J. Christian Gillin, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, conducts research on sleep, chronobiology and mood disorders. He supplies the following answer.
The easy experimental answer to this question is 264 hours (about 11 days). In 1965, Randy Gardner, a 17-year-old high school student, set this apparent world-record for a science fair. Several other normal research subjects have remained awake for eight to 10 days in carefully monitored experiments. None of these individuals experienced serious medical, neurological, physiological or psychiatric problems. On the other hand, all of them showed progressive and significant deficits in concentration, motivation, perception and other higher mental processes as the duration of sleep deprivation increased. Nevertheless, all experimental subjects recovered to relative normality within one or two nights of recovery sleep. Other anecdotal reports describe soldiers staying awake for four days in battle, or unmedicated patients with mania going without sleep for three to four days.
The more difficult answer to this question revolves around the definition of "awake." As mentioned above, prolonged sleep deprivation in normal subjects induces altered states of consciousness (often described as "microsleep"), numerous brief episodes of overwhelming sleep, and loss of cognitive and motor functions. We all know about the dangerous, drowsy driver, and we have heard about sleep-deprived British pilots who crashed their planes (having fallen asleep) while flying home from the war zone during World War II. Randy Gardner was "awake" but basically cognitively dysfunctional at the end of his ordeal.
In the case of rats, however, continuous sleep deprivation for about two weeks or more inevitably caused death in experiments conducted in Allan Rechtschaffen¿s sleep laboratory at the University of Chicago. Two animals lived on a rotating disc over a pool of water, separated by a fixed wall. Brainwaves were recorded continuously into a computer program that almost instantaneously recognized the onset of sleep. When the experimental rat fell asleep, the disc was rotated to keep it awake by bumping it against the wall and threatening to push the animal into the water. Control rats could sleep when the experimental rat was awake but were moved equally whenever the experimental rat started to sleep. The cause of death was not proven but was associated with whole body hypermetabolism.
In certain rare human medical disorders, the question of how long people can remain awake raises other surprising answers, and more questions. Morvan¿s fibrillary chorea or Morvan¿s syndrome is characterized by muscle twitching, pain, excessive sweating, weight loss, periodic hallucinations, and severe loss of sleep (agrypnia). Michel Jouvet and his colleagues in Lyon, France, studied a 27-year-old man with this disorder and found he had virtually no sleep over a period of several months. During that time he did not feel sleepy or tired and did not show any disorders of mood, memory, or anxiety. Nevertheless, nearly every night between 9:00 and 11:00 p.m., he experienced a 20 to 60-minute period of auditory, visual, olfactory, and somesthetic (sense of touch) hallucinations, as well as pain and vasoconstriction in his fingers and toes. In recent investigations, Morvan¿s Syndrome has been attributed to serum antibodies directed against specific potassium (K+) channels in cell and nerve membranes.
Another rare disorder, Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI), is an autosomal dominate disease that is invariably fatal after about six to 30 months without sleep. FFI is probably misnamed because death results from multiple organ failure rather than sleep deprivation. The pathological processes include degeneration of the thalamus and other brain areas, over-activity of the sympathetic nervous system, hypertension, fever, tremors, stupor, weight loss, and disruption of the body's endocrine systems. FFI belongs to a class of infectious prion diseases that include Mad Cow Disease.
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17 Comments
Add CommentIs there any quantitative measure of the extent of sleep deprivation? I.e. what happens during sleep to restore the organism's abilities? Is something synthesized? Is a specific substance removed--a detoxification? Basically, can anyone tell a rested individual from one in need of sleep by any biochemical metric?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs there any evidence to suggest that individuals who develop insomnia at a very young age (4-6 yrs.) are more prone to suffering insomnia in its severest form as they enter their middle years (40s)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1 more thing... this isnt the first time i've been restless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter staying awake for 48-72 hours, and lay down, just when im about to fall into a sleep i hear a shock, bringing me to open my eyes in a split second. and at the same time i hear this i see little statics of electricity, or little flashes... this has happened to me about 4 times. (No it wasn't a dream, also my eyes were closed when i seen the bright static) scared the Sh** out of me.
i want to know how you 'er doind today .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBad, Bad, Bad, extended sleep deprivation causes permanet brain damage. I spent 4 years in the southeast asian war and 3 years as a long haul trucker. Many periods of sleep deprivation lead to hallucinations, truckers call it "seeing the black dog" once started it never goes away.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor the smart asses, I never used drugs not even coffee.
Don't deliberatlly go more then 72hours without full rest sleep.
bcmcneil@shaw.ca
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 1988 I stayed awake for 17 days and my doctor eventually put me in the hospital and drugged me to sleep. When I awakened 7 hours later, the nurse said she was so glad I woke up as she thought she had killed me as she had never given so many drugs (i.v. and oral) to put someone to sleep. I was in a state of deep, deep, stress at the time. Bonnie McNeil
In 1988, I went 17 days without sleep and was finally hospitalized and given massive amount of medication, oral and i.v. and 4 hours plus later I finally fell asleep for 7 hours.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe nurse said she was so glad when I woke up as she thought she had killed me and said they had never given anyone so much medication to put them to sleep. I was under a tremendous amount of stress at the time and had very high
cortisol levels. Bonnie McNeil bcmcneil@shaw.ca
I do not know how to get the Adobe Flash Player to work that wants to add on to your articles. I am confused. I have tried
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismany different ways, but no luck.
