Day 1.
I never liked 4 AM. It is an hour that doesn't really exist. It is the oddest of times. The only people who EVER experience 4 AM are insomniacs. I wouldn't suggest staying up to experience it. Even if you stay up all night, you skip from 3:59 straight to 5:00. I'm not even kidding. You won't recall 4:00. The first night, nobody ever notices. They get wrapped up in fatigue.
Day 2
I also never liked infomercials. They are scientifically designed for insomniacs. During a state of sleep deprivation, the Freudian construct known as the Ego becomes weakened, and the brain has to rely on the primal Id. Late night infomercials play on this. They sell to insomniacs. Why the hell would I ever need a rotisery potatoe peeler? I hate potatoes. I payed $40 for a product I will never use.
Day 3
4 AM. I just saw it. It was on the clock for a second. As soon as you start to see the illusionary time on your clocks, you know you have a problem. You know you should start smoking, start drinking, start jerking off. Anything to get a chemical release of tryptophan or melatonin or dramamine. At this moment, you will either fall asleep, or you won't be able to. Day 3 is the hump. If you can sleep after Day 3 your ok.
I'm never "Ok".
Day 4
Fatigue becomes as constant as contentment. During everyday life, people are content. They go from this neutral level of pleasure. When a person is content, they are happy enough to not want to change their situation. It is the mellowing out point and the standard for all other degrees of emotion. At Day 4, fatigue becomes the standard. You either get a little energized, or get really sleepy. Otherwise, your exhausted.
Day 5
Every muscle starts to hurt. It is essential to start eating a lot of sugar. Glucose is what the brain uses to function, and it is usually turned into chaloric energy and stored in fatty tissue while we sleep. So when we don't sleep, we need extra glucose. Sweetened cereal is the only thing you eat after Day 5. You have no appetite for anything else.
Day 6
This is when it gets really bad. You start t- ugh. You know exactly what comes next in that sentance, but you don't know what happened for the last 5 hours. You start to blackout. Thats what comes next. -o blackout. It feels like being awoken abruptly, but without any feeling of rest. It's like the last 5 hours of your life just disappeared. You have to sit down. This has happened to you before. This isn't your first bought of insomnia. That is the worst part. You know what comes next. You know how much worse it is going to get.
Day 8
Fuck. Day 8. Already you have lost an entire day. You went into your room on Wednesday and came out on Friday. Order is missing and chaos rules supreme. Somebody speaks to you, but you don't even hear them until hours have passed, and by then, you've already answered them, finished the conversation, spoken shit about them behind their back and insulted them without knowing it. The blackouts become seemless. Nothing makes sense anymore. You have given up on making sense of it. This is just the beginning.
Day 9-12ish
It is unbearable. Everything seems to hurt you. And at the same time, you can't really feel any of it. This is the worst feeling ever. This is the only time you ever wish you could feel the pain your in. It is so much more pleasant to feel the intense pain you are in than to be numb. You don't even control yourself anymore. You act as you might act, but you aren't doing it. You watch from somewhere far away. You watch yourself fumble about your world. You watch your ragdoll body fall over itself. You watch and you watch and you watch and you watch...
Day...who knows.
You couldn't begin to describe the feeling. Fractured. That is the closest you can come to. Everything is broken apart. You could try to explain it, but they will never really get the feeling. And you are sincerely happy they don't know what it feels like. It is so bad, you would never wish it upon anyone.
You no longer have any grip on reallity when you reach the third week. You don't even really exist anymore. Not consciously. Your conscious self has become so repressed that it goes into a coma. The worst part is that when you do sleep for the first night in nearly a month, you don't become refreshed at all. The next morning is the most painful feeling ever. Aerobic acid is pumped back to life into the muscles and ever bit of movement that you have done suddenly surges forward.
I have only had this experience once. It is humbling and frightening. And the pain caused from the first night of slumber is enough to make you want to stay awake for ever. But being awake so long kills you. It seriously felt like I was crushed somewhere inside my own head. Like I no longer knew what was going on with my body. I had no control over it. My self...my conscious. My personality and my very being almost died. Thank god for all the drugs, booze and masturbation during day three because I won't ever let that happen again.
