Sleep Deprivation

Sleep deprivation is a lack of sleep that is needed to function normally. It can be caused by working night shifts, traveling through multiple time zones, sleep disorders like insomnia, stress, depression, the menopause, scientific study, or interrogation and torture.

However, the main cause is at the root of our busy modern society: we just don't have enough time to get everything done.

American businesses lose $100 billion in lost productivity each year. Worse, tired workers are thought to be responsible for major disasters ranging from the giant oil spillage of the Exxon Valdez to the nuclear meltdowns of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

In the realm of science, staying awake for lengthy periods of time is useful for sleep experiments. Scientists can learn a lot by looking at a person's change in behavior, as they encounter confusion, hallucinations and micro sleep.

If you've never gone for more than 24 hours without sleep, you won't be familiar with the effects of long term sleep loss. But sufferers of insomnia will tell you: it is definitely not a pleasant experience.

Effects of Sleep Deprivation

The physical effects of sleep deprivation include:

Recent studies also show a link between sleep deprivation and obesity. People who are deprived of sleep find it harder to break down sugar, increasing the risk of diabetes and obesity in the long term.

Interestingly, when they finally manage to sleep, insomniacs are more likely to have lucid dreams. Perhaps this is because the normal sleep cycles are thrown out of balance and conscious dreams are more easily triggered.

Needless to say, the physical effects of sleep deprivation are wide-ranging and severe. In fact, if you go for long enough without any sleep, the result can be deadly. This is the case for sufferers of Fatal Familial Insomnia.

Fatal Familial Insomnia

Shortly after his 40th birthday in 1991, Michael Corke, a music teacher from Chicago, began having trouble sleeping. Over time, his insomnia grew worse and his health deteriorated. Eventually he couldn't sleep at all.

Doctors were baffled by Michael's condition. He was mentally and physically exhausted and just wanted to fall asleep. But he couldn't. Sleeping pills would only make his symptoms worse.

Eventually, Michael was taken into hospital and diagnosed with Fatal Familial Insomnia. He died after six months of total sleeplessness.

Fatal Familial Insomnia, or FFI, is one of the rare genetic sleep disorders. It is so unusual, it only affects about 40 families around the world today.

It is caused by mutated proteins - known as prions - eating away the thalamus region of the brain. The thalamus is responsible for regulating sleep, as well as other sensory and motor systems. Once FFI is established, the sufferer simply can't lose consciousness.

Until the disease was classified just 10 years ago, families with a history of Fatal Familial Insomnia lived in fear that one day they would show the initial signs of FFI. These include sleeplessness and a stiff neck (holding the head at a strange angle). To make matters worse, the symptoms usually don't show until after the child-bearing years are over, so parents could pass on the defective gene without realizing.

Because the FFI sleep disorder is genetic, if the parent carries the FFI gene, the child has a 50% chance of being affected. There is a test available to diagnose the disease but you have to wonder - would you really want to know? Sufferers of FFI face a slow and cruel death.

Fatal Familial Insomnia manifests in four stages:

	The onset of insomnia causes panic attacks and unfounded phobias, lasting for four months.
	The panic attacks and hallucinations become severe, lasting for five months.
	The total insomnia causes rapid weight loss and limited mental functioning, lasting for three months.
	The patient suffers from dementia and unresponsiveness, lasting for six months. They will eventually die.

There is no known cure for Fatal Familial Insomnia. However, it is hoped that one day, gene therapy will offer a solution.

There is a fascinating book by D T Max titled The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery. It covers a detailed history of FFI and other prion diseases like BSE (Mad Cow disease) in the UK in the 1990s, and Kuru (the laughing disease) in a cannibalistic tribe in New Guinea.

Sleep Deprivation Studies

Scientists use sleep deprivation studies to isolate the functions of sleep. By looking at how our minds and bodies are impaired after little or no sleep, we can see exactly why sleep is vital to us all.

The most famous sleep deprivation studies involve attempts to break the Guinness World Record. In these experiments, volunteers went for many days and nights without any sleep at all. They allowed researchers to monitor them to see the mental and physical effects of sleep deprivation. Here are two of the more prominent world records:

Peter Tripp - 201 Hours (1959)

The New York DJ, Peter Tripp, set a world record for sleep deprivation in 1959. He went for 201 hours (8.4 days) without sleep. He spent most of the time in a glass booth in Times Square, and the rest in a hotel room across the street, set up as a laboratory.

