worst, then I adjusted. My friend and I had a blast in the airports. After getting to the airport, we had to drive four hours home. That was when I got seriously sleepy. I still felt plenty good natured, but I had to nibble on something to stay awake. (I was determined not to torture myself with tidbits of sleep until I was home and in my own bed.) My mind would began drifting away and I would have jerk myself to stay awake. My eyes had trouble focusing, and I told my sister, "There are two of you."o.O

Yeah, I slept in that next morning.

*nods* My most intense awake vs. asleep battles have been during church, the times I've foolishly stayed up too late the night before. I'd feel okay when getting ready to go, and during the singing, but when it came time to sit quietly...
My mind would wander all over the place, making little connections that wouldn't make any sense to a wakeful mind, going off on the most fantastical trains of thought, until I jerked to attention and realized I had been sitting there with my eyes closed.
Nibbling does help. Peppermints are the best for keeping wakeful during the sermon. Of course, getting proper sleep would be better!

What effect sleep deprivation has on the body depends on the individual's tolerance for it.

During my last few years of high school, and my first few years of college, I semi-regularly pulled all-nighters (usually 3- or 4-hour nights of sleep in high school), with little consequence other than losing the ability to focus and pay sufficient attention by mid-afternoon. But by the end of my college career, I was pulling all-nighters far more often, and suffering worse "side effects." And now, a few years after college, I still find it hard to try to go to sleep at a more reasonable hour, but if I go a night without sleep my body loudly demands a nap sometime the following day. I think that over the years, my body fought its decreasing tolerance for lack of sleep with adrenaline (which is a drug---and so carries the danger of possible addiction---even though it's one the body produces rather than one we ingest), but the adrenaline's effectiveness has been decreasing too.

Oh, and throughout all this time, as time without sleep goes on, my productivity rate drops precipitously, and I grow far more susceptible to temptation.

*nods* That theory about adrenaline makes sense. I think if your body is not properly rested, it has no reserve of strength to draw from, so you start running on adrenaline. That can't be healthy.

Which reminds me: Have you ever heard of a condition known as "slap happy"? I'm sure it has other names, too. I've gotten it a few times; it is caused by sleep deprivation. Your mind gets playful, and can't quite think straight. The tiniest things make you laugh and giggle, and you spew out the craziest ideas, which, of course, seem hilarious at the time. I think it can easily be compared with being drunk. Ever heard of this or experienced it?

I got up at three in the morning in NY and flew home and went to a new years game party at a church until 3 in the morning...so I was up about 27 hours, I think. *yawn*

YES! Yes, yes, yes!!! *cough* I've had several, and I mean several, run ins with slap-happiness. Once we had a long drive, and we got to a hotel that smelled weird, and I was very much sleep deprived, and I literally could not stop laughing.

There have been other times like that, but not quite as intense. That was definitely one of the most intense cases.

I could compare it partly to being drunk (though I've never been drunk... ), but part of it is you are still conscious of what you're saying and how you're acting. You just aren't so serious in these instances.

So, relating this to writing, I think if you put characters under sleep deprivation you could easily have them slap-happy at times (even if they're usually a serious character), and then grumpy, and then out cold (in a long or short progression ).

That make sense?

Yeah! It does.

*hopes Luke might help *

I went without sleep for long periods of time at one point a few years ago. If I go three days without sleep I end up with awful, debilitating headaches because of my sleep depravity.

Mmm, right. Sleep deprivation gives me headaches, too.

For me, I'd have to rest at least every other day. If I went too long, I'd start having the headaches and stabbing pains. Obviously this would not do well in a Fantasy character.

Yet, going days without sleep is not unusual in fantasy stories. I just can't stand it when a character is sleepless for days, to no apparent effect.

I agree!

*now needs to make sure she doesn't have that in her story * I don't think I do, but I may want to check and be on the safe side, now that this thread has made me think about it.

After going a few days without sleep I’ve always felt incredibly sluggish both mentally and physically. I noticed my words get slurred and my sentences don’t always come out in the right order. My brain feels slow to grasp ideas and make decisions. Fine motor skills were shot and I would miss trying to grab a doorknob or knock a glass over. It was like I was in a fog and couldn’t focus on anything. I spaced out a lot, caught myself frequently daydreaming and talking out loud.

