Deprive a person of sleep, and they can suffer serious psychosis. So when my editor told me to stay up for three days to see what it's like, I decided to do it at Bellevue Hospital. If you're planning to flip out, you go straight to the top. The sleep lab at Bellevue Hospital is cluttered with computers and instruments pumping out charts. They minutely measure the physiology of the subjects who sleep in two adjoining rooms.
Infrared cameras allow the researchers to monitor patients in total darkness.
I arrive when the hospital opens. Although I don't usually get up this early, clinic director, Dr. Joyce Walsleben wants me there in order to do a series of tests. I know my limit. They attach a dozen electrodes to me. They are glued over my heart, on my chin, by my eyes, my forehead, and at various points corresponding to sections of my brain.