Jon_in_london
Illuminator
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Anybody have any ideas what causes the hallucinations experienced during slepp deprivation?
Hallucinations and sleep deprivation
- Thread starter Jon_in_london
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UnrepentantSinner
A post by Alan Smithee
Jon_in_london said:
Hmmm. How to describe the only experiences I've had.
I have experienced (while working massive amounts of 12 hour overnight shift overtime) what I could best describe as "lucid wakedness." Specifically I recall being so out of it mentally (yet still awake) entering seeming REM state and having non-autonomous responses like trying to eat a sandwich.
Not quite a hallucination, but when I'm acting out eating a sandwich, while not having one, means I was having some sort of "experience."
The only other sleep deprived experience I can remember was when I worked 4 night shifts, then drove 120 miles to my mom's house and stayed up until 5pm. I woke up screaming... and I really don't know why. I wasn't having a bad dream IIRC, but I did wake up with a scream. I went to sleep again a few hours later and woke up screaming again later.
Now my dad had died a few months earlier and I was sleeping in their bed (on his side) so there might have been some subconcious effect, but again, I don't remember any bad dreams.
I realize these are pretty mundane, but much like I've never had a psychotic even or lost conciousness, I guess I've never had a "real" hallucination.
Jon_in_london
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I know of sleep deprivation hallucinations from playing soldiers on weekends.
I remember once, on a night patrol, wondering why the man in front of me was wearing a miniskirt and tights. Just couldnt figure it out.
I know of other guys who were really disgruntled because he thought everyone else in the platoon was on horseback and he had to walk.......Another wanted to leave his patrol to go make a phonecall from the red london style telephone booth he imagined was in the middle of the woods somewhere in salisbury plain.
Weird stuff.
I remember once, on a night patrol, wondering why the man in front of me was wearing a miniskirt and tights. Just couldnt figure it out.
I know of other guys who were really disgruntled because he thought everyone else in the platoon was on horseback and he had to walk.......Another wanted to leave his patrol to go make a phonecall from the red london style telephone booth he imagined was in the middle of the woods somewhere in salisbury plain.
Weird stuff.
It might be related to this:
http://hkpp.org/index.php?full=Hyperkalemic%20PP
(Personal opinion, not medically based)
Lack of sleep might make this problem show up in people who don't normally suffer from it. In my case, stress and some drugs can cause me to suffer from these problems. It is actually a very odd feeling. You can be thinking about something and you mind seamlessly starts dreaming. Your conscious is still active but it takes it time to realize that you have started dreaming.
By far, the worst episodes I have ever had was when I had to take some sleeping pills after an injury. Until the sleeping pills mostly wore off it was a living hell because the sleeping pills where trying to knock me out but they weren't causing me to go into a deep sleep. I spent the whole time dropping in and out of hypnagogic dreaming and was unable to wake myself.
http://hkpp.org/index.php?full=Hyperkalemic%20PP
(Personal opinion, not medically based)
Lack of sleep might make this problem show up in people who don't normally suffer from it. In my case, stress and some drugs can cause me to suffer from these problems. It is actually a very odd feeling. You can be thinking about something and you mind seamlessly starts dreaming. Your conscious is still active but it takes it time to realize that you have started dreaming.
By far, the worst episodes I have ever had was when I had to take some sleeping pills after an injury. Until the sleeping pills mostly wore off it was a living hell because the sleeping pills where trying to knock me out but they weren't causing me to go into a deep sleep. I spent the whole time dropping in and out of hypnagogic dreaming and was unable to wake myself.
calladus
Critical Thinker
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How about in the classroom?
As a college student working a more than full time job, I've actually had hallucinations while taking notes. Very odd!
Reading back one of these was very weird! I was taking notes from Physics, describing the cycle of a heat engine, and my notes veered off into something about fishing. Then the writing got weaker and less well defined as I actually fell asleep.
Too bad! I was kinda hoping that my subconscious would come up with a brand new physics principle!
As a college student working a more than full time job, I've actually had hallucinations while taking notes. Very odd!
Reading back one of these was very weird! I was taking notes from Physics, describing the cycle of a heat engine, and my notes veered off into something about fishing. Then the writing got weaker and less well defined as I actually fell asleep.
