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Dreams mixed with reality
2009-07-12 23:52:11 | 16 Comments
"Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?" - Morpheus, The Matrix
Really is amazing just how complex of a device the brain is. Especially is amazing just what sorts of impacts some random things have on it... During the last week, I was getting very very little sleep, maybe only half an hour per day - I was basically up for 5 days straight, ouch. Well, actually I'm still awake, kinda, after getting a few hours of sleep last night finally.
It's actually quite interesting how the lack of sleep can completely screw with the said brain... You're walking, walking, sit down for a second, take your phone out, check the email, are listening to people talk around you, you see everything that is happening around you, you look at your phone again, and realize that none of that has happened and you were just completely knocked out for 15 minutes or so, turns out everything you saw and heard was just a dream. And you then sit there confused and wondering if you're still sleeping or have already woke up... What a weird thing the brain is...
So, what is the longest you've been awake for and why?
Heferkimbo
Hmmm... you should stay awake that long, i'm sure it isn't healthy and lack of sleep can be fatally harmful. As an architect student they always told me that i would sleep little or nothing sometimes, and that i should sell my bed. But i always sleep my 8 hours :). I think people who leave all the work for the last week or so have this problems.
If you are a very productive man, i recommend you to sleep for 30 minutes each 4 hours, it is called Polyphasic sleep, and it was used by Salvador Dali, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla among others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep ....
Lorenzo
@Heferkimbo, A friend of mine tried that and ended up feeling socially isolated (you're up when other people tend to go to sleep) and living in a "state of trance" for the periods of time when he was awake. He would space out, not to mention that when his 4 hours of uptime were over, he HAD to go to sleep, he couldn't postpone it..
Needless to say, he didn't recommended it ;)
Heferkimbo
@Lorenzo, Yes, it must be hard to live like that...
Michael Flux
@Heferkimbo, Yeah, I read about that a few years back, always wanted to try it out, but such a schedule is just so horribly inconvenient that it's pretty hard to try it while interacting with normal people :p
Smithy
Oh I am certain this reality here is just a perpetual bad dream I'm having because my real life awake could be nothing else but living in a large mansion on a tropical island where cyborg nekomimi maids cater my every desire. ^^
Seriously, I simply can not fathom how so many people I know can go about and function without the necessary hours of sleep or even be alert enough to do their job properly. If I haven't slept enough, I'm quite simply a wreck that will not function at all.
Michael Flux
@Smithy, Well, I can kinda function after not sleeping for days, but everything is in slow-mo a bit and if I even touch anything soft I kinda fall over and die for half day :p
Smithy
@Michael Flux, Anything soft? So if you'd touch a nice soft boobie you'd fall asleep? XD
Michael Flux
@Smithy, I wouldn't be surprised :p
Seantaku
I was actually going to blog this morning about the dream I had last night since it was fresh in my mind but by the time I got to the computer to type about it I was still half asleep. I know I started typing something but it definitely wasn't on my blog and I'm really hoping I didn't email someone by accident because they would be really weirded out by what I "might have" typed.
Who knows, maybe that was part of my dream....
Michael Flux
@Seantaku, Ah, and here I was wondering what all that spam in my inbox was :p
Prometheus
Haha yeah I remember writing about something like this a while back. Man Im a lightweight wen it comes to staying up. I have done a few 48hr+ streches with like 2-3 hours sleep but that is about it..
Michael Flux
@Prometheus, heh, that's surprising. Would've guessed you'd be able to do more ^_^;
mary
Brings me back to my last semester of College. I was awake for two days straight. Of course it was due to finals. I was a Visual Communication Technology major so I had mostly final projects rather than exams. I stayed up all night working on a Flash page(mostly the action script was giving me problems) and then moved onto a video project, where I had to animate using After Effects. No one ever taught it to us in class so we were dependent on tutorials, which can be good( but I was running out of time to do the things I wanted) Next day I had to work on a printing final and was frustrated over my computer freezing and shutting down here and there. I remember when I turned everything in I had to fill out a form about the class and teachers. I was so out of it, my hand wouldn't stop from shaking and people were telling me I looked awful! I don't miss those times in college, although with all the craziness in the news this month I've been pulling long hours at work.. but at least there is overtime $$
Michael Flux
@mary, hah, of course, money always makes everything feel better ^_^
Moign Khawaja
While working for Japan Foundation I got less sleep and unlimited stress and it got worse when we had to arrange some event. Gosh!!! sleep deprivation poured weird ideas into my mind and at times I felt like some Sci-fi character (hence Neo Martian). The thought process in the mind spins out of control and visions are a normal occurrence. Glad that I don't work anymore for them, great experience though.
Michael Flux
@Moign Khawaja, heh, the real funky things start when you try driving without getting any sleep... you drive and drive, then you suddenly see a tree running across the road :p