Every few seconds my head would fall forward and then snap back up.
My eyelids felt weighted and would barely stay open.
And the night before that.
Getty / KatarzynaBialasiewicz
And before that and before that.
This had been going on for a couple of weeks.
The only thing keeping me awake during this class was anintense itchy sensation all overmy legs.
Partway through the hour-and-a-half class, the itchiness became all I could concentrate on.
I had no idea what my professor was talking about, and frankly I didnt care.
The itchiness became unbearable as I scratched at my thighs under my desk.
Im sure the people around me thought I was weird, but I didnt care.
I got up and went into the hallway to get my legs moving.
Out in the hallway, the itchiness quickly dissipated, much to my relief.
I went back inside, took my seat, and assumed everything was fine.
Her short pixie cut began to grow.
My eyelids no longer felt heavy as I stared at her, wide-eyed with shock.
This is impossible,I told myself.
But it looked so real.
I had just witnessed something magical.
I looked left and right to my classmates, but they were all staring straight ahead, completely unfazed.
I looked back at my professor.
Her hair was short again.
What just happened?I wondered.
Then, a man entered the room.
He walked past all of us students and headed straight for our professor.
Something bad was about to happen.
I could feel it.
I looked to my peers, but no one seemed worried.
I felt like I should do something, anything, to stop this man, but I stayed still.
I watched in horror as the man approached my professor and stabbed her in the chest.
My professor, completely unharmed, continued teaching.
There was no man in the room.
Something was wrong with me and I had no idea what to do.
My peers must have thought I was on something due to how bizarrely I acted.
I was paranoid, my eyes were huge, and I couldnt sit still.
The rest of the class passed in a blur as I tried to figure out what had just happened.
It turns out I was, though.
I had only been sleeping a few hours a night for a couple of weeks at that point.
I had just gotten out of a serious long-term relationship and immediately jumped into something new.
Parts of the brain are working together in a chaotic way.
Yes, sometimes this can lead to hallucinations.
Hallucinations arent quite as simple as just seeing something thats not real.
Its an experience with a perception of something thats not present, Dr. During explains.
At first the perception seems so real theres no need to doubt it.
He explains that when you hallucinate, you are still awake and conscious, not asleep.
But its not unheard of for sleep deprived people to hallucinate too.
Dr. Peters, who is also an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University, says most hallucinations are visual.
Experts dont fully understand why hallucinations happen due to sleep deprivation.
The exact brain mechanism at play during hallucinations in general isnt understood.
The thinking is that visual hallucinations may occur when certainparts of the brain responsible for visual functioning get disrupted.
Despite how exhausted a person may feel, they can usually tell theyre hallucinating.
There is often insight into the situation, Dr. Peters says.
In some cases, sleep deprivation can lead to psychosis, although this is more rare.
Dr. During says someone would have to be awake for around72 hoursstraight before they would enter psychosis.
But most people physically cant stay awake that long, Dr. During points out.
This means most sleep deprivation occurs over weeks and months of very little sleep, like in my situation.
Most people can manage sleep deprivation for a long time, Dr. During says.
Were not good at gauging how much sleep we need.
The most common early symptoms, they say, is a change in mood and increased irritability.
People can also become impatient and short-tempered and have difficulty concentrating.
You should make sleep a higher priority right away if you start noticing these symptoms.
Hallucinating was a huge wake-up call for me.
I never went to a doctor or a therapist after experiencing my hallucinations.
On one hand, the episode was kind of embarrassing.
I feared no one would believe me.
I never had another hallucination.
Its a very common potential phenomena that doesnt necessarily represent a serious condition.
Unfortunately, I had to learn this the hard way, but its a lesson Ill never forget.
