An Unavoidable Ending - Wednesday 1st April, 6:20

As you may have read, night 2's jam was less successful than hoped, due to physical effects from lack of sleep. We played for approx. 40 minutes before Andy asked if we could break for a little while, as he couldn't find the energy to play drums whatsoever. We broke for around an hour, and then attempted to resume. We managed to play for roughly 10 minutes before coming to the conclusion that Andy was not in a strong enough state to play; hopefully we'll be able to show you some video footage at some point, which shows just how weak Andy became by this point.

Because of this, we discussed at length, and came to the conclusion that if 48 hours of sleep deprivation caused the physical ailments that it clearly had, 72 hours would be an absolute impossibility for Andy playing drums. We felt that we would be able to survive sleep deprivation for at least 60 hours, with the potential for 72, but without the ability to play drums, the entire intentions of our experiment go up in smoke.

We have therefore decided to end the experiment at 48 hours, as we would not have been able to add any more relevant data because Andy could not play at all.

We are going to record a jam in the studios in the coming weeks which will be under as perfect conditions as possible (i.e. as soon as possible after a healthy nights sleep) so that we can use this as our control variable, as it is an example of what the creative process would be under perfectly rested conditions. We can then compare this to our two nights of creative processes here, in which we were deprived of sleep for 18 hours and 42 hours respectively.

We will also update you all with general comments and thoughts from myself and Andy later on today, after we have had a chance to somewhat rest and gather our thoughts from what was a gruelling but strangely rewarding 48 hours.

Thank you to everyone who showed an interest in our experiment; it really shocked us that many of you took such an interest in what didn't seem like something an audience would take to.

The 43rd hour - The second jam - Revised during hour 44 (01/04/15)

As we approach the 43rd hour without sleep, we have begun our second jam; it is absolute hell! Unlike yesterday, which was still a 16 hour day and a relatively sloppy jam, this mornings session has become nearly unbearable. Although starting with a light groove, the weight of the sticks feel like they have increased, the bass beater lacks response, the general feel is extremely lackadaisical.
It had gotten to the extent where we had to call a break in order for me recover.

I feel extremely heavy, tired, drained. I am clearly at the second wall. Although originally claiming to attempt 72 hours of no sleep, I believe that 48 would be a far more feasible prospect; even whilst typing this, I can feel myself attempting to drift out into a deep subconscious territory.

I will last as long as I can, which for now, will be counted within the minutes...



(Hour 44)

That was hell. Throughout the entirety of both jams and the break, I was unable to function to any sort of reasonable caliber as a university drummer. By having no energy and literally almost falling asleep whilst playing, I was unable to play even the most simplistic beats, predominantly struggling to co-ordinate by right foot playing the bass.

Pre Jam 2 - General Thoughts (Wednesday 1st April, 00:02)

So we're just about to head in for the second night jam. I'm startled that we've made it this far when remembering how incredibly winded we were earlier on today. Now it seems as if its just night 1 again, although I'm sure thats just delusion on my part. We haven't mentioned it to each other, but I think we're both petrified of the next 'wall', which I would assume has to happen in the near future.

We really want to make the 72 hours; it was our intentions, even if it was originally naive, but we also are now more wary than ever of our personal safety. Whether it's dramatisation aided by the way people seem to react to this experiment or whether it's actually warranted, we are very aware of our own mortality now more than ever. Hell, it's not like we think we're gonna die or anything that extreme, but there is a definite chance of damage, even if it is just short-term.

We both admit that we've rarely ever, if ever at all, felt this vulnerable, both physically and mentally.

See you all on the other side...

The 39th hour and How we are attempting to stay awake (22:08 - 31/03/15)

As I am writing this blog, I will have stayed awake for currently 39 continuous hours. So far we have received numerous question off people asking how we have been able to stay awake for this duration of the time. Well, we don't exactly know really...

Prior to beginning the experiment we discussed the best possible ways of maintaining energy through dietary requirements; essentially we have ate four meals a day. Breakfast: croissant, Lunch: sandwich and fruit, Dinner: Pasta (or sandwich), fruit, Dinner 2: Sandwich (or pasta). In all honesty though, we haven't planned anything special and this 'diet' has varied, we are simply eating with caution.
I would like to highlight that we have used no stimulants, i.e no coffee, tea, Redbull etc..., we have predominantly drank a SHIT-LOAD of water (roughly 6 litres each so far) and the odd fruit drink.

As mentioned in the footage that we are recording, we have had no special practice or preparation, Luke had made a 36 hour trial run and that was it. We have had a standard night's sleep prior to the beginning and have simply cracked out on throughout.

I have personally found it a lot easier as today has progressed. In the morning I hit a severe wall, however, by the afternoon I had felt refreshed and was able to enjoy listening to music, such as Jeff Buckley and prepare essays.
Although starting to feel the lack sleep catching up, we are currently in the studios tracking Clockwork (Luke's band) and will then carry on by recording our jamming session later, which is expected to take place similarly around 1am.

