The Effects of Sleep Depravation

Sleep deprivation is seen to have clear consequences. It is believed that when and individual has been deprived for more than 72hours they inevitably have short periods of micro sleep whilst visually appearing awake. EEG recordings show that microsleep have the same as sleep and have equal benefits despite appearing awake. 

Case Study: Peter Tripp began a charity fundraiser and stayed awake for a total of 201 hours. Three days into the experiment Tripp became extremely unpleasant and abusive, after 5 days he began to hallucinate and witness things such as spiders in his shoes, as the days further progressed he became paranoid and believed that people were drugging his food. Additionally, Tripp showed a dramatic decline in body temperature and began to show equal brain wave patterns that were virtually indistinguishable from those of a sleeping person. When Tripp went to sleep, he slept for a total of 24 hours, later awaking and feeling perfectly normal.