Saturday, December 18, 2010

Sleep Deprivation!! ;; New People

Last night, from a little bit before 1:00AM (I think), to 10:30AM, was my first sleep for an estimated 40 hours. Maybe 41. It was.. interesting? I woke up, went to school, got home, awake through the night, next day of school, rested a bit, socialized, slept.

Why you may ask? Well I wouldn't be surprised if several of my friends wouldn't ask why though I'm sure a few of my readers are not my friends so I will tell the world.

Before I get too far, I promised my girlfriend a better title than 'my girlfriend' on my blog. She will now be referred to the alias, Sleeping Beauty. She has a habit of falling asleep, and I'm sure the rest of the name is very self explanatory; though perhaps a bit limiting. Words tend to do that, one word never has the texture to describe everything I wish to say.


First off I have wanted to go to school after not sleeping for a night, and Friday was the last day of school until my two week Winter break. I figured I was not doing anything of importance at school, so I would try for it then.

Also I wanted to play Minecraft. My friend set up a server, and I was four days behind on building, for I had just started that night. I think I have larger constructions than one or two people already. I have not been able to play many video games for a week or two and I'll be honest, I missed it a bit. In my free time, if I was by myself, I wanted to go mine some tunnels or fight large crowds of guards who were angry because I bumped into them but secretly I don't mind because fighting huge crowds and is kind of fun.

At the moment I'm kind of tired again, and I'm sure my body wants to catch up on sleep, so I am going to try to keep this shortish.

--For those who don't care about Minecraft, read a sentence or two and then scroll down until you find the next break.

I'll skip over my first day of school I mentioned, it was not very memorable for I can't remember anything special about it. Around 11:30 I decided I wanted to see if I could get my Minecraft game updated so I could connect to my friends server. I had received details about it two days before but had not had a chance to try it out yet. After two attempts it was good to go and I was online with Asian, Batman, and Gambo (Batman and Gambo are new to my posts, and have not been mentioned before, they are great though Batman's alias may not fit perhaps.. it's good enough for now). I ventured around, and viewed their buildings. I was amazed by Batman's tower, however a bit less amazed at everything when I found out Asian had been giving out items with his moderator abilities. I wished to play the game as legitimately as I could, however when I was offered two diamond shovels and a diamond pick after announcing I was going to cut down a hill (yes, a hill.. a couple thousand brick hill in one sitting. It was great, I have so many pieces of dirt to work with now) I didn't hesitate to say, "oh, just this once." Since then I have not been given any items, except some gold bricks that I was given in mockery. One out of three of them were thrown down into a well.

The first thing I did was found a cleared area by Batman's larger castle and decided the hill beside it was in the way a bit so I took it down piece by piece. From there I planted fort or so trees to be the base of my tree foret. Some time went by before they grew, and in the time I waited I began to dig my cave but details on that will be later. After it grew, I cleared off the tops of the trees, and put ladders into the tops of the trees. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to do so, so I might just try again some time. Plant some more trees, less this time to make for less of a project. There were then torches put on top of the trees to give some light, and some of the dirt I had obtained created a second level where I put some trees on. It isn't that great looking, but the idea was solid.

My cave started as a small house I started to put together, but then I decided I would tunnel with it. In the main room I put a toolbox, because they are useful. The floor is made of planks, the rest is stone and a back wall of cobblestone. To the right of the door is a tunnel that extends into the hill and then drops in two directions. The first drop took me to a small underwater pool. It was not that exciting so the second one tunneled straight down until it hit a cave. The cave was not very exciting but worth a little bit of exploring before discovering it lacked what I was looking for and much room. A second tunnel was made off of this one that descended down exceptionally further. I don't know why I stopped where I did, but I did.