Windows Vista
bcmneil@shaw.ca
I receive Sciam. articles by e mail
I remained awake and hypervigilant [oops] for 14 days before a friend convinced me to go to the emergency room where it was discovered that I had abnormal brain-wave patterns. During the EEG I had a grand maul seizure. Like KidRythym I saw tiny flashes of light randomly moving in the air. I told my friend that I could see molecules.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was 18 and being victimized by a family member and about 5 or 6 of their friends. Although the victimization did not result in any physical injury, the emotional damage was immense and I felt deeply betrayed.
About 5 years before this period I had been diagnosed with Schizophrenia marked by paranoia, complete breaks from reality, erratic thinking and behavior and dilusions and auditory/visual halucinations. I believe a family tragedy in which I lost a parent to a violent death was the cause of onset: it was my heart that was broken, and my mind that was responding to the tragedy. It took me about 18 years to fully process the grief and sense of loss.
When I finally let go of the sense of loss and profound grief, I experienced several major breakthroughs in perception simultaneously. Like a flood gate the realizations literally rocked my world and each one brought a moment of vertigo, the molecule lights would appear for some days and I would experience manic episodes in which I had to be drugged in order to sleep and avoid psychotic breaks. Although I would sleep for about 4 to 6 hours, I never felt drugged when I woke up - just rested and ready to go again.
Eventually the manic episodes subsided, although I will still experience them periodically. Now I'm kept at therapuetic doses wether I need them or not. Yup - fourteen days without sleep under extreme duress or distress without a break from reality ... just those molecule sized lights dancing before my eyes .
Is it possible that those lights were signals telling me that my brain wave patterns were abnormal, or could the abnormalities have been a response to the lights themselves?
Does this article concider people in comas? Does being in a coma cout as being asleep?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI dont quite remember where or when i read it but i once read about people who were kept as prisoners and were whipped when they started to fall asleep. I dont quite remember if they were being interogated or just being tortured by the prision guards... but i digress. The point is that it was said that when those people were deprived of sleep for too long they began to become cold and when the guards tried to warm them up, (hypocritical huh?), they contiued to remain cold and would just, die. It most likely does not mean anything though and is not a very reliable source of information since they were most likely deprived of food, water, and were treated extemely poorly. Even so it said that those people were awake for many weeks and i find it kind of strange that they did not die before that if they were deprived of thier necessities of life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou are not alone. It is possible that your brain is so slow that is possible to communicate with spirits(if real) and that you are being asked for help from the dead. That would be awesome! I wish I could be that asleepy!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisps: longest time I've been awake is 41 hours, and it was broken by a microsleep
what u were seeing was a static discharge from ur brain commonly asociated with sleep deprevation it is ur brain pretty much turn of the main braker to motar functions for u to sleep but in the case of deprevation u notice and and u scare ur self awake same principal as when u goto sleep and wake up 3 hours later feeling like its been about 5 seconds
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi just need to tell you y tht happend it happend because after 3 days without sleep you start to hausinate hope this helps before it is to late because you could die without sleep see a doctor they will no wat to do aso message me for more tips on this plzzz do see a doctor
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes anyone else see a problem with engineering the "24/7 soldier"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe white light's myght be photopsia, I have it myself as well when I'm deprived of sleep. I's a signal from the retina toi the brain.
I had allot of time on my hands where I took allot of information in. I experienced what the medical profession would term delusional experiences. I started to experiment to point I realised that the longer I stayed awake the more intense and the quicker the changes to my surrounding atmosphere. I have been sectioned and diagnosed with psychosis before we go on I think this important to know, however if you can pass up judgement and keep open mined then one might gain something from the information I offer. The time I got sectioned I was on my 4th day of being awake and volunteered to go into hospital, but after I was not aloud to leave I became very fearful and that is when I experience the most intense experience as of yet. As before I could just escape and go to a happy place, now I was not aloud. I also found the more people around me the more intense the experience. Now I can accept and meet the medical profession half way to the point I might of been delusional, but when I was thinking stuff before it was playing out, or I would think for the machine that they rigged me up to sound its alarm like the other patients. Coincidence, nah not a chance every time it sounded. It was like the machine had a mind of it's own and every time I asked it, it sounded, to the point the nurse became very confused asking me what I was doing when I was just laying there. Also I would think stuff and the patient to my left started talking out loud as if he was speaking to a ghost, however he was communicating with what I was saying in my head. Again could of been auditory schizophrenia, however there were others that were responding to him. I see a nurse each week that keeps obs on me, I am grateful for as it helps me keep in touch with base. I still experiment. As far as I know when we become tied its certain parts of our brain that become tied, but if we are able to switch our level of thinking them parts go to sleep and parts that have been resting come into use. The funny part is that these parts are very child like behaviour and have to be tamed, easily scared and easily loose focus. But the more you train yourself the more you are able to focus and ACT normal. Once this state is obtained then I have experimented. The hard thing is not to give into astonishment. The next time I do it I will have a pre plan on what I want to experiment with so I don't loose focus. Usually I just respond to what happen and think on the spot, I don't come out with anything useful apart from an experience that I can never explain in words.
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