In 1959, Peter Tripp, a disc jockey, decided to go without sleep for 200 hours so that he could raise money for the March Of Dimes. After he spent about five days going without sleep, he began to have hallucinations. Several of the hallucinations that he had was that he believed that a tweed suit someone was wearing was made of worms, and that a drawer nearby had flames coming out of it. He did manage to get through his broadcast during the day, but felt that he was in much danger at night. After he reached the 200 hours of going without sleep, he slept a total of 13 hours and felt a whole lot better. After that he got a few nights of extended sleep, then was essentially back to feeling normal, except that he reported various feelings of depression for several months afterwards.

In 1964, Randy Gardner, a high school senior who was 17 years old at the time, tried to establish a new world record of going for 260 hours without sleep as a project for his science fair. After about the fourth day he became extremely irritable yet he retained many of his basic skills. After sleep loss of 230 hours he was still able to hold his own pinball machine with a sleep researcher from the Sleep Disorder Center at Stanford university.

Several experiments at laboratories that have involved sleep deprivation for long periods of time have found that a person’s mood will first deteriorate as joy completely disappears and the person becomes very grim and very sleepy. After several days, most people start to have tiny minisleeps, which are little lapses of attention when the brain goes to sleep for only 5 to 10 seconds but then wakes up immediately afterwards. By about the fifth day, these minisleeps become longer and much more numerous. By the 10th and 11 day, the minisleeps happens so often and are so mixed with wakefulness that the subject can’t tell whether they are awake or sleep. You will talk, and in the metal of having a conversation you’ll have two or three different waves of sleep. You can walk, and for one step to the next you might catch a second of sleep.

During this type of sleep deprivation if you’re given a task to do, such as adding a column of numbers, the minisleeps may occur without you even being aware that they are happening. However, if you’re given a quick paced task (for example, if someone calls out different numbers to you that you have to add) you will probably make very many mistakes, because for the few seconds that you have a minisleep you don’t hear the numbers.

These are just a few of the different types of attempts to understand sleep deprivation. The main thing that sleep researchers have discovered is that, in sleep deprivation such as losing a few hours of sleep a night doesn’t really have much of an affect on a person. However if you go for several days or several weeks with sleep loss it can have an affect on your ability to function on a day to day basis.

Watch the video related to sleep disorder center

origin-www.invisiblechildren.com This is the story of a boy named Innocent who lives in Uganda. He is a Night Commuter who wants the war to be over and to sleep at his own house instead of having to walk an hour and a half every morning and evening to sleep at a center where he will be safe from abduction. Watch this fascinating story and then go check out www.invisiblechildren.com

Help answer the question about sleep disorder center

Do I really have Bipolar disorder or; what's wrong with this picture?
I wrote too much for most to read – but my disease is my life and it's all I have left. It has taken everything I care about and torn it too shreds and it leaves me alone to sit and think about it.

Read this and tell me what you think i need to get better, because God knows I don't know what that is….

I hate thinking about my problems. I've found it a lot easier over the years to just ignore them. Things were always difficult for me… I didn't go to kinder garden and pre school because all I would do was cry and struggle with just being there. I saw "experts" when I was very little – they tried to figure out what was wrong with me; in the end, no one figured it out. Eventually, I got old enough to stop crying (in public) but remained home schooled for all of my childhood. I skipped most of my childhood. I didn't have many friends or activities except for some sports growing up.

So, now I'm 22 and for the last 2 1/2 years I've rarely left my room. I've gained and lost 25 pounds. I've started seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist for the last year (well, therapist for only a few months) and I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

I can recall 1 manic episode in my entire life. Just one. And it just happened a few months ago. It is the only time I've felt good in as long as I can remember. For two weeks I was accelerating. I went faster and faster. I should say I was running 4 miles a day every day and my resting heart rate was decreasing, slowly. But the acceleration changed me. My resting heart rate went from 70 to 80, 90, 100; it peaked at around 117 as an average over several visits to the doctor. By that point I wasn't sleeping at all. 5 straight days without sleep. Most of my 25 pounds that I lost came in thst two week period. In the end, I took lots of Seroquel and now it's down to more human normal numbers.

Now that the mania has ended I've fallen back into despair. I walk past the guns in a walmart and just stare at them. I imagine buying a revolver and going to somewhere beautiful where I can be alone. I think about aiming it at my chest, just off center to the left. I want to end it, but that thought has been with me for a while. It makes me feel better just to imagine it. But I have been a bad person and I tell myself there's nothing better for me on the other side.

I'm trying to paint picture that you can see in this small space so that you can understand what's really wrong with me. Because I don't know what is. But I know it will kill me sooner or later and I'm getting desperate for answers.

I could talk more about my symptoms but I'll just list 3 that stick out.
First, my memory has faded. At it's worst, I don't remember my middle name or birthdate but usually it's just trivial things like where I put a glass of water or my wallet.
Second, I have no libido at all. It's gone along with my need for contact with other people on a personal level.
Third, I don't ever get hungry which would make eating right easy if I didn't (only sometimes) stuff my face with food to distract myself from myself.

From day to day I go between overwhelming anxiety to empty hopelessness. My mind can be overrun with intrusive thoughts that tell me I'm going to fail and that there's nothing to do but end it.

I don't walk around in dark clothes with a worthless frown on my face trying to call attention to my sadness like some do. I do my best to hide my illness. I am so ashamed of myself. I don't like being seen or looking at myself in a mirror. But I've digressed enough…

Tell me something. My original question seems irrelevant now.
If you read this then I'm glad to know there are people who care or are interested.

I forgot to mention I can't sleep without taking heavy doses of Seroquel. Seroquel is pretty potent stuff when it comes to sleep aid.
If I run out of the drug I run out of sleep.

And I lost all of my friends a few years ago. I couldn't maintain relationships.
I really appreciate your support. I can't say that it will inspire me, I hope that it does. I want to read your comments and find a little bit of strength and maybe your comments will energize me a little.

I'll check out those links. Lyrics mean alot to me in music so I'll take a look at Matthew Good. Also, for those that are interested – check out Devotchka's song How It Ends for some cool – could be interpreted as-religious music/lyrics.

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