101 Hours of Infamy

I feel lucky to have attended a small college. My college was a place where, if you did something extraordinary, people heard about it. And in the fall of my sophomore year in college, I did something extraordinary, and literally for about a year afterward random people came up to me and asked about this feat. A couple of times these were people I had never met before.

That year I lived in a suite setting, which included 6 guys living in 3 bedrooms with a living room and 1 bathroom. For the most part we all got along and hung out together quite a bit. However, I felt my two closest friends in that setting were Nick and Doug, who shared a room, but the three of us did quite a bit together.

In October of 2001, Doug, for some unknown reason, decided that it would be a good idea to try to stay awake for a week straight. Now Doug was the type to not think too much about things and just go straight ahead with his ideas. And while I applauded his resolve, I decided to do some research. So I went online and found stories of people staying awake for long periods of time. What I found basically told me that a person could stay up for about 8-10 days without sleep but somewhere in that range, it could become very detrimental to your health. I also read that going much more than that could lead to death, though that may have just been theory.

Well, Doug was not worried and he went on for almost 3 days without sleeping. He actually made it to 67 hours before he threw in the towel. Of course, immediately upon his waking, we gave him serious trouble for giving in. Instead of just giving up on the idea, we decided to settle for a more reasonable goal, 100 hours. I don't know how I got dragged into this madness other than the fact that I have always liked to have stories to tell. So instead of just Doug trying this, I ended up joining in the quest.

Now, some background on how the quest started. I ran cross country for my college. We had a coach who didn't allow any kind of alcohol consumption during the season. So of course, after the last meet of the season, we all went out and got slammed. Well, this is just what I did that night after our last meet. So I got bad, alcohol-induced sleep and woke up at 12:30 Sunday afternoon. By 1:00, we had decided this was our opportunity, and made it a goal not to sleep until Thursday evening.

So our quest began, with Doug and I spending our time playing Nintendo and watching movies as we stayed awake the first night. Of course, this night was very easy because I was accustomed to staying up until roughly 4:30 am most nights. Unfortunately, Doug had a weak moment and decided to call it quits after only 19 hours, leaving me completely alone. But I'm too stubborn to quit something once I've started so on I went.

The second day was interesting because I had classes to attend, which I knew would get more and more difficult as the week went on. However, nothing of consequence happened in the first 30 or so hours of this quest. The second night was when things began to get interesting.

The nights were the hardest because the body is accustomed to sleeping at some point after dark. Doug decided that the least he could do was stay up nights with me, so he made it a point to keep me occupied. That second night was interesting, as it saw a a couple of themes appear that would define the week. The first was Mountain Dew. While not normally a fan, I knew it would be a key ingredient in the success of this mission. So that first night at roughly 4:00 am, I threw a 20 oz. Mountain Dew into a beer bong and downed it in about 6 seconds. Soon after, I had to pee.

We also went on walks in the cold weather. It was a cool early November in Louisville, with the overnight lows dipping into the 30's, making it perfect weather for a rejuvenating walk. It also helped me to discover showering as a key tool to staying awake. I began to shower about 6 times/day, literally, as I knew I would never fall asleep while in the shower.

One thing that was awesome about this whole experience was the fact that I ate a good breakfast every morning, because at 7:30 when our food service on campus opened, I had nothing better to do but eat. So each morning, for the first time all year, I had a well-rounded breakfast before classes started.

Tuesday was the turning point in this whole experience. This was the first day I began to hallucinate. Now many people don't believe me when I describe this, but I swear it happened. The first time I noticed anything out of the ordinary was sitting in my Tuesday morning class with one of my suite-mates who knew exactly what was going on. I kept looking at the ceiling, and when he asked what I was looking at, I pointed at all the spider webs on the ceiling. He just looked at me and said, "Come with me after class." After class he led me over to our campus coffee-shop and bought me a shot of espresso, which got me through the rest of my classes.

Other hallucinations included seeing bugs crawling all over every carpeted floor I stared at for about 3 seconds, and seeing an X-Men poster start moving. Most notably, Wolverine looked me straight in the eyes and shrugged at me. To this day, I don't know what he was shrugging about.

The third night was by far the hardest, because Doug, that pansy, decided to sleep the entire night. Fortunately, my friend Stu had a project to work on all night, and my cousin back in St. Louis had learned of my mission and was sending me random emails all the time. Of course, it didn't make passing time any easier. So me, genius that I was, decided to try doing homework. To this day, I wish I had saved the essay I tried to write, because it made absolutely no sense. All I remember is it was a History essay, and I remember writing something about a boy playing his clarinet in the sand. I had an entire paragraph written before I realized I was writing nonsense. Unfortunately my mind was so shot by then that I didn't save it...what a shame, as it was probably some of the most interesting writing I've ever done.

Wednesday was actually fairly uneventful, other than the fact that I found myself incapable of watching TV, as I was in danger of dozing off at any given moment. I think I finally decided to skip a class this day, because I could not focus on anything. More hallucinations and showers were the story of the day, but my friends were fully behind, especially when I surpassed Doug's 67 hour mark.

The final night consisted of lots of Mountain Dew and NES, because I was doing everything I could to keep my mind occupied at this point, and having to focus on a NES game was about all I could do. Fortunately, Nick, Doug, and I were engulfed in a mission to win the Super Bowl in Tecmo Super bowl with every team in the game, playing full seasons, so we were playing NES with a purpose.

Thursday morning dawned full of promise as the day I would finally achieve this fantastic feat. However, I still had to make it until 4:30 that afternoon, so I was by no means out of the woods. One of my favorite parts of this entire story came at 9:30 that morning, when I had a scheduled presentation to give in my class. This is the same class that, on Tuesday, I had been pointing out spider webs in the ceilings. By some serious miracle and help from the rest of my group, I made it through this presentation. Of course, about 80% of the class realized I was SEVERELY sleep-deprived so they were waiting for me to pass out, but I made it.

Amazingly, I completely missed 4:30 that afternoon. I was quietly eating dinner with a friend of mine when I looked at the clock, turned to her, and just shrugged and said, "I just passed 100 hours." When the meal was over, all I wanted to do was go to bed, but by the time I got back to the dorms it was 5:00 and I saw no reason NOT to stay up until 5:30 and make it 101 hours. So I did just that, and finally at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 8, 2001 I went to sleep.

I slept for roughly 19 hours straight after that, waking up once to use the restroom, at about the 12 hour mark. But I woke up just after noon on Friday, obviously having skipped my morning classes, but feeling like I had accomplished something seriously unique. And actually, I'm as proud of that 19 hours as I am about the 101, because it makes the story that much better that I slept for almost a full day afterward. How many people can say that. So the final tally: 4 days, 5 hours stayed awake, 4 breakfasts eaten, roughly 22 showers taken, 19 hours of sleep afterward. And a lifetime of memories.