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Subscribe to RSSChronic sleep deprivation – or a severe, short-term lack of Z’s from, say, cramming for exams over two straight nights – can make you silly or sad, slow to react, memory-impaired and more apt to take risks.
But what it rarely does, according to a leading sleep expert, is make you go temporarily insane, as a JetBlue Airways pilot apparently did on a March 27 flight from New York to Las Vegas. After Clayton Osbon had a cockpit meltdown, ranting about religion and terrorists, passengers eventually wrestled him to the cabin floor and a co-pilot safely landed the plane. Osbon was charged with interfering with flight crew instructions.
During the pilot's trial, a psychologist testified that Osbon suffered "a brief psychotic disorder" due to lack of sleep, according to a court transcript obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. A federal judge in Texas agreed with that notion and on July 3 ruled Osbon not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
“But if somebody is going to have a psychotic episode due to sleep deprivation, it’s usually not the first time it’s going to happen, and usually there is a history of depression or other psychiatric illness," said Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based clinical psychologist and a member of the American Board of Sleep Medicine.
Breus has not reviewed Osbon’s case and can only speak, he said, from his experiences with other patients and from existing literature.
“I don’t know about this pilot’s mental health background. But think back to when you were in college. Did you ever pull an all-nighter? I sure did. Last time I checked, people who pull all-nighters don’t go screaming through the hallways screaming bloody murder at the top of their lungs,” Breus said.
At Osbon’s trial, forensic neuropsychologist Robert E.H. Johnson testified that Osbon's disorder lasted roughly one week after his mental break aboard the flight. On the stand, Johnson did not make clear how long Osbon went without sleep. The pilot’s psychiatric evaluation was sealed during the trial, according to the AP. A JetBlue spokeswoman told the AP that Osbon did not fly March 24 or March 25, and worked a round-trip flight March 26, meaning he had 17 hours of down time before his March 27 departure to Las Vegas.
“The deprivation that would probably be required for somebody to have a psychotic episode - if they’ve never had one before - he’s going to had to have been up for a couple of days,” Breus said.
More commonly, especially among emergency room doctors and the parents of newborns, acute sleep deprivation (one or two nights without any sleep) or partial, chronic sleep deprivation (maybe four hours per night over several weeks) can trigger an array of less-frightening symptoms, Breus said.
Depending on how much sleep they are lacking and how long they’ve gone without closing their eyes, people can hallucinate and find things funny that aren’t the least bit comical – also known as being giddy, Breus said.
“Also, your reaction time slows down: you may drive like you might be drunk,” Breus said. “You’re not making decisions the way you should. Data also shows that people take higher risks when sleep deprived.”
He cited cases of gamblers, wagering without much sleep, who disregard high odds and plunk down tall stacks of chips anyway.
“They knew the risks or odds at the table but they didn’t care,” Breus said.
Inappropriate emotional swings also can take root, meaning people laugh more hysterically than they should when watching marginally funny events, or they become more depressed than is necessary when they witness something just a bit sad.
Oddly, in people diagnosed with depression, their mood can actually lighten when they go 24 hours without sleep – and their depression returns after rest, Breus said.
“What happens with sleep deprivation is usually not permanent. It’s usually temporary,” Breus said. “So you’re sleep deprived, you have some weird behaviors, you react slowly, your mood changes. But once you get some sleep, that stuff goes all away. How long has that pilot been in the hospital now?”
Osbon remains at a mental health facility in Fort Worth, the AP reported. He is scheduled for a hearing early next month during which his possible release from that hospital will be examined.
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If you believe this, then I suggest you try 5 or 6 all nighters in a row. I guarantee you will be packed off to the funny farm for a couple of weeks !!! Been there and done that -- it is not pretty.
Right on.This article is just plain false information and MSNBC was grossly irresponsible to let this be printed.
I'm a Registered Nurse. Scads of documented cases exist of people hallucinating, becoming irrational,or a person who has no history of mania going into what looks like a manic state, when they are severely sleep deprived.My brother experienced visual hallucinations when he was serving time in the 101st Airborne and had gone a couple of days with no sleep.Ask any ICU nurse how many cases of "ICU psychosis" they have seen lately.This occurs when a patient goes for a long period spending every night surrounded by noise,some degree of light,and being assessed every hour or so,and becomes severely sleep deprived.