After three days, Tripp began to find certain things hilarious that weren't funny at all. At other times, he became upset for no reason. He was also confused, asking why there were bolts in the window frames.

By day four, he suffered from hallucinations and paranoia. At first they were simple patterns - like cobwebs on the doctors' faces, or imagining that paint specks on the table were insects. But soon his hallucinations became 3D. Tripp imagined mice and kittens scurrying around the room...

At one stage Tripp became psychotic. He rummaged through draws looking for non-existent money. He accused a technician of trying to harm him. He then claimed he was not Peter Tripp but an imposter.

On reaching his 200-hour target, Tripp was made to stay awake for one final hour while doctors did more tests. They left the EEG in place as he finally closed his bloodshot eyes and entered a deep 13-hour slumber.

He may have been physically restored, but Tripp's family soon noticed a difference in his personality. His wife said he was moody and depressed. He fought with his boss, got involved in the payola scandal, and was fired from his high profile job. He went on to have four divorces. Some would say the stunt changed Peter Tripp forever.

Randy Gardner - 260 Hours (1964)

Randy Gardner beat the world record for sleep deprivation at the age of 17. A typical high school student from California, Gardner stayed awake for 264 hours (11 days) with using any stimulants. His stunt was part of a school science project on sleep patterns.

The effects of sleep deprivation on Randy Gardner included moodiness, problems with concentration and short term memory, paranoia and hallucinations. After four days, he had a delusion that he was a famous American football player winning the Rose Bowl. He also mistook a street sign for a person. On the 11th day, he was asked to subtract seven repeatedly, starting from 100. He stopped when he got to 65... and said he had forgotten what he was doing.

Yet later that day, Randy Gardner held a press conference where he spoke without slurring his words and appeared to be in excellent health.

Gardner slept for nearly 15 hours after his marathon, and returned to a normal sleeping pattern within days. There were no reports of long term personality changes in this case.

Guinness World Records

Tripp and Gardner did the most famous sleep deprivation studies, because they involved rigorous scientific testing. They are the most widely cited examples of sleep deprivation today. However, a few other Guinness World Record attempts are worth mentioning.

• Less than a month after Randy Gardner's feat, Toimi Soini of Finland stayed awake for 276 hours (11.5 days).

• In 1977, Maureen Weston of the UK went without sleep for 449 hours (18.7 days). She began to hallucinate towards the end but reported no lasting effects from her rocking chair marathon.

However, if you are thinking about doing a sleep deprivation stunt of your own - forget it. Guinness World Records no longer recognizes this category because long term sleep deprivation is thought to pose serious risks, both physically and mentally. It could even trigger other sleep disorders.

What's more, sufferers of chronic insomnia could be staying awake for far longer than these record attempts.

What a shame that the UK's Tony Wright didn't know this when he stayed awake for 266 hours in 2007. He believed he was outdoing Randy Gardner, and hadn't even heard of Toimi Soini.

Guinness World Records simply said: "People who attempt records should make sure their research is accurate or they may be very disappointed."

David Blaine: The Sleep Deprivation Stunt

This isn't stopping the controversial illusionist David Blaine, who plans to stay awake for 276 hours (11.5 days) in September 2008. The stunt will happen in New York's Central Park.

In interviews, David Blaine said: "After 36 hours of sleep deprivation it's like being drunk, 72 hours and paranoia sets in. Day Four the mind goes into hallucinations and you're dreaming while awake. The problem is there's no way to know how to offset brain damage or to train for this because there isn't sufficient research. I believe the first guy's [Peter Tripp's] mistake was not being in great physical condition. Also he used stimulants to keep awake, which I assume did him in."

If successful, David Blaine will technically break the last Guinness World Record for sleep deprivation (Toimi Soini) before it was deleted in 1989. But Blaine's stunt will not be recognized as a new record nor will it be unique.

For more research on the mental and physical effects of sleep deprivation, sleep disorders like Fatal Familial Insomnia, and World Record attempts to do with sleep and dreaming, visit lucid dreaming resources.

Sleep Research
History of Sleep
Why Do We sleep?
Sleep Deprivation
Why Do We Dream?
Dream Interpretation