Life is something to do when you can’t get to sleep.
So late last week I visited the Guinness Book of Records site. I was eagerly anticipating reading the world record for the “most papers written in a week”. Sadly, they didn’t seem to have this category. There were, of course, ample records announcing that it took 49 days for Bill Kilborne to walk on his knees from Perth to Darwin, and that Kim Friesen managed to hoover up 30 grapefruit rinds with her nostrils in 2 hours. Bitter and disappointed, I turned my attention to writing my final paper of the semester, disturbed that it would not be breaking any world-wide endurance records.
You see, in one week, 7 days, 1/52 of a year, I wrote FOUR papers, and did two presentations. Well, I didn’t do the last presentation, but that’s just a formality. More on that later. However, I did push the limits, attempting to break my own personal record for sleep deprivation. This was a fascinating, if somewhat unnerving experience.
It all started on the 23rd of November. I had a presentation for my Limnology paper to do. 10 minutes plus 5 for questions. Piece of cake, panic attacks excluded. So I did it, and contrary to my visions prior to it actually transpiring, I did manage to survive the experience. Someone suggested that I get out of it by crying and running from the room. This seemed slightly…. excessive to say the least. Really though, it wasn’t as like I thought about it for any great deal of time.
Next, I went to work on the Lim paper due Sunday. So I exalted the horrors of acid mine drainage’s effects on aquatic ecosystems in around 15 pages. Wonderful. Due on Tuesday afternoon was the paper for Psychology 375 (Clinical Psychology). So, I wrote 10 pages about depression treatment efficacies. The only hitch was that I had to hand it 3 rough drafts. I haven’t produced a rough draft since high school, so I manufactured them after the fact. Hope nobody from there reads this. They are trying to get the cheaters. May they all rot in hell (the cheaters).
Everything was going according to plan. The only problems was the time frame of the next two papers. BISC 404 (Plant ecology) was due on Thursday morning, while psychology 384 (Developmental Psychobiology) presentation AND paper were due on Friday morning. So I wrote my paper on plant associations for plant ecology, and handed it in on time. Cognitively, I was still going strong, though I had started to feel a little tired as I had labored up at CementLandTM from 8 in the morning to 12 midnight for the last few days. Still, things were looking up. I had only one more paper (and a presentation) to go.
This was where all the wheels started to come off the bus…
I got up Thursday morning at 5am to put the finishing touches on my plant paper, did so, and handed it in. Then, after the hellish monotony of another 4 hours of lectures, I headed, once again, down to the CementLandTM library’s airless computer bunker. Oh sure, I have a great computer at home, but I just cannot concentrate at home. Sue me. Others have threatened to for less.
So I blew through the first 4 pages of my paper entitled : Effect of Mercury Neurotoxicity on Behaviour and Brain Structures. I know you think this sounds exciting, but you’d be wrong. It started off fine until I hit a wall at around 10:00 P.M. I just couldn’t think anymore. I had only 5 pages done, and when I got kicked out at closing time, I still only had 5.5 pages done. This was hour 19 of straight consciousness. So, a fellow inmate ( psych 384) and I (who, oddly enough was writing a paper on sleep deprivation) headed to a computer lab that was (ahem) unlocked in order to finish writing papers. Everything went to hell. I really couldn’t think anymore, and every word was a struggle. So, finally, at 5:30 in the morning, hour 24.5, I finished my paper. This was the start of something interesting.
I went home, changed, came back to school, handed my paper in, and attempted to formulate my presentation that was supposed to happen at 10:30 A.M. My eyes were so sensitive to light I couldn’t look at an overhead projector, and I was unable to form complete sentences. Well, that isn’t unusual, but this time it was particularly severe. It looked like the people in that particular tutorial were going to get quite a show. They didn’t, because for 2% of my tutorial grade I was not going to make a colossal fool of myself. So I just didn’t go at all. Oh well. The rest of the morning consisted of writing a limnology lab up, and then going to all the rest of the limnology presentations that had not been done the week before. This lasted until 6, hour 36.
When I got home, I realized that I was on the edge of something big. I had been up for 36 hours, and what little was left of my brain was starting to unravel like TA marking his 70th paper in a row. It was time to push the limits of my endurance.
It was time to destroy the bus.
I remembered back in earlier days in when I was at College when I had stayed up for 49 hours. This was not due to circumstances completely under my control, but managing to survive the earlier experience, I wished to repeat it for, uhm, scientific purposes. Already being at hour 36, another 13 hours didn’t seem unattainable. In short, I was curious just how deranged I could get. I took notes. Thankfully I do not own a video camera.
What followed, I can only describe it as the way it must feel to be slowly going mad. Actually, I quite enjoyed it, sad to say. To realize that I didn’t have the fullest grip on reality was quite a liberating experience right up until the point where I tried to grab the background of a web-page with my hand and caused some damage in the process. To my finger, thankfully, the computer monitor is just fine (but probably a bit confused).
Hour 38 had to stop watching TV as it was too bright and I couldn’t really see the picture anymore anyway. So I listened to the crap that is there on a Friday night. It sounds worse that it… looks.
Hour 40 I was starting to feel tired. So I decided to go for a run, hoping to invoke the invigorating qualities that I had enjoyed before. Sadly, this proved to be rather faulty logic. I turned back after a block or two. I nearly ran into a parked car (my own).
Hour 42 Laying on the couch, I was still listening to the television. Had visions of baking cookies, but I couldn’t find a recipe. Thankfully. I don’t have the ingredients for cookies.
Hour 47 I wrote a song in a program called ACID. This was interesting, but is likely the worst piece of muck I have ever produced, and I have created some doozies!.
Hour 48 I got a bit of a second (sixth?) wind. I realized that breaking my record was close at hand. It was nearly mine!
Hour 48, 30 minutes I started jumping around, I was afraid that I would fall asleep.
Hour 48, 50 minutes I told myself that I was just going to lie on the floor for a few minutes. Sadly, this is when I lost the battle. I woke up 20 minutes later, but the dream was over. I was mad. I was lying on the kitchen floor.
I know when I am beaten, so I just went to bed. Oddly enough, I couldn’t sleep. Curiosity killed the cat.
It is interesting. I have heard that physical changes start happening in the brain after 56 hours. It starts going to “mush” apparently. I can only imagine what that must be like, but I gather I don’t want to find out. I wrote an entry for this page near the end, but you don’t want to read it. Really, you don’t.