Becoming irrational,hyperactive or hallucinating when a person is sleep deprived is the least of that person's worries though.Being sleep-deprived can make someone prone to catching every infection that they get exposed to, as well as get them killed or cause them to kill someone else in an accident because they were less alert.
Agreed. These doctors are a bunch of quacks. My anxiety has kept me up for several nights now and I am close to cutting people open to see if they are robots inside.
I've had insomnia since high school. I've learned to deal with it but there are days where it feels like i'm going nuts.
So I guess the people who decided sleep deprivation can't make a person insane haven't had twins...lol. We don't have many memories at all of the first year, and frankly when I am exhausted I am mean as a snake and can't stop myself until I get rest. Yes, I think you do tend to adapt a bit, but I remember working night shift in a hospital and being so exhausted in the middle of the night I would have had no clue what I had said or done the night before. I agree, celeyonn. I see what they are saying, but if you are so tired you can't walk straight or make a sentence there is no telling.
That said, I didn't run screaming down halls. I remember being so tired with the twins when they were little that I would just cry (not depressed, but just exhausted) as I cared for them. Sometimes we just go on autopilot, and I have spoken in a sharp voice when I wanted to be left alone sooo badly to sleep, but I didn't start ranting and running down halls. The thing I wonder about is if the guy was off for 17 hours before the flight, why didn't he get at least a few hours sleep?
Twins! Yep, I remember sleep deprivation. I had to call a friend to help me one evening when my husband was still at work and I hadn't slept forever. I think I made it to the couch and pitched onto it and stayed there for an hour (but it seemed like a blink) of sleep. Fortunately, I didn't go insane, although my head felt it would explode, and my friend took care of the girls.
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There are three types of moms: "Oh, I wish I'd had twins!" "I'm glad I never had twins!" and those who laugh.
I think it depends on the source of sleep deprivation.
For example, if it's because you have children and they're keeping you up all night, a colicky baby and a two year old going nutso... yes, Virginia, lack of sleep can cause you to go insane.
Or maybe that's just one of the benefits of being a parent.
Insanity--you inherit it from your children.
That's a good one! :)
I think what's missing is the definition of "insane" here. Yeah, a lack of sleep probably wont have most people running the streets naked. But if someone is under constant stress (say, from an all-nighter type of infant) and then adds to that a lack of sleep....a person isn't going to be all there. I got an all insurance paid trip to our local psychiatric unit when I stopped sleeping. But I also had a baby, undiagnosed post-partum depression, and bipolar disorder. It was a bad, bad combo which led to paranoia.
For the average person though, with no other factors? Perhaps not, although I suspect some are more susceptible then others.
So being sleep-deprived causes judgment, reaction time and decisionmaking skills to suffer? And yet the medical profession still insists on sleep-depriving its student doctors? Can anyone explain this to me?
Simple. Many doctors think they are gods.
@The angry guy; imagine that, and they say that DRUNKS are a menace on the road!!
@The angry guy; imagine that, and they say that DRUNKS are a menace on the road!!
@The Angry Guy; imagine that, and they say that DRUNKS are a menace on the road!!
Sorry about the above...that's what happens when you're sleep deprived! This was an accident!
Missing 1-2 nights of sleep is considered "Acute Sleep Deprivation"? That is what I call a normal week for me...
My longest streak was a whole week of no sleep.... Seven Nights of Laying in bed wide awake.
Dude! That's crazy. For a normal person 1-2 nights of missed sleep is pretty damn bad! I can do one night without sleep, but I am close to being useless the next day. 2 nights... I don't think that would work...
7 nights though... Wow, sorry, that really sucks! Maybe some medication would help...?
Yeah, I have different sleep meds. I try to only take them when needed, as I worry about them losing their effectiveness. As I have gotten older, I now need more sleep. I used to average about 4.5-5 hours a night, but now my sleep habits are totally out of whack. Some nights I'll not sleep at all, sometimes I'll sleep for 12 hours.
