All-Nighters

Monday, August 23rd, 2004

I spent nearly all of last week awake, trying to meet a hellish deadline. I met most of the deadline and got a minor extension on the part that I had only gotten the content for a day earlier.

The thing about sleep dep is it makes everything kind of interesting. My state of awareness goes through peaks and troughs. When I break through a barrier of exhaustion I feel alert and ready to go for a few hours. I feel at the top of my game, and though I’m probably not doing my best work, I feel like I am. I find that I focus the best during periods like these.

Then there are the troughs, where I drift in and out of a state of half-sleep and find myself doing “interesting” things that I hope I catch everytime. Like when I think I am plugging away, copying and pasting text into a French web page making good progress, and suddenly I’m brought to a halt when I find that I don’t really know where to take this bizarre interview with some unknown creature that I realize I have been typing into the middle of the page for what, judging by the length, must have been at least a couple of minutes…

I wish I hadn’t deleted the interview in rage and disgust, I think the mystery creature had some very interesting things to say, but I can’t remember what they were.

By UltraBob at 03:28 PM Link to this post here!
2 comment s


  • on August 24th, 2004 04:14 AM The Cook said:

    You’re becoming delirious. Get some sleep boy!

  • on August 25th, 2004 01:35 PM UltraMom said:

    Funny! I have experienced many of those sensations. Do you remember when I used to read to you guys at night? Sometimes I would be so exhausted that just the act of sitting still for a few minutes would make me drowsy. I would be rudely awakened by one of my children shaking me because I was no longer reading the words that were printed in the book, but others of my own invention. That may sound exciting, but though I think I was usually saying real words, I don’t think they necessarily belonged together in the sequence I was putting them in.
    And don’t even get me started about Dad’s “sleep-talking!” Maybe fodder for a future post!
    Hope you’re feeling more rested now. I was just reading an article on the negative affects of sleep deprivation, but I don’t remember making up phantom interviews as being one of them!