I was no where near cave, but I continued to expand the area I found into a larger and larger room until I found a natural cave with some water in it (this world has a lot of caves with water). This didn't catch my interest so I made a tunnel going into one of the walls and it ran into a huge deposit of redstone, diamond, gold, and coal. I was only after coal in the first place so I didn't have the picks needed to obtain the precious metals. The next night I grabbed them then went to sleep.

This took a few hours, however as I was in the cave I had also began plans on a second large building. I cleared a huge area of forest, cutting the wood out then burning the leaves. The ground was made level with aid of my huge stock pile of dirt, and then trees were planted with cobblestone around the base of each.. just so they looked nice. A wall has been constructed around the trees and I will soon make a ceiling out of glass then build my castle on top of the glass. It may not be taller than Batman's, however it will be larger.

--Minecraft is over

During this, I found three in the morning to be the hardest to be awake. After that around seven and eight in the morning were really difficult to get through. I think this may be because I wake up at that time for school usualy.

I was the first to my bus stop, which was a great surprise for the second person to get there. I usualy get to the bus just as it is leaving, so it was odd being the first individual there.

Upon getting to school a few friends were teaching a couple other friends how to play poker. We played three rounds of Texas Hold'em. I won all the cookies, then left not wanting cookies. Right after leaving I was given a cookie by a friend, who had constructed them for the last day. They were good, definitely brought my blood sugar up for a few minutes. Then I found Sleeping Beauty in the library and sat on the ground beside her (no chairs left) for a minute or two before the bell went.

First class was Hell. I thought I had Math last, but it turned out Math class was first block. I don't remember what we did, I think I spent a large amount of time in that class almost asleep, then realizing I was almost asleep. This caused my body to twitch sometimes, I didn't like it. At the end we were given a few minutes to work, but I didn't want to. I wish the teacher continued speaking so I had to put no more effort into anything more than what I was at the time: pressing buttons into my calculator in case she called on me to answer a question about the example on the board. I don't think I would of gotten it correct.

Second block was great. We watched the new Pixar film, Despicable Me. I didn't like it all that much, but it was decent. I don't think being more awake would of helped me like it more, it just didn't appeal to me all that much. There was on one song that played a few times in it though, I enjoyed that song. My favorite scene in that movie featured a close up of a ping-pong ball, as it was in mid flight and in slow motion. The ball had so much detail, there were little scratches and marks on it making it look so real. I enjoyed it, but then it was gone and soon after that there was a predictable explosion. The explosion was caused by, of course, a large ray gun pulled out of the main character's pocket. The movie as a whole was very predictable, and I could of lived without it I think.

Lunch was a bit slow, but I talked to friends and it ended. I was not all that hungry at the time, which is odd considering I'm usualy starving by then.

Third blocked was taught by the same teacher as second. I had Digital Media second block, by the way. Instead of going to Psychology I found my teacher greeting people as they entered the class. I asked if we were watching the same movie, and he said we were. I asked if I could visit friends in free block, and he said it was okay even before I finished speaking my question I think. On the way to the cafeteria, where I expected to find people, I was intercepted by Asian who had free block then. He was on his way to Katvolver's house, so I joined him along with a few other people.

I was ditched initially, but ran to the house only to find out everyone drove because I hesitated too long to join them. Oh well, I got there. We did chin-ups on his chin up bar, prank called some people, and had some coffee. The coffee was my first caffeine of that awake session, and it was great. After fifty minutes I realized I had to leave to get to last block.

English class was great. I didn't really do all that much work, just took notes. My group won the TGIF, a competition we have every Friday, so we won the class's stuffed bear. It is very soft, and makes for a great pillow. I used it as a pillow, not because I was tired however it was soft.

