Context:
Sleep deprivation can cause people to hallucinate. Deprived of sleep, the mind operates less effectively, speech becomes slurred and reaction times are slower. You become more panicky and sensitive to noise. The brain falls into rigid patterns getting stuck in a single thought. Academic research showed that a volunteer deprived of sleep for four days became severely irritable and thought a street lamp was a person. The hallucinations increased causing paranoia and after eleven days the volunteer had become completely expressionless and wasn't responding to much at all. On a 2004 TV game show, Shattered, when contestants tried to go without sleep, hallucinations were reported after only two days.
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