Delirium anyone?

Well, another weekend rolls around, and Raider and I've decided to do it straight once again. For some reason we seem to party far harder straight (nothing but alcohol/cigs) than ever on chemicals, so this one was fairly protracted. We went out to a techno club Thursday night, came home and slept for maybe 2hrs before being forced to rise to face the day and complete a number of mundane Friday activities. Went out again Friday night to cage/billboards, and came home about 9am. Intended to sleep but the soft mellow trance that was playing while we had a couple of beers to unwind somehow over the next couple of hours became max volume banging minimal techno over half a slab and a bottle of bourbon. So, no sleep for us. Went out again Saturday nite to various parties and returned home Sunday morning, just in time for me to have to leave home for another day of prior committments.
The interesting part of this was that as time progressed, I noticed my concentration being affected by distractions in my vision.
Total time awake from Thursday morning to Sunday night was about 80 hours. The interesting aspect of this was that aside from a couple of hours of feeling sleepy whilst watching Fight Club on Sun morning around about 3am, I didn't really feel tired throughout the whole time. Late Saturday night, I began noticing that I was mistaking common objects at the periphery of my vision for things that would surprise me, and make me double-check quickly. Small reflections of light and light coloured objects would really distract my attention quickly. By Sunday am, driving home I continually began to see phantom objects flash across the road before the car, startling me, and often causing me to brake hard before realising there was not really anything there. Most often I imagined seeing fast-moving animals in the path of the car, ie. I thought a fox ran across the road, so I braked to avoid it, but realised after braking that the fox was never there. I'm guessing this was my brain somehow trying to shock me into staying awake while I was driving. Later in the day Sunday, I began seeing imagined wisps of smoke, as if someone was smoking nearby. Initially I thought this was my contact lenses irritating my eyes after wearing them for an extended length of time, but after removing them, the visions persisted. As the day progressed, the smoke became more real in appearance, and I often saw wisps of smoke appearing from under doorways, and objects, as it something was smouldering inside.
This was quite disturbing on many occasions and gave me cause to think that sleep deprivation visuals are quite spooky. I guess these little visual games went on for about 15 hours, though they were most noticeable when I was not particularly concentrating on any one object in my field of view. I eventually decided that enough was enough and it was bedtime (heh *boom* I never went to sleep so quick before in my life). Does anyone else have any experience of non-chemically induced visuals, or extended periods of lacking sleep?
BigTrancer
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Anyone remember where I lost it?

there was a study done into sleep deprivation comparing it to blood alcohol contents and I can't remember the figures at the moment but it's something like after 12 hour working you're equivalent to some one with .05% B.A.C. and it goes up on a non-linear scale.
I'll find the figures and post them later.
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Simba

Yep BT, i'm another one who has a terrible track record for depriving myself of sleep.
I've never seen stuff like a fox running across the road but i never get behind the wheel while dead tired. Only when i'm wide awake. (mind you, that includes flying high on e's, t's or whiz, eh.)
But yeah, sometimes around the house when its dark i've thought i've seen a dark figure moving in my peripheral vision.
I usualy see heaps of distortions, similar to acid.
My balance goes off too. One time i was having a drink and i was standing in a room holding it (i could've sworn i was standing properly) but it wasn't until a friend told me that i was pouring the drink all over the floor. hmmm....
i watched it for a few seconds and then thought, "oh yeah, i shouldn't be doing that" and stopped it.
When i'm REALLY tired, i slow right down! my vision goes and my sense of humour becomes realy warped. I'd laugh at anything and come up with the weirdest shit to say.
when i'm in that state, i like to think of myself as eccentric, eh.

hey orion, hate to disillusion u, but as i (very) hazily recall thru a shroud of extreme inebreation, i think u were spilling the drink cos u were really drunk!!
and yeah, a warning to everyone, he does talk absolute SHite when tired (sorry but it's true)
BUT, back to the topic, yep i do get tired visuals....like walking across swanston street at uni dodging invisible traffic (and no i wasn't coming back from the pub).....and seeing stuff dancing in the corner of my eyes when doing photocoying after pulling an all-niter to do uni work
welcome to the crazy world of sleep deprived civil engineering....

this week i had the horrible experience of hearing/seeing a good friend and workmate, fall 15 meteres and shatter his leg in 10 places... after having worked 27 hours and losing his concentration at the top if a ladder...
my industry insists on a ten hour break between shifts.... sometimes it gets ignored... and this time it almost killed my friend.... but part of me is pissed at him for being such an idiot.... lack of sleep is a risk like any other.... and sometimes it really isnt worth it....
very sad and depressed johnboy signing off.....

JB, my deepest sympathies go out to your friend, I hope that he recovers quickly. This is a tragic occurrence, and one that I can easily see happening in cases of sleep deprivation.
I am fully aware of the risks I took in sleeping for so little of last weekend, and looking back on it now, it scares me a little. I think that the risks taken when suffering from lack of sleep are perhaps even more insidious than those undertaken when dosing with unknown chemicals. The reason for this is that we talk ourselves into attempting to function normally while our body is operating at a reduced capacity for concentration and attention. We kid ourselves with reasoning like "nah I'll be right to drive, I haven't had a drop to drink" or "no worries, I've had heaps of coffee it's fine", and that gives us a false sense of security and we attempt to carry out our normal tasks and somehow expect our body to keep up the same levels of concentration as if we had a full night's sleep.
However, that being said, I'm still very interested to know of anyone else's experiences with sleep deprivation induced visual images. I was wondering if anyone saw things similar to what I did, if they were created by the brain to scare them into wakefulness by making your heart pump and adrenaline release from the shock.
BigTrancer.

towards the end of my weekends of playing(usually sunday, usually starts thursday or friday), i start to see things. these r not full-on visuals but subtle yet notticeable stuff. like "rain/snow" running down walls constantly. any flat surface will be like this. looks like moving wallpaper...
a fren of mine saw pretty full-on things when we didnt sleep fer 4 days. he saw ciggy butts crawling around like worms, saw the sprinkler on the ceiling spinning etc. n we didnt take any trips fer dat matter.
>'.'<
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~littleHKlaserTriPPeR~

tommorrow i'll write sometthing about the sleep deprivation and hallucinations i had when i was in the army.....

hey johnboy..get your friend some 'comfrey' should be able to get it from a health food store, used to be known in the old days as 'knit bone'...may help him.
sleep deprivation visuals...hmmm...i always think it's just your eyes telling you they are really really strained...and just need to close!