The Zombie

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The Zombie

                A couple weeks ago, between a Monday and a Tuesday, I stayed up until three o’ clock in the morning writing four essays for my AP U.S. History class which were due on the Tuesday.  I got them done, but this started my course of sleep deprivation which continued through last week.  That night was when I got totally thrown off, and for the next three or four days, I was only able to get five or six hours of sleep each night, and felt like a total zombie during the day.  I skipped classes and went home at lunch a couple times just to take a nap.  I have not gotten enough sleep and felt quite tired many times before, but I believe this was the first time that my serious lack of sleep had started to degrade my health.

                In addition to all the common symptoms of tiredness, such as drowsiness, slowed reactions, irritation and physical fatigue, I went into a considerable depression and started to see things that weren’t really there.  For the first four to five hours after waking up in the morning, I was literally fighting to stay awake, let alone concentrate normally in school.  I started having severe mood swings that caused my parents to start forcing me to skip classes to come home to sleep.  Also, in AP Psychology, we also happened to be learning about sleeping and sleep debt, which I was accumulating a lot of, and I was regrettably informed that the brain hangs on to this ‘sleep debt’ for at least two weeks, negatively affecting the body and mind in numerous ways.

                Now, on the Sunday almost two weeks after the Monday-Tuesday marathon, I think I am finally feeling better, but as I didn’t go to sleep until 1:30 or two o’ clock last night due to a marching band competition, I still don’t think I am very close to one hundred percent.  Until this recent stretch, I haven’t really taken sleep loss seriously, but now that I can see its effects very clearly, I will probably avoid it at all costs in the future.  I don’t think I’m going to forget anytime soon the terrible feeling that goes along with it, not to mention the strange dreams, random sounds, and the humans and animals that aren’t really there when you try to talk to or touch them.