We are starting to read the book 1984, I'm expected to have the first chapter finished at the end of the two weeks. I hope I don't put it off too long, and I see no reason for me to do so. The book looks great, it has great reviews, the only thing I fear about it is the class work revolving around it. In particular class discussions, which often end up being a big, "uhh, so I don't understand this..." session. I'm afraid not everyone in my class is very illiterate at times, and to make it worse the majority of the students don't do work. I don't understand how they've managed to do so little, I find most of the work easy and almost enjoyable at times. The in-class work is good, and there are some great activities in the class. My favorite would have to be Group Seminars, where a few students who wish to discuss the book sit in the middle of the class and everyone takes notes on what they say. All three times we have done this I have sat in the middle and spoken to everyone, because talking about something is much better than notes. I end up discussing the books we read with a couple people in the class anyways.

At this point I was so hyped up. It was the last class on Friday, not to mention the last day before a large break from school. I was sleep deprived (not that it was noticeable) and had caffeine in my system. I was sitting with my friends, I asked if I could do so because it was the last day. Normally we sit in mostly arranged seating. If you know how to, it is possible to manipulate your seat a bit. When I sit with more than one of my friends I don't get much work done, but I don't care. They're great.

After school I took the bus that went directly to my house, and didn't feel tired. A bit groggy at times, but definitely not tired.

From four until six I was with only Sleeping Beauty, but this time it was my turn to rest. I took a break from life and tried to sleep for a couple hours. Between the presence of someone being close to me, conversation, and the television being on; I was unable to sleep.

Once dinner had been consumed, with little appetite still, we walked tenish blocks to the mall to hang out with friends. It was one of their birthdays, so I decided I would ignore the temptation to continue resting and be social. It was interesting, at times I was tired. For the majority of the time spent out, I wasn't though.

The terrible cold (well.. maybe not terrible. No one liked it) of -5 ish degrees celsius (just an estimate, I never did get to finding out what the actual temperature was) was refreshing but too much. I had been cold most of the day, and even with two hoodies on I was not happy with the temperature most of the time.

I did not realize it at the time, but the only time my sleep deprivation got to me must of been when I was walking with only one other friend, to meet up with the group we left to walk someone home. I saw a tire at the side of the road, but only once I was right beside it. Of Course it startled me. I thought it was a large black dog that was about to jump at me.

Around 72 hours of not sleeping, hallucinations are common. I think this was the closest I got to that, something catching the peripheral of my vision and me mistaking it for something attacking me. It happens to people when they are awake anyways.

At eleven I grabbed a ride with a friend and was dropped off a block away from my house. At this point, I was not tired at all. I was awake, fresh, a bit warmer, and ended up running the block with no difficulty.

Once I was settled in my house I began to slow down, went on Minecraft and talked with a couple people on Asian's server. I obtained the minerals I wanted, but at that time I was so tired it was ridiculous. I fell asleep within ten or twenty minutes.

Would I do this again? Yes, definitely. I want to be able to say I've been awake for a solid 48 hours. I think I will do this some time over the break; maybe for New years. This will reset my sleeping pattern maybe, so I will be waking up at the correct time the for school.

Sleep deprivation is an odd occurrence. There are so many studies on sleep, so much to know about sleep. I have read a fair amount around the topic and I would say I am relatively knowledgeable in it. What happens to you when you're sleep deprived? I notice a few things are different;

What I am thinking about is fairly straight forward. My thoughts feel less.. crowded? It is as if there is less static in my mind, or atleast my thoughts are more vivid. My vision may do this, but not always. My hearing often will become more sharp. It is very similar to something I described in my Vipassana post.

My body tends to feel week, but not always drowsy. It is as if my muscles are putting less effort into many activities. If I wanted to lift something that I normally could, there would be no more more less difficulty in doing so, but walking feels a bit different. I feel light, yet not enough to make it easy to walk. I'm not sure how to describe this.

As for the hallucinations that many people talk about when sleep depravation comes up in conversation, I have already explaned the closest I was to that. It may of not been anything close to a halusination really.

Before I posted this I did some reading. Here's some links:
Wikipedia Article
Discussion around not sleeping
Another discussion
'nother discussion. Same topic.

^__^Bugworlds--

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