10 ms·

If you don't sleep for long enough (about 7 days), you'll start to have visual and auditory hallucinations and also delusional thinking. You'll also experience

If you don't sleep for long enough (about 7 days), you'll start to have visual and auditory hallucinations and also delusional thinking. You'll also experience severely reduced effectiveness of just about every system in your body. You might not die if you don't sleep for a year (say), but you'll probably get permanent brain damage.

sillysaurus2 13y ago
The point of science is to never fall back on claims like "you'll probably get permanent brain damage" unless it's known what brain damage you may get, along with bounds on a confidence interval. Otherwise we're just philosophizing.
- mattdmrs 13y ago
  Science is slowly getting to those conclusions: > Taken together, these changes in brain and body are further evidence that sleep deprivation is a chronic stressor and that the resulting allostatic load can contribute to cognitive problems, which can, in turn, further exacerbate pathways that lead to disease. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026049506002289 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026049506...
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Well, it's a testable hypothesis. We will probably never test it in humans or higher mammals due to ethical concerns.
  - VladRussian2 13y ago
    may be we willn't as we already did. Google "sleep deprivation experiment".
meowface 13y ago
Many people experience hallucinations if they stay awake for periods longer than 48 or even 36 hours.
- coolnow 13y ago
  I think i believe this. A friend of mine is a virgin to late nights and all nighters. We were studying one night trying to cram for a test and communicating every so often on WhatsApp. At around 12AM, he told me he thought he was hallucinating. I laughed as he was only up for like 14 hours. He fell asleep shortly thereafter.
  - meowface 13y ago
    I can relate. I've only had two "all nighters" in my life, and felt utterly miserable each time. Towards the end of both, I would develop minor visual hallucinations (seeing little things in the corner of my eye, etc.). 14 hours is a bit silly, though. 24 hours is probably the minimum for most people.
aestra 13y ago
In clinical settings people experienced hallucinations with less than 48 hours of sleep deprivation. http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1989.68.3.787?journalCode=pms http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1989.68.3.787?j... I have no idea where you get 7 days from, I'm not sure its possible to stay awake for 7 days.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  On reflection, maybe I got confused with the number of days you can go without water (also 7, at least according to my memory). I stayed awake for 5 days once and there was only a bare minimum of hallucination at the end. I could have stayed awake longer, it wasn't really hard by that point. The people I've known who stayed up forever on crystal meth typically started hallucinating after a week. I'm surprised that the limit is so much shorter, but I'll believe it, thanks for the link.

sillysaurus2 13y ago

The point of science is to never fall back on claims like "you'll probably get permanent brain damage" unless it's known what brain damage you may get, along with bounds on a confidence interval. Otherwise we're just philosophizing.

mattdmrs 13y ago
Science is slowly getting to those conclusions: > Taken together, these changes in brain and body are further evidence that sleep deprivation is a chronic stressor and that the resulting allostatic load can contribute to cognitive problems, which can, in turn, further exacerbate pathways that lead to disease. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026049506002289 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026049506...
foobarbazqux 13y ago
Well, it's a testable hypothesis. We will probably never test it in humans or higher mammals due to ethical concerns.
- VladRussian2 13y ago
  may be we willn't as we already did. Google "sleep deprivation experiment".

meowface 13y ago

Many people experience hallucinations if they stay awake for periods longer than 48 or even 36 hours.

coolnow 13y ago
I think i believe this. A friend of mine is a virgin to late nights and all nighters. We were studying one night trying to cram for a test and communicating every so often on WhatsApp. At around 12AM, he told me he thought he was hallucinating. I laughed as he was only up for like 14 hours. He fell asleep shortly thereafter.
- meowface 13y ago
  I can relate. I've only had two "all nighters" in my life, and felt utterly miserable each time. Towards the end of both, I would develop minor visual hallucinations (seeing little things in the corner of my eye, etc.). 14 hours is a bit silly, though. 24 hours is probably the minimum for most people.

aestra 13y ago

In clinical settings people experienced hallucinations with less than 48 hours of sleep deprivation. http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1989.68.3.787?journalCode=pms http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1989.68.3.787?j... I have no idea where you get 7 days from, I'm not sure its possible to stay awake for 7 days.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
On reflection, maybe I got confused with the number of days you can go without water (also 7, at least according to my memory). I stayed awake for 5 days once and there was only a bare minimum of hallucination at the end. I could have stayed awake longer, it wasn't really hard by that point. The people I've known who stayed up forever on crystal meth typically started hallucinating after a week. I'm surprised that the limit is so much shorter, but I'll believe it, thanks for the link.