Since I haven't slept in the past 30 hours I'll count today as having started at 12 a.m. It was entirely intentional, I figured in terms of pure hours spent being tired it was far easier to stay up 36 hours so I could go to bed early and wake up at 6 than to gradually drop back my alarm an hour or so every day. Why prolong the process any more than I have to?
Now, all I have left is 5 hours, which is nothing. Considering I had no experience with staying up for more than a day this proved to be much easier than I planned. The key was to drink coffee every 5 hours before I started to get tired and to stay occupied; that, and talking to someone on AIM from 5 a.m. until 2 p.m. (they were in Australia so it wasn't a crazy time of day for them).
I really can't wait to get to sleep because really, the novelty of shadows expanding and receding slightly and inanimate objects twitching defiantly in their place wears off real fast. The same goes for things moving in the shadows in the corners of my eyes... I can't even get a good look at them anyways, what's the point?
A few things I discovered:
There is a clear limit to how tired I can get. After that point I only get less tired as more time wears on, at least for a few hours. This makes staying awake tremendously easier.
The longer I'm awake the louder everything gets. Right now I'm acutely aware of every single sound around me: The ringing in my ears, the discussions of people on the street in front of my house, the hum of cars on the roads near my neighborhood, the television left on downstairs and the horribly annoying, overpowering noise of the clacking of the keyboard. All these sounds are also extremely irritating; I wish I could shut them out.
The more sleep deprived I am the more "creative" I am. I'm not even quite sure what "creative" means right now, but if it means: to think of unique/original ideas via uninhibited/disorganized/disjointed thought processes then I'm pretty darn creative.
Time dilates only when I want it to go faster with the effect increasing in direct proportion to time spent awake. There is something distinctly unnerving about being sure you've done an hour's worth of thinking/work only to find 10 minutes have passed.