Too bad! I was kinda hoping that my subconscious would come up with a brand new physics principle!
Actually, while in high school, I did a fairly controled experiement on sleep deprivation. I used 6 subject of various ages from 7 to 55. The project was for class, and I got an A- (it was late, lol).
The 1st hard part for all of us but the 24 year old (he was a paramedic, so used to that level of deprivation) was felt while we all watched a movie with a LOT of flashing and strobing lights. In hindsight, a bad choice of activity.
True hallucinations begin, as predicted, with the 7 year old, at around 32 hours. Must of us fell into some state of mild hallucinations by hour 50, and by hour 65, we were all in a world of problems. Cognition was dreadful. Coordination tests were laughable. Memory wasn't as bad as I had predicted, but speech was slurred. There was a lot of excitability, agitation, and 'drift-offs' but the hallucinations were the most fun, and the must difficult to explain.
My guess is, as one of the earlier posters put, that one enters a state of lucid wakedness. The body assumes it should be sleep and dreaming, and thus, it does anyway.
Oh, in case people are wondering who 'won' it (ie, was the last man/woman standing). Top dog was teh 24 year old paramedic at 104 hours. Second was 94.5 hours by the 17 year old male, third by a 18 year old female at 74 hours. The 1st one out was the 7 year old (my brother) as we all expected, at 33 hours.
The 1st hard part for all of us but the 24 year old (he was a paramedic, so used to that level of deprivation) was felt while we all watched a movie with a LOT of flashing and strobing lights. In hindsight, a bad choice of activity.
True hallucinations begin, as predicted, with the 7 year old, at around 32 hours. Must of us fell into some state of mild hallucinations by hour 50, and by hour 65, we were all in a world of problems. Cognition was dreadful. Coordination tests were laughable. Memory wasn't as bad as I had predicted, but speech was slurred. There was a lot of excitability, agitation, and 'drift-offs' but the hallucinations were the most fun, and the must difficult to explain.
My guess is, as one of the earlier posters put, that one enters a state of lucid wakedness. The body assumes it should be sleep and dreaming, and thus, it does anyway.
Oh, in case people are wondering who 'won' it (ie, was the last man/woman standing). Top dog was teh 24 year old paramedic at 104 hours. Second was 94.5 hours by the 17 year old male, third by a 18 year old female at 74 hours. The 1st one out was the 7 year old (my brother) as we all expected, at 33 hours.
I'm have horrible insomnia. I've never been able to get a sleep cycle going. Even now the last time I woke up was about 30 hours ago (I woke up at 10 PM... ???). Sometimes I get into periods where I dont sleep for days. I dont have "true hallucinations" but everything does have a "shimmer" and "vibrance" to it. The only literal way to describe it is "everything, even objects that arent alive or moving, are very animated looking". Stay up for a day or so and see what I mean. I surprise my wife and her sisters with how active I am for how little sleep I get. I make them laugh because I make a lot of weird analyzations or comments that no one has really never thought of. Here are some actual real examples of things I've said in the past few months:
"Do you think if vampires were real, they could get plastic surgey... no not if they got fast regeneration powers."
"How many long black hairs do you find floating in the tub when you take a bath... hey, they dont look like the kind of hair that comes from your head"
"Imagine if bicycles rained from the sky... that'd be a terrible disastor... now I'm depressed."
"If you keep your hand there long enough it starts bleeding"
My personal favorite "Lets say there is a heaven and there is a hell... I'm going to bet hell isnt so bad... I bet its just a huge water park with tube slides and nice clear water for everyone who isnt a christian... but still some people believe there are truely evil people who would be in hell also... no they are wrong... the evil get reincarnated back on earth as flowers... why... because flowers are pretty and they smell nice".
"Do you think if vampires were real, they could get plastic surgey... no not if they got fast regeneration powers."
"How many long black hairs do you find floating in the tub when you take a bath... hey, they dont look like the kind of hair that comes from your head"
"Imagine if bicycles rained from the sky... that'd be a terrible disastor... now I'm depressed."
