Sleep in Tatters
I have to admit, my recent experiments with sleep deprivation have left my sleep system in shambles. These experiments involved staying awake for as long as 48 hours, followed by 12 hours or so of sleep, and then repeating the cycle with shorter wakeful periods of around 30 hours. Combine this with my frequent phone and computer use late at night and a deep-seated belief that sleep was a “waste of time”—as if staying awake constantly would let me “do more stuff”—and you can imagine the state of my inner sleep cycles as of now.
Observations From Sleep Deprivation
For your own curiosity, here are some of the effects I’ve experienced during these experiments:
Cognitive Impairment:
My brain became, quite literally, dumb. I found myself doing things like turning off a light in an already lit room, thinking I was “turning it on.” This was pure automatic behavior—no logic in it at all.
Energy Conservation:
My brain and body switched to what I call “safe energy mode.” After about 40 hours awake, I barely moved or spoke. On another occasion, after 30 hours, I experienced the opposite: endless talking about anything and everything. Surprisingly, even in this energy-saving state, I had a lot of energy. It’s astonishing how much the body and mind can endure when pushed to their limits—well, half-limits, as I’d describe them. I’m unwilling to literally risk my life by attempting extreme levels of deprivation, like four or five days without sleep. I once tried fasting for five days with no food and had to stop on day four. Something felt deeply wrong, and I had to eat immediately. My brain’s ability to think was severely impaired by then too, making the experience even more interesting.
Social Disconnection:
Sleep deprivation rendered me incapable of reading social cues. I missed important signals, became ignorant of other people’s feelings, and lost touch with their moods.
Time Distortion:
After more than 24 hours without sleep, the concept of “days” lost all meaning. Time became a single, continuous stretch. I couldn’t differentiate between the first, second, or third day of being awake. The weekdays blurred together, leaving me completely clueless about what day it was without checking a schedule.
Why Do This?
You might wonder why I put myself through these experiments. The answer is simple: science! Nah, just kidding, well… not entirely. I wanted to find out and understand what happens to my mind and body when I don’t sleep—seeing for myself what changes occur. I also wanted to explore the potential of conditioning the brain and reshaping my personality under such conditions. If I haven’t already mentioned before, one of my major goals and challenges is to recreate myself—a new version of someone else, like being born again, but with carefully selected memories and a consciously shaped identity.
The Turning Point
Thankfully, due to my recent non-sleep experiments, I’ve now reached a point where my subtle yet deep disregard for sleep is no longer valid. The consequences of my erratic schedule have become too obvious for me to ignore. Having now completely dismantled the deep yet very subtle belief system that sleep is a waste of time, and with the help of a new gadget I bought from Amazon, I’m ready to reset my sleep system anew.
The gadget? A large, metal time-lock box. Once I lock it, I can’t open it until the timer runs out. The only way to bypass it would involve contacting the manufacturer for a special override code—something I have no intention of doing, ever. This level of restriction is precisely what I need. My brain, clever as it may be, can’t outsmart the box. It simply accepts that the phone is locked, end of story.
My New Sleep Plan
Now, I go to bed at 6 PM and wake up between 3 and 4 AM. At 6 PM, I lock away my phone, computer, and laptop mouse in the time-lock box for at least nine hours. With no screens to distract me, I have no choice but to sleep.
If I can’t go to bed at exactly 6 PM—for example, if I’m tied up with a commitment or a contract which requires me to be somewhere past that time—I still aim for the earliest possible time, no later than 10 PM. Nothing short of an emergency will prevent me from sticking to this schedule.
The First Night?
The first night of this system wasn’t easy. My biological clock— assuming it truly exists and isn’t just a widely accepted theory we’ve all collectively mistaken as fact—is completely messed up after my recent experiments and the unhealthy habits I’ve allowed to develop over the past two months. After about three hours of sleep, I woke up to the sounds of my flatmates. That’s not surprising, considering 6 PM is an unusually early bedtime. People are still active during those hours.
I stayed awake briefly to use the bathroom and then lay in bed for hours. I had to stay there under my sheets until 3 AM, asleep or awake. Thankfully, my solar-powered watch glows just enough at night to show the time. So I waited.
This is how I’m retraining my body and mind: a strict schedule with a specific bedtime—6 PM whenever possible—and a natural wake-up time in the early morning.
Sleep Matters to Me, Now
I’ve done this before, a few years ago, for a week. Back then, I noticed how much energy I had and how sharp my vision became. I was forced to do it again a few months ago when I had a packed schedule, filled with tasks from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed, a schedule which included learning HTML and CSS among others.
It’s something I’ve heard a million times, but this time, I truly felt the sheer slap of its consequences. Without proper sleep, I just can’t function optimally. And for someone like me, with countless plans, projects, and skills to develop, functioning optimally is non-negotiable and downright unthinkable.
Now, I see sleep as the unquestionable foundation of everything I want to achieve. Without it, my plans fall apart due to my own undoing, and I can’t let this happen anymore. My sleep schedule, along with my trusty time-lock box, has become an undisputed pillar of my life. Ironically, I once fantasized about eliminating sleep entirely. However, I won’t say ignorance is inherently bad, as in this case, it led me to a deeper understanding of the importance of my sleep.
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