While in the Navy I was once required to be awake for 172 hours. I don't know about sleep deprivation being fatal but I do know that without supervision your actions can cause your death or the death of others. Most people can go 24hrs without to much problem, and allot can go 48 without to many problems, but after that your mind will start to wonder and it's almost impossible to keep you mind on all but the most demanding situations. After 3-4 days without lots of outside stimulus you will sleep sitting standing doesn’t matter, but never fear when you fall it usually wakes you up. I would like to tell you what it was like after the 4th day but I honestly can't, I remember small bits like you remember a half forgotten dream from the last few days. People yelling for me to wake up, banging my knees and other body parts as I passed out and fell. Trying to perform do complex jobs and not understanding what the tool in my hand was for. From my experience in a survival situation an untrained person can stay awake and still be able to perform reasonably well for about 3 days maybe 4 max. after that your mind can't be trusted. You may in a life or death situation be able to go longer but if there is any time at all even a short 10 min nap will help.

Hi Raydarkhorse,

Thank you for your detailed discription of your experience with sleep deprivation, I will work it into my basic survival lecture if it is O.K. with you?

If I can ask (e.g. not classified) why did the Navy make you stay awake for a week?

Thanks,

Mike

If my experience can help by all means use it. The reason I was awake is not classified, I was one of three people that was qualified to make certain emergency repairs to the main engines. We were dead in the water in a bad place and none of us slept until the repairs were made. Except for the times we literlly fell asleep on our feet, which is how I know you will wake up when you fall down.

Under serious sleep deprivation your short-term memory goes all to hell. During one exercise I remember being unable to follow simple verbal instructions because I couldn't remember the complete instruction.

Faced with three different colored balls and three different colored boxes and told to: 'Pick up the red ball and put it into the yellow box' I would pick up the red ball and have no idea what I was supposed to do with it. Or if I picked it up and walked to the yellow box I might not remember what I was supposed to do. It is a strange sensation finding a ball in your hand and that your standing in front of a yellow box. Remembering your supposed to do something but not knowing what it is.

The trick was to write instructions and messages down in simple steps and to check off the steps as each is completed. Written instructions can be reviewed so if you forget the first part you can look back at it. It works better if you work in pairs. One person reading and checking and the other doing the work.

Ironically long-term memory seems less effected. Told to repeat a thirteen digit number many times over a twenty minute period the person can recite this number a day later even when the learning and recitation was during a deeply sleep deprived period.

Also previously learned skills that have made it into muscle memory and routine, like field stripping and reassembling a weapon and sometimes driving, are also relatively unaffected. You might be unaware you are doing the job. Effectively sleeping with your eyes open while you do it. It has been noted that chronic drunks often drive home in a similar autopilot state of mind. As long as the task is free of variations from the trained routine it gets done in the normal manner. If something is changed the person is often completely unable to cope.

It is also interesting to see how people can stand up, march and complete simple jobs while being, for all practical purposes, asleep. It is fascinating to see the degree with which the primitive brain still prevent a person from doing things that would directly harm themselves or violate ethical norms. Although completely unaware of the situation it is next to impossible to get someone to put their hand into a fire or march off an obvious cliff. Told to do so they simply stop. If questioned they have no understanding of the situation, what they were told to do or stopping.

It is pretty funny to watch this sort of 'march of the zombies' behavior. Very strange to be playing the part of the zombie. I remember it as if it were a series of disconnected snap-shots of something done by someone else.

It is pretty hard to keep a person from getting any sleep after a couple of days. It becomes a full-time job just to keep one person awake all the time. As soon as they are not actively engage they catch a series of tiny cat naps. Often less than a minute each. People can sleep a few minutes at a time while hiking and standing up. These add up to significant amounts of sleep over a 24 hour period. Actively kept from getting any sleep at all people become delusional in just a few days. If people can slip in a few minutes of light sleep every few hours they can go much longer.

But inevitably everyone goes a bit nuts and becomes subject to hallucinations and delusions if kept from sleep long enough. In extreme cases people who have tried to break the sleep deprivation record have become dangerously insane. One guy jumped through of a second-floor picture window thinking the building was on fire. A few apparently became at least semi-permanently deranged. This is supposed to be why the Guinness Book of Records no longer lists the record for going without sleep. It isn't clear if they weren't deranged before they went for the record. Anyone who would voluntarily try to stay awake for over a week has to be a bit strange to begin with.

Most people recover completely as long as they get some sleep before they become delusional. Most people don't get that far. Unless someone is actively preventing them from getting sleep most people find it impossible to get to that stage. The body just shuts down and they doze off for at least a short time.

Thanks Art and Raydarkhorse, I appreciate the first hand information.

I remember staying up all night in my youth which usually involved road trips, fishing and chasing girls, sometimes all three!

Later,

Mike

Once upon a time as a young soldier in a far away land, I spent roughly 170 hours awake. I do not remember anything after the third day. I woke up in a hospital after (this comes from friends, like I said, I don't remember) being lured into a tracked vehicle, locked inside, and administered a sedative.

This happened because I was the only available electronics tech when there was supposed to be five of us--we were transitioning to the M1 Abrams (from the M60--sheesh, I just dated myself), and on a combat alert (one nice captain in operations sold his soul to the dark side). I can remember the first three days or so repairing problems with the radio/intercom system because of design flaws with the NBC (nuke/bio/chem) overpressure/filter system. By all accounts I was fine until day six; the morning of day seven I started (apparently) to disassemble a thermal imager with my SAK, while muttering about 1.5 volts--the voltage required to set off a 120mm round. After that they pretty much figured out I was bonkers Especially since we were all carrying live rounds....

Sleep deprivation can bring on seizures in those with a predisposition for them. Seizures can be fatal.

That's me (myoclonic epilepsy)...That's why have to be very careful. My mind is as stable as anyone else's; so I think. It's just that the synapses are a little froggy. Meds are a good thing. My condition is very mild so I would have to limit my awake time w/o meds to about 36-48 hours.

That is probably why, in the period I was in the service, they said that you were not responsible for your actions after being on duty for more than 36 hours straight...

But Navy regs said that if you were allowed 1 hr sleep in 24 then you were good to go (i.e. could be court-martialled for mistakes). Yes, this has no basis in physiology. But it does have a basis in case law.....

I went a week on 4 hrs sleep at least twice in my Navy time. I learned that I personally degrade fairly gracefully (I just get slower and slower and slower). Others learned that they hallucinate.

This sleep deprivation thing is one reason why your mother doesn't want you to go into the Service. She knows you need a good night's sleep :-)