"If you keep your hand there long enough it starts bleeding"
My personal favorite "Lets say there is a heaven and there is a hell... I'm going to bet hell isnt so bad... I bet its just a huge water park with tube slides and nice clear water for everyone who isnt a christian... but still some people believe there are truely evil people who would be in hell also... no they are wrong... the evil get reincarnated back on earth as flowers... why... because flowers are pretty and they smell nice".
UnrepentantSinner
A post by Alan Smithee
Jon_in_london said:
LOL I had just the opposite during my two periods of long-term military sleep deprivation periods.
During enlisted Basic Training, I fell alseep while on our final 5 mile road march. Slept for probably 200 meters, all the while staying in step.
A year later during ROTC camp, on a long range patrol exercise I fell asleep and walked about 250 meters from the column. For some reason none of my buddies noticed me angling off on a tangent. After I woke up I rejoined our formation and an instructor asked me why I'd continued walking forward after the group veered off to one side.
Amazingling I came up with, "I had to take a leak," and he told me about the rattler the formation was avoiding and to get back with them.
I wouldn't experience such long term sleep deprivation again until I tried to work 40+ days of 12 hour overnight shifts.
In my old uni days, I worked graveyard shifts at a service station while trying to do my preservice teacher training at high-school on the other side of Brisbane.
After three days of non-stop work, I was sitting on a bus hearing somebody call my name. After looking around twice, I realised that I was hallucinating it. It was pretty trippy, hearing my name in the general hiss of conversation around me, and knowing it was a hallucination.
I think it all has something to do with the way we interpret information. Schizophrenia works much the same. The input is analysed for information that has relevance and is sorted. When we are sleep deprived, we are short on certain hormones that negotiate this process typically. Hence all sorts of input is taken in, seen as relevant and mismatched. I could associate several sounds I heard and my brain said 'Michael' was heard in there, when it wasn't. I'd imagine the same happens with visual cues.
As a tangent, dreams, IMO, are the normal thought patterns during the day that are not controlled by conscious thought or by external stimulus. Hence the random thought patterns that occur are all we have in terms of input. Our brains continue to sort this information, a continuation of what happens as an infant when we need more 'thought time' as much of a baby's life is spent sleeping (this REM downtime is necessary for cerebral development). Perhaps it still plays a role in adult life, doing the same thing.
Athon
After three days of non-stop work, I was sitting on a bus hearing somebody call my name. After looking around twice, I realised that I was hallucinating it. It was pretty trippy, hearing my name in the general hiss of conversation around me, and knowing it was a hallucination.
I think it all has something to do with the way we interpret information. Schizophrenia works much the same. The input is analysed for information that has relevance and is sorted. When we are sleep deprived, we are short on certain hormones that negotiate this process typically. Hence all sorts of input is taken in, seen as relevant and mismatched. I could associate several sounds I heard and my brain said 'Michael' was heard in there, when it wasn't. I'd imagine the same happens with visual cues.
As a tangent, dreams, IMO, are the normal thought patterns during the day that are not controlled by conscious thought or by external stimulus. Hence the random thought patterns that occur are all we have in terms of input. Our brains continue to sort this information, a continuation of what happens as an infant when we need more 'thought time' as much of a baby's life is spent sleeping (this REM downtime is necessary for cerebral development). Perhaps it still plays a role in adult life, doing the same thing.
Athon
calladus
Critical Thinker
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athon said:
There is an Air Force / Navy legend about radio operator school where students are taught to read Morse code at a high rate of speed. (25 wpm or more) It always mentions some poor slob that 'makes it' and can read the code at the required rate - just before he goes a little loopy.
The story goes that he is picked up in the middle of a rainstorm by the military police, screaming that the rain is talking to him in morse code.
I still think it's just legend - but I wonder if it has a grain of truth to it?
aggle_rithm
Unregistered
A
There is a scary disease called "fatal familial insomnia". The unfortunate people who have this disease have longer and longer periods of insomnia, then finally are completely incapable of going to sleep. Not even heavy narcotics can put them under for very long. The gradual mental disintegration is usually the first sign that something is wrong, much more so than the lack of sleep.
The "fatal" part is in there because lack of sleep leads to brain deterioration and, eventually, death.
The "fatal" part is in there because lack of sleep leads to brain deterioration and, eventually, death.