Andy.

34 hours in...

We are just over 34 hours without sleep. Today we have chilled, done some work and walked.
Tonight is going to be the true test to discover if we will fall under the strain of recording another musician (21:00) and then going on to document our nightly jam session, which shall begin around 01:00 (roughly).

It is a very odd sensation, something we almost predicted; after hitting the inevitable first wall, for the majority of the day, we have both felt totally fine. Hopefully this on-going endurance will get us through the night without feeling any heavy physical or mental strains.

If anyone is close to the university, feel free to come and see us; the company is always deeply appreciated.

ONLY 32 HOURS?! (Tuesday 31st March, 15:18)

I spend half of my life wishing that days were longer. I always seem to end up in the house after midnight, and never get done what I wish I could get done. But today, sitting in the Uni commonroom from 5am, this day has been longer than any day I ever wished for. It's probably mainly because time stands still when you hit the wall. That painful period from 8am-12pm lasted a full day on its own.

I worry that me and Andy's constant blogging makes a hyperbole out of this little 3-day shenanigan. I promise we aren't trying to build this up as some crazy unheard-of expedition into the unknown - I think you know that it certainly isn't that incredible of a feat. But there's undoubtedly a loss of rationale when in this current state I find myself in, and without rationale, thoughts can cause panic unbelievably easily. I think about how sometimes at my weekend job a 4-hour shift feels like a full day shift, and then comparing that to my current situation, I die a little inside at the thought at 3 straight days in the same place without rest.

I'll stop moaning now. I feel pretty good; it's more the lingering realisation of just how long is left that's harming me psychologically. Let's see if I can still battle off the next 'wall' for a little while. They are really the only thing that will be our downfall.

Sleep Deprivation and the exploration of creativity (12:41 - 31/3/15)

As you are all probably aware by now, me and Luke are becoming SEVERELY bored, hence the number of posts cropping up.

Thankfully, I have seemed to have surpassed the first barrier and now carrying on with my day as normal, albeit spent predominantly within the confines of two university buildings...

Anyways, a lot of people have asked us why we are attempting something like this, why on earth would an individual want to deprive themselves of sleep? Well (for me at least), a lot of musicians strive to develop elements of creativity, whether it be a creating a distinguishable tone or melody etc..., or through discovering different creative aspects of their mind through the use of narcotics.
Particularly within the genres of popular music, the use of drugs have ambiguously became a part of the culture; whether it be the hippie movement, hardcore punk generation or even the more modern rave/club scenes, the influence of drugs has become a domineering force within the creative elements of both the artists and participants.

However, although a vast array of artists, bands, musicians etc. have experimented with various substances, designed to provoke specific areas of the brain, how many have considered exploiting natural human elements? We all know what being tired is like, that groggy feeling of having no drive to commit to anything apart from that nice warm bed; however with this, we wanted to take it further, we are attempting to break through this stage and see what truly lies in the depths of our own minds.
Taking quite a naïve approach to being able to simply stay awake for a long duration time, we have quite admittedly covered very little research prior to committing to the stint and are truly interested to see how are bodies shall react.

We shall keep blogging, videos and recordings will be shown at a later date.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQYC2EfzZZw

Thanks for reading!

You Better Be Good Friends (Tuesday 31st March, 11:19)

I hit 'the wall' a while back, and it's still kinda lingering, although not as badly as it once was. It got me thinking how fortunate it is that 1. I have someone to keep me company during this (to prevent ultimate boredom) and 2. That me and Andy aren't just recent friends or average friends. Neither of us are angry people, but I've seen many a peaceful dude become increasingly moody when tired or bored (of which we are definitely both). We're definitely fortunate that it happens to be just us two and specifically us two. I don't think I could hack it with anyone else, they'd just be too damn annoying.

It's amazing what a lack of sleep makes you feel like; I can't liken it to anything I've felt before. You don't feel drunk, you don't feel high, you don't even feel tired in the traditional sense. It's like a blend of out-of-body vibes but with a constant awareness of your own mortality. It's kind of pathetic really. You just feel completely puny, and maybe once in a while the fatigue is shaken off a little and you get a brief surge of energy and optimism before it all starts over again. I think we've both decided that we're just gonna push ourselves until we feel it's getting dangerous, even if that means breaking off the experiment early. We have no intentions of doing so, but it's hard to gather strength with a lack of energy like this.

The Wall (10:07 - 31/02/15)

It appears that the inevitable has happened over the past few hours, I have hit the wall. I have became relatively redundant in the process of editing our vlog and my creative process (as you can probably tell within this blog) has became severely limited.

With each minute passing I can feel myself drawing into a deeper state of relaxation; a continuous battle between the mind attempting to carry on with this endurance, and the sub-conscious trying to recover in order to function correctly.

From roughly 7am I have found it increasingly difficult to even follow the most basic processes without my body wanting to shut down. Although I do not feel ill, I am continuously becoming aware of the mental strain that this exercise is exerting on my body.


I hope to carry on and shall keep you all posted.