I never liked 4 AM. It is an hour that doesn't really exist. It is the oddest of times. The only people who EVER experience 4 AM are insomniacs. I wouldn't suggest staying up to experience it. Even if you stay up all night, you skip from 3:59 straight to 5:00. I'm not even kidding. You won't recall 4:00. The first night, nobody ever notices. They get wrapped up in fatigue.
Day 2
I also never liked infomercials. They are scientifically designed for insomniacs. During a state of sleep deprivation, the Freudian construct known as the Ego becomes weakened, and the brain has to rely on the primal Id. Late night infomercials play on this. They sell to insomniacs. Why the hell would I ever need a rotisery potatoe peeler? I hate potatoes. I payed $40 for a product I will never use.
Day 3
4 AM. I just saw it. It was on the clock for a second. As soon as you start to see the illusionary time on your clocks, you know you have a problem. You know you should start smoking, start drinking, start jerking off. Anything to get a chemical release of tryptophan or melatonin or dramamine. At this moment, you will either fall asleep, or you won't be able to. Day 3 is the hump. If you can sleep after Day 3 your ok.
I'm never "Ok".
Day 4
Fatigue becomes as constant as contentment. During everyday life, people are content. They go from this neutral level of pleasure. When a person is content, they are happy enough to not want to change their situation. It is the mellowing out point and the standard for all other degrees of emotion. At Day 4, fatigue becomes the standard. You either get a little energized, or get really sleepy. Otherwise, your exhausted.
Day 5
Every muscle starts to hurt. It is essential to start eating a lot of sugar. Glucose is what the brain uses to function, and it is usually turned into chaloric energy and stored in fatty tissue while we sleep. So when we don't sleep, we need extra glucose. Sweetened cereal is the only thing you eat after Day 5. You have no appetite for anything else.
Day 6
This is when it gets really bad. You start t- ugh. You know exactly what comes next in that sentance, but you don't know what happened for the last 5 hours. You start to blackout. Thats what comes next. -o blackout. It feels like being awoken abruptly, but without any feeling of rest. It's like the last 5 hours of your life just disappeared. You have to sit down. This has happened to you before. This isn't your first bought of insomnia. That is the worst part. You know what comes next. You know how much worse it is going to get.
Day 8
Fuck. Day 8. Already you have lost an entire day. You went into your room on Wednesday and came out on Friday. Order is missing and chaos rules supreme. Somebody speaks to you, but you don't even hear them until hours have passed, and by then, you've already answered them, finished the conversation, spoken shit about them behind their back and insulted them without knowing it. The blackouts become seemless. Nothing makes sense anymore. You have given up on making sense of it. This is just the beginning.
Day 9-12ish
It is unbearable. Everything seems to hurt you. And at the same time, you can't really feel any of it. This is the worst feeling ever. This is the only time you ever wish you could feel the pain your in. It is so much more pleasant to feel the intense pain you are in than to be numb. You don't even control yourself anymore. You act as you might act, but you aren't doing it. You watch from somewhere far away. You watch yourself fumble about your world. You watch your ragdoll body fall over itself. You watch and you watch and you watch and you watch...
Day...who knows.
You couldn't begin to describe the feeling. Fractured. That is the closest you can come to. Everything is broken apart. You could try to explain it, but they will never really get the feeling. And you are sincerely happy they don't know what it feels like. It is so bad, you would never wish it upon anyone.
You no longer have any grip on reallity when you reach the third week. You don't even really exist anymore. Not consciously. Your conscious self has become so repressed that it goes into a coma. The worst part is that when you do sleep for the first night in nearly a month, you don't become refreshed at all. The next morning is the most painful feeling ever. Aerobic acid is pumped back to life into the muscles and ever bit of movement that you have done suddenly surges forward.
I have only had this experience once. It is humbling and frightening. And the pain caused from the first night of slumber is enough to make you want to stay awake for ever. But being awake so long kills you. It seriously felt like I was crushed somewhere inside my own head. Like I no longer knew what was going on with my body. I had no control over it. My self...my conscious. My personality and my very being almost died. Thank god for all the drugs, booze and masturbation during day three because I won't ever let that happen again.