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I'm Not One for Sleep
Modafinil
Citation:   Paradoxical. "I'm Not One for Sleep: An Experience with Modafinil (exp23499)". Erowid.org. May 10, 2003. erowid.org/exp/23499

 
DOSE:
  repeated oral Modafinil (pill / tablet)
BODY WEIGHT: 125 lb
I was looking through the experience reports, and I noticed that nobody else had tried sleep deprivation with provigil, so I decided that I'd share my experiences, reflections and whatnot.

For a while, I've had a good amount at my disposal. Somebody close to me has a prescription, doesn't take it, and I'm not one for sleep. After hearing and reading a bit about this drug, I decided to give it a try.

I notice that after taking it, there is a slight time distortion. Not a time distortion like any other drug I've experienced, and one may call it 'unnoticeable', but it's almost as if time itself isn't really moving any differently, just something is off about it. The drug seems to be most effective up to 6 hours after taking it, though it can keep me easily awake 12 hours after taking it (If I'm already tired.). Also, it's not difficult to fall asleep on, the sleep just isn't very 'satisfying'. Almost as if I've just consciously blacked out. On the plus side, waking up after this is very easy.

On another note, sleep deprivation. The longest I've made it is 85-87 hours. I didn't start taking it until I'd been up for about 30 hours. Then I would take one every 6 hours. After a while, time distortion had become apparent. Everything I was doing was taking so long. I couldn't understand why. It was difficult to keep a string of thoughts together, but somehow I managed to pull it off. Somewhere around 60 hours into staying up, time distortion was even greater. Things were starting to make less and less sense. My grip on sanity was getting looser and looser as I started to hallucinate. The hallucination was not like any I would expect from a regular psychedelic, it was sort of a distortion of thought. My 'hallucinations' were sort of like accessing random parts of a dramamine trip, while still remaining halfway in my reality. I watched a movie. Time was impossible, I could no longer comprehend it. However, I had to stay awake.

This was just getting interesting. It seemed as though every thought in my head was moving faster and more irregularly than the last, but that was okay. It was interesting. I went to school the next day (as I had been doing the last few days as well), and somehow managed to act normal, though I don't really remember how I pulled it off. Though at about 4pm that day, while I was on the phone with (now ex) girlfriend, I could no longer maintain. I told her to call me back. I needed sleep. Did I? Did I really do that? I attempted to ponder the question, but the question was impossible. I closed my eyes, hoping to sleep, but realizing it wasn't going to be a good sleep at all. My only memory from my few minutes of sleep(?) is a field full of grass, rapidly morphing in 360 degrees from one thing to another. It started as a field of grass, but continued changing. I never bothered to think of it as anything else, as labeling the things I saw would be impossible. I was at some point woken up by the phone. It was her again. She had a notepad and paper, and wrote down some of the things I said, which I will put in later.

The way I felt at that point was, if there was any way to describe it, fourth dimensional. I was completely convinced that I was existing in the cellular structure of the universe. That I was a mere atom, yet the entire universe. Was I an atom? Maybe a particle. Yes, one of those. I would think, and I would become the particle. The room shimmered and glowed and was somehow visible to me all at once. I had it all figured out. I was stuck in the cellular structure of what I called 'toyota glass' (The only way I can say to interpret that, is to imagine a physical reality made of crystalline glass based on the sound of the word toyota in it's shape and very existance.). I don't ever remember being scared, though I did think I was an atom in 'toyota glass'. I remember this place as being blissful, completely wonderful. I was finally here, alone, with my thoughts for a still eternity. Every second would be hours. Had years passed by? The answer was irrelevent. This state would get continually more intense over 15-20 more minutes, and would completely wear off at an hour and a half.
As for the things I said during this state..

'Why am I paying you money so that these things that are not me can stay on my bed?' - I distincly remember morphing creatures through impossible vision coming together and existing on my bed.

'Where the hell are we? Where is my bed? When can I rest? How? Where?' - Complete and total confusion on all levels. I remember lauging at this, before completely forgetting it and paying attention to the nature of everything existing with me.

