Medicine: The Dangers of Sleeplessness

During the quietest hours one night at Salt Lake County General Hospital, a University of Utah medical student noticed that the floor tiles seemed to be pulsating and growing alternately lighter and darker. A colleague saw the head of a grey-haired woman sticking out of the doorway of an all-male ward. A third saw smoke coming from the linoleum floor, and as he watched, it turned into a fine spray of water. Another saw a roll of luminous chicken wire on the floor, but it disappeared as he walked through it. Several heard voices from afar.

Although they were in a psychiatric ward, there was nothing wrong with the students except that they had gone without sleep for as long as 72 hours. They were volunteer subjects in a study (one of several under way in various medical centers) to assess the effects of sleep loss on a man's mind and body.

Psychiatrists Eugene L. Bliss and Lincoln D. Clark began the study for several reasons: 1) it is important for military men to know the limits of human endurance; 2) although the personality-destroying effects of sleep deprivation have long been known to inquisitors in police states (and lately used by Communists in brainwashing), they have been little studied by psychiatrists; 3) in a few cases, at least, the onset of schizophrenia is marked by insomnia so severe that it may be a precipitating factor.

Darkest Before Dawn. The doctors lured the student volunteers with a graduated pay scale: $20 for staying awake the first 24 hours, $25 for the second and $30 for the third day. Unlike the victims of secret police, the students were subjected to no emotional stress, could pass the time as they pleased—reading, listening to the radio, playing games, talking. Relays of monitors watched them throughout the 72 hours, ready to nudge any who dozed. Remarkably, none did.

At 2 a.m., on the first and third day, the doctors gave the students a modified Rorschach (ink blot) test designed to spot psychotic symptoms. All passed. Early on the third day they also gave a complex, 45-minute comprehension test. Although by this time all the students had had illusions and "waking dreams," were glassy-eyed with fatigue, they collected their addled senses well enough to solve the test problems.

Each day, they reported later, the toughest hours to get through were in the dark of the morning toward 6 o'clock. About 9 a.m., when they would be most wide awake on a normal routine, they snapped out of their stupor to some extent. Most of the students went through spells of laughing for no reason. One was "happy and silly" for 45 hours, then became so depressed that the slightest irritation provoked violent argument. They forgot each other's names or substituted one name for another.

First to Break. To a second group of students Drs. Bliss and Clark gave minute doses of LSD-25, a drug known to produce schizophrenia-like symptoms. When the subjects were rested, it had no effect; after 48 sleepless hours, the same dose brought on severe hallucinations.