I once went nearly five days without sleep due to insomnia and experienced hallucinations of objects melting and things moving out of the corner of my eye.

I also experienced "time hiccups" where I don’t know how I got into a room or how long I’ve been there, where minutes pass but it only feels like seconds, and when I’m going someplace and I’m suddenly there. I once stayed up for three days at a friend’s house, drank way too much caffeine, and I remember getting into my car and then being inside my home. I have no recollection of driving or even entering my house. I was just suddenly home.


I’ve experienced the slap-happy feeling quite a lot. It’s like being drunk in some ways but in my experience it is similar to having a drink or two rather than being outright drunk. Alcohol lowers inhibitions and sleep deprivation does the same thing. Makes things a little more funny and people a tad bit giddy.

Thank God you made it safely home. I've heard too many stories of drowsy drivers causing terrible accidents.

When I'm sleep deprived I daydream like crazy. My mind follows random threads all over the place, making fantastical leaps from one thing to another. That's bad when I'm in church.

Ah, interesting. Thank you.

I've gone a week with only twelve hours of sleep, I would stay up all night playing video games, or talking, then sleep two hours, get up do what ever, then continue, the thing is, the mornings I would be grumpy, the afternoons I would be dazed, and the evenings I would go so hyper it was crazy. Other then that, I get really confused, people ask me stuff, and I come up with random answers. Like random, "Are you tired" "Not at all my lion friend help me pull out this shovel with a nun-chuck" Random like that answers. I was really out of the swing of things for awhile after that, at that point energy drinks have no effect.

In short, sleep deprivation is bad?

On occasion it is okay, but I would try to avoid it. If you have gone days without sleep, yes bad, real bad.

If I stay up too late after a week of getting plenty of sleep, I can deal with it without much trouble. If, however, I have stayed up too late three nights in a row...let's just say I have trouble staying awake while sitting.

A couple weeks ago, I got up early (early for me is 9:00, aftereffects of having a temporary second-shift job for a month-getting home at 12:30, then staying up til about 3), and then that night (12:30am) I was hanging out, doing a little of this, a little of that, when my friend calls and says she's been talking to my other friend, who she had been in a relationship with but had just broken up with, and she says to try and contact him because she thinks he's going to kill himself. (If you want to discuss the morals of suicide, start a new thread, I know it's not the right answer too.) So I call all his numbers, text, etc., but no answer. I take the car at 1am and drive to my friend's house (the one who had called me, the guy lives in NY and we r in VA) and we stayed up all night... Well I won't describe the gory details about how many numbers I had to call until I got the NYPD unless you want me to, but anyway, I finally fell asleep at about 8, and kept waking up every ten minutes or so and having trouble going back to sleep again, until about 10. Then I stayed up the entire day. I went through periods of extreme fatigue, hyperness, confusion, energy, lethargy, boredom, extreme fascination with something that didn't really matter, and I was overly emotional the whole time. I went home at around midnight, and couldn't get to sleep until about 1 or 2 a.m. Then early the next morning, the manager of the place I work calls me and offers a job, and of course I say yes, and she wants me to come in and fill out paperwork. So anyway I had to get up early and stay up late for one reason or another for about a week and a half after that one night of missed sleep, and it took FOREVER, and quite a few nights with normal or extra sleep, to stop being tired all the time.
Also, my friend didn't kill himself, praise God.

When we moved to Ireland we did not sleep on the plane, so there was a period of about 24 hours or more where none of slept, except for the smallest children in fits.

I remember very little, but the main thing was that I absolutely craved sitting down or resting, though I could function well enough (and did, having to take care of my brothers and sisters); and whenever I gave in and sat down, I craved resting even more, like leaning on the table, stretching out on the bench, and so on. I did not want to use my muscles. And when I gave in to that craving (we had a long wait at one point while Papa was getting a rental car), I immediately went to sleep, or at least tried to.

I remember laying there in a distinctly uncomfortable position (and not caring) with my head on my arms, telling myself to stay awake and getting angry because I wasn't listening. Wavering in and out, forgetting what exactly was the point of staying awake, forgetting everything except that I must stay awake.