'How often does this happen to you? I mean, is everybody at one place at one time?' - I was existing with everything else at once. Strange, strange creatures. I had no understanding as to why this came about, but it felt like one big cosmic answer.

'I'm sorry I'm so cut up by the machine.' - There was a gigantic metal machine. It was associated with death, but no pain. I had thought that my entire body had been cut up by all of it's spinning metal blades. I felt no fear, but my girlfriend was worried that I had cut myself up inadvertantly. It was near impossible for me to explain that I hadn't, because I really thought I had.

'I thought that we were all connected by microwave beams and that microwave beams weren't allowed to have phones.' - Still stuck in the cellular structure, although the communicative aspect of it. The concept of phones while on drugs has always seemed unnnatural, and almost alien, so it's no surprise that I wouldn't understand them a this point.

'If I were a rock, I would've pushed me over the edge by now. I really do care and I want you to know that I really do try to save frogs.' - I had an amazing hallucination. Filled with color and in the visual scope of the fourth dimension. It was filled with beauty and mystery, yet somehow a deep understanding that everything was where it should be. So many colors. I became a frog that was spinning like a rock over the edge of a cliff. In a weird way, everything that happened felt arbitrary, sort of like every possibility that could have happened already did.

'Did I stick something in the jello? I thought there was a jello mold. doesn't really matter though because I don't really like jello. *pause* don't give me that worried look.' - If there is a god, I don't think it would be able to make sense of that. I did not have any jello. Anywhere.

'I thought I was made of this big glass thing that was made by toyota. It was made for making chemicals and everyone was one of the two and I just didn't want anything to happen because I was scared of the prospect.' - More description of my reality at the time.

There are a few more, but they're pretty irrelevant and don't have any interesting memories attached to them. As for the set and setting for the trip, I was in a dark basement room. No light on at all, while on the phone. I was so out from sleep deprivation that I don't think I could've had any mindset which would have affected the trip. If I do this again, it will be in a bright room with a tape recorder and a good friend to keep me talking. I want to know more about this, and if this is caused by DMT release (I explain later on), I've read that DMT is best experienced in the light.

----------------------------------------------------------

On another instance, after being awake for two days with provigil, I had contact with a very, very powerful entity. I closed my eyes. Purple, pink, and red lines were flying around making a strange sound (Imagine a digeridoo playing at four or five times it's normal speed), and then a three dimensional triangle opened up. It continued to open, while the entity identified said very quickly in a computerized-like voice 'I am the queen of contraception. I know I don't know I know I don't know I know I don't know...' on and on and on, until finally it was going so fast that the entity exploded and sent me back to my normal reality. This felt like it took an hour, though it only happened within 10 seconds. This 'Queen of contraception' had an aura of power in singularity. Sort of like being confronted with a very paradoxical and philosophical living version of the Death Star.

A few seconds after that, I closed my eyes again, wondering what it would be like to try and keep in contact with 'normal' reality. I was looking at my hands, in front of light coming through clouds through a car windshield at the time. It was quickly obliterated and became a seemingly impossible sight. Everything was shaking, and opening very quickly.

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Retrospective/Summary (Finally)

I have a theory that the things that happened to me were caused by my body not being able to replenish the DMT/5-MeO-DMT in my bloodstream because I was not sleeping. So naturally, whenever I would come close to that state, the 5-MeO-DMT/DMT would come back into my bloodstream so fast that it would be almost like taking them intravenously. I'm not sure whether or not this is a plausible theory, but considering the experiences I've had with this, it seems likely to me.

If anybody else reads this and decides to try this, keep in mind that you should have nothing important to do for three or four days. Driving is definitely included in this. Also, post it. I wouldn't think that I'm the only person who would have this idea. I wonder if this is happening to the military troops that are taking drugs for alertness.

As for anything I've learned, it's that sleep deprivation and provigil are both extremely powerful, and do have their place in my life every once in a while. Perhaps if I obtain DMT, this will change.

Exp Year: 2003ExpID: 23499
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 10, 2003Views: 27,568
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Modafinil (217), Sleep Deprivation (140) : General (1), Various (28)

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