24 hours in: The Wall (Tuesday 31st March, 07:27)

So I've definitely hit a wall. Everything that my body does revolves around trying to get me to shut down. I'm drowsy, I am barely even looking at the computer screen as I write this because its getting too difficult to concentrate on anything. The optimist in me thinks this will blow over, and evidence would suggest a similar diagnosis. I just hope it comes sooner rather than later, cos this is hell.

Night 1 Jam - a retrospect

It took like what seemed an age to set up all of our gear into the studios, and then to get signal from Andy's 8-mic drum setup; I felt somewhat bored and worn out, although I'm sure I will crave to regress back to the state I am at now in 24-36 hours time. As we were setting up I was messing around with my delay pedal and got this sound I really loved. Played around with a chord progression that I feel suited the sound I was trying to create, and we started playing around a groove in 7/8. It felt really really good. Me and Andy have been playing together for years, so we kinda know the nature of how our jamming sessions go now; if we start well, we can go for at least 60-90 minutes just from there. Whether it's random covers from the past or just riffing on E for 10 minutes, we find a way to just keep some momentum going. It's really refreshing after such a long break from creating music in this way.

We did run out of steam eventually though. We got about an hours worth of listenable material and then decided to have a break. There was some mixing of the songs we recorded earlier that day, and just some general space from each other mentally I think (something that is probably going to be absolutely essential by the end).

We never played anything else.

I dunno if it was the fatigue or whatever, but we just didn't have the desire to play. I think we let ourselves get away with doing that tonight, because it was our first night, and we were still near human. Tomorrow night I think we are fully expecting to have no desire to play, but still know it will be so beneficial to chug through to see what kind of outcome can be achieved.
As it turns out, 24 hours is a really long time to stay awake. You'd think logic would dictate how obvious that statement is, but yet everyone seems to be of the assumption that its relatively straightforward. All I know is, I've barely picked up the guitar for the last week or two, and after playing for 90 minutes, I was done. It's a strange phenomenon.

22 Hours Into Sleep Deprivation - Jamming session completed (05:15 - 31/3/15)

It is becoming a daunting process attempting to collect any relative thoughts as the deprivation progresses. At 22 hours in, we are currently sitting in the university common room relaxing after what was a draining exercise of musical capability. After what has been a day spent predominantly within the studios, confined to two rooms, the process of jamming (beginning at 3am - 31/3) has taken its toll on the both of us. For what is usually an enjoyable experience, delving into a vast array of both genres and time-signatures, turned quickly into a draining process, sucking all fun out of the experience.

At this current moment in time I find the experience of drifting in and out of tired states to have become a peculiar aspect of musicians creativity. Through the different states, creates different personalities, causing a continuos battle between these new found personas; this is specifically seen within the first jamming session. Although both myself and Luke usually vary in styles, the process of playing together created an interesting mixture of relaxed atmospheric music, coexisting alongside heavier rock songs, a process which was heavily affected by how I felt minute to minute. Even within the first day, as time progresses the attitude dependent on energy, can drastically effect the outcome of the performance.

We shall chug along with the hope of reaching our goal of 72 hours!

A Day of Deprivation (21:57 - 30/3/15)

Although today has been relatively normal in the sense of waking up and spending most of the day in the studio, the impending prospect of staying awake for 72 hours is beginning to consciously take its toll. Throughout most of today, we have predominantly spent our time in the studio recording a band and are now currently on to the second recording project of the day. We have also began to document various tests we shall be attempting through the experiment. Today's IQ tests resulted in 134 and 135. Tonight we will hopefully record ourselves (video and audio) and begin to document the creative process of jamming and performing covers.

Better Days (Tuesday 31st March, 03:23)

I think its fair to say that I'm starting to feel the effects of no sleep now. I keep telling myself that I'll hit a horrendous wall, but I'm still waiting for it, so at the moment I'm just a guy standing in the middle of a road waiting for a car to come past. It's been a really good day actually (if I can still talk about yesterday as if its today, what the hell are days anyway), and the first actually music-playing stuff went really well - me and Andy haven't jammed for a while, so I'm worried all the cool stuff spilled out excitedly in this first hour or so, and we'll have nothing left tomorrow. From doing a 48-hour trial of this, I have a general idea of when I'm gonna hit a wall, so I guess thats something to... look forward to? Either way I've definitely seen better days.

It has Begun (10:34am - 30/3/15)

Longest day ever – http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/may/22/upside-insomnia-sleep-deprivation-creativity-musicians

Mind-games (Monday 30th March, 22:14)

Its weird; I feel like there’s some sort of placebo-type effect happening on my brain because of the situation. I’m never, ever tired at 10pm on a random Monday night, but I know that I’m going to be awake for so much longer, and that somehow makes me feel exhausted. I don’t really feel anything significant yet, but I think writing and filming and talking about it certainly doesn’t help. It’s going to be interesting to see what its like trying to communicate musically even after being awake 18 hours, which is what we’ll be at during the first ‘session’.