When gaming, time seems to take on a new quality.  The best comparison I can make is like a film run at x10 normal speed.  The sun rises, the sun sets, people come in and say something, people leave.  It’s 9pm, you have to log out in 1 hour.  2 hours pass, better log off soon, just need to finish this instance.  OK, just need to sell this stuff and clear up some bags.  Suddenly it’s 4am, and you have work or school the next day.

In a study on the effects of sleep deprivation, it has been shown that subjects who sleep for only 4-6 hours a night showed “significant deficits in cognitive performance equivalent to going without sleep for up to three days in a row. Yet these subjects reported feeling only slightly sleepy and were unaware of how impaired they were.”

Sounds familiar?  It’s like when you speak to someone in-game who you know has been burning it hard for the last few days.  There’s that slight pause before they reply, while their brain figures out how to reply.

One of the worst feelings is waking up well before you want to, and having to force the unwilling limbs out of bed and into the shower.  You tell yourself you will get a great night sleep tonight, until you log back in later and rinse and repeat the previous day.  You become the Living Dead.