21 of the Wildest Things People Experienced from a Lack of Sleep

‘What I had in my arms wasn’t a baby’
21 of the Wildest Things People Experienced from a Lack of Sleep

Sleep deprivation is truly enough to make you lose your mind. Its effect on mental health is so horrifying that, unsurprisingly, the U.S. military has used it as a method of torture. Just 24 hours of being awake can make you feel like you have a lone marble rattling around your empty brain, but going beyond that point is when things really get freaky. 

Redditors have shared the unsettling stories of what they saw, heard or felt when they dared to go extended hours without sleep, and each one is its own personal hellscape — including hallucinations of a shadowy portal, a nonexistent baby and nosy neighbors.

9y ago Probably around 36hrs, I felt very queasy by the end and it almost felt like time had slowed down. I remember driving into town thinking I was doing about 40mph looked down at my speedo - 65. Very strange sensation. 7 ...
Inlander e 9y ago 52 hours straight plowing snow in a 22 two day long storm. I started to see skulls and skeletons rolling off the plow blade. Got out to check to see if I hit someone... 26 ...
twistedlimb 9y ago Stayed up a few times 48 hours plus for the Army. I remember once a solidly built, southern, black sergeant was telling me to do something. I hallucinated he was my mom telling me to do something. Strange. Не got a good laugh at that one. 10 ...
GoGoGoBye . 9y ago e When I was in boot camp I made it there days. Was barely able to function. Best way to describe it is zombie like. Best example is when they wanted me to enter a 4 digit pin and I entered my 6 digit birthday 4 times before they yelled at me haha. 32 ...
Glorifiedmalcontent 9y ago 3 days and I hallucinated. I always seem to reach that delirious part of deprivation when it's dark outside. I end up seeing people lined up outside my windows staring in at me. Very unsettling. 70 ...
9y ago I thought I saw a tornado after three days of no sleep. I could hear something rumbling outside, so I ran out to take a look. It was like four o'clock in the morning. The clouds looked like they were swirling. I could hear it too. I ran inside and woke up my wife, threw my cats in the bathroom, and she started freaking out. I went outside to show her and she heard an air conditioning unit and the clouds just looked like clouds. She told me to go to bed. 12 ...
Kanilas 9y ago Exactly the same as me when I was up 92 hours in my freshman year of college. I heard my name being whispered at around 70 hours, and at around 80 there was this constant droning noise, almost like a jet engine at low power. That's when the shadows at my peripherals started. At 90 hours, I drove from University back to my house to go to bed. I remember getting I'm my car, and the next thing that I remember was sitting with the car parked, about an hour later according to the clock. The drive
_Borrish_ 9y ago o 4 days. By day 4 nothing seemed real and I began to think that I was actually in a dream. My concentration was pretty much none existent and I kept zoning out and forgetting what I was doing. 83 ...
Yellowflash23 9y ago E Edited 9y ago . I once Stayed up for about 48 hours straight on a Greyhound trip (40 hour trip and 8 before getting on bus). By the 40th hour, I was traveling in the desert and the sand started changing colors on me like someone messing with colors settings. My eye was twitching badly and dry. When i got to my destination, I slept for 16 hours. I hate bus rides, I cant sleep at all on them. + 230 ...
Dathouen 9y ago 5 days. I was downright delirious for the last three days, but I was running on pure energy drinks for most of that time. I'm surprised at the quality of my work during that time, but it's mostly a blur. I had meeting after meeting after conference after seminar, back to back, and apparently nobody could tell I had gone so long without sleep. I was just too focused on work to notice anything other than the odd tactile hallucination. Mostly the feeling of mosquitos or ants on my skin, but otherwise nothing especially nerve wracking. 46
brokenpianooo 9y ago 3 days. I was a sophomore in college and in charge of graphically organizing a book for my architecture studio's final project and because some people didn't know how to read directions, I basically had to reformat 10-12 people's parts (about 6-7 pages each). I finished about 15 minutes before the deadline, turned it in by basically throwing it onto my professor's desk and tried walking back to my dorm. On the way back I started seeing bright flashes, noticed I was falling over on one side, and almost walked into the middle of a busy intersection.
poopellar 9y ago Just shy of 3 days. Auditory hallucinations. Could hear the numa numa song very clearly. I knew I was hallucinating and found it fascinating. How your brain gets screwed up and distorts reality. It was as if the numa numa guy was sitting right beside me and singing the song. Trippy as fuck. I sang along all the way to the airport to drop of my aunt who prevented me from entering the airport as she thought they would think I was insane or a threat or something. My dad said I was dancing in the line
Supertrapper1017 6mo ago I went 8 days with about 2 hours of total sleep, when I was in the military. Around day 3, hallucinations started. Eventually, I was so wired, trying to stay awake, I couldn't fall asleep when I had the opportunity. + 7 ...
Katsukie 9y ago When my son was born I must have stayed up for days. I would sleepwalk and hallucinate very vividly. I'd feed the baby, burp the baby, change him and rock him to sleep... Until my husband brought me the baby and my illusion shattered, what I had in my arms wasn't a baby. I had been taking care of a bundled up blanket for an hour. This happened more than 10 times. + 98 ...
9y ago About 75hrs due to back-to-back long haul flights. My skin broke out with a rash and blotches all over my face, head and neck. My eyes were watering profusely and I started to lose the ability to think properly. I just couldn't process thoughts. Also, I was outrageously hungry. I must've eaten 10-15k calories on the last day in the space of about 8hrs. I do not recommend it. + 1.2K ...
Steve 9y ago e 3 days resulting in mild hallucinations, most memorably I was sat on my computer back in the good old days of msn - imagined a full conversation and replied to it, friend was very confused! + 1.1K ...
ThessWaan e 9y ago e My friend stayed awake for several days, until her body decided to stop being awake. One second she was cycling, the next she fell and was sleeping in the bushes. + 824 ...
Misdirected_Colors 9y ago Hey me too! 63 hours! I had the auditory hallucinations too. The straw that broke the camels back was, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a portal in the wall with a shadowy tentacle coming out. I didn't tell my group anything. I just left the lab, went to my dorm, got a few hours of sleep, then came back. + 242 ...
DepressionCessation E 9y ago Three days, I started hearing stuff that wasn't there... or other sounds were altered. For instance, my dog came up to me and started meowing. + 2.7K ...
9y ago A little over 100 hours to meet a deadline. By the end, I was constantly ping ponging between overwhelming exhaustion and bursts of adrenaline (whilst in a constant state of nausea). I heard people speaking to me when they were not. I saw in slow motion, and likewise, I saw things that were not there moving in my periphery (mostly shadowy figures). + 500 ...
PM_ME_BAD_SELFIES 9y ago Sixty hours. I had to host a poster session towards the end of it. I was answering questions that nobody was asking. Got a ton of weird looks. I was sweating constantly and i busted my head up pretty bad when I got home and fell not quite into bed. 7 ...

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