QUOTE:“I don’t know about this pilot’s mental health background. But think back to when you were in college. Did you ever pull an all-nighter? I sure did. Last time I checked, people who pull all-nighters don’t go screaming through the hallways screaming bloody murder at the top of their lungs,” Breus said.
****
Dear Dr. Breus: I don't know about you, but I know from personal experience that as you grow older, pulling an "all-nighter" has devastating effects on you even if it's only temporary. And we don't know how long this pilot went without sleep. Just because he had "break periods" doesn't mean he actually slept.
When I was in my 20s I went through a stressful experience that left me without sleep for 8 days. By the 3rd day I was hallucinating.
In my 40s I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, after suffering severe chronic insomnia for several years. Several times I ended up being taken away by the "white coats" for psychiatric treatment.
Two years ago my son-in-law committed suicide after going without sleep for several weeks, despite medication.
Dr. Breus, I myself was treated by a so-called "sleep specialist" like yourself. After doing a week-long sleep diary, which showed that I slept about five hours a night, but never for very long at one time, I was told to force myself to go to bed at 11 p.m. and get up at 4 a.m., using "behavior modification" to push my body to compress my hour here, half hour there, into a single 5-hour sleep-cycle.
You know what happened as a result after 6 weeks of this? I became nearly homicidal from sleep deprivation.
You sleep specialists don't have a clue.
Hi rosaleee, I too have FM, and have had several episodes of sleeplessness.... (See my above comment). I was diagnosed with a sleep disorder called Alpha Intrusion Disorder at a sleep clinic, it is a rare disorder with no cure/treatment and is ONLY seen in people with fibromyalgia. Maybe look into it and see if it sounds like you could have it as well.
Nobody's considered, yet, that our pilot's sleep deprivation and his episode on the plane were both consequences of a beginning psychotic episode. Autobiographies by ex-mental patients frequently count sleeplessness as an early feature of their illnesses (I know it's a sign I'm getting outre, but I didn't want grief from wannabe psych guys or statisticians).
The story may be revealed because our pilot will be in hospital for 6 months, instead of receiving the usual psychiatric treatment of discharge the second the patient is lucid enough to tell the doctor who the President is.
Oh please! Quit the crap. I've been sleep deprived for days on end during field exercises while in the military and all it did was....MAKE ME THAT MUCH MORE SLEEPY.
Well, of course since you're so much better than everyone else you just took it like a man, eh?
I bet you didn't have to do anything nearly as risky and complicated as flying a plane. And, also, being sleep deprived is different when you're 19 years old . . . you let us know how it is when you're all growed up.
I've worked in IT for 17 years. When I started, working 70-hour weeks or being up until 4:00 a.m. was no big deal. You can't bounce back from that @!$%# when you're 40.
So, please, before you judge everyone by your standard of excellence consider that one day, you too will have feet of clay.
I can tell you what is driving us all insane. All these studies.
This is just a "study" with paid-for results to justify longer work hours.
Lack of sleep is a common problem in this country, as we have on the the longest work days.
The leading sleep expert has never gone to Ranger School. We had group hallucinations (of a cocktail party in a house in a swamp) during the height of our training. Maybe you aren't crazy, but you aren't straight in your head either. Then again, if sleep walking at 3AM with guns and night vision equipment ain't crazy, then I don't know what is.
Another of these truly insane "health" studies/stories their sleep-deprived journalist/editor/reporters are mainstreaming amphetamines and caffeine to stay awake and ahead of the competition in the 24/7 world of news -- and reassuring themselves that it has no adverse impacts on their health, thinking and functioning -- that belies everything we experience to be true in the real world.
I was told that masturbating will also drive you insane many years ago. Is it true?
Hey Tigerwould! No. I ws never told that masturbating would drive me insane many years ago. I was told many years ago that masturbating would drive me insane. So, I guess I'm insane! And lovin' it!
Brett!Ranger School, US Army. Sleep dreprivation is necessary training. Spent time in combat like Vietnam?Many sleepless nights, days, weeks. No babies to care for, just CYOA!No caffeine, no amphetimines, just pure gut reaction to everything going on all around you. 24/7.
VietNam. 1966. 173rd Airborne Brigade. Corporal Dan.