In fact, the first accident I was ever involved in was with a man who fell asleep at the wheel and slammed into my new car. He had just started working a night job, and was on his way home and fell asleep behind the wheel. I had just started a new job and had to be there at 6am. He nodded off. I honked. He hit me. The impact woke him up. Wrong place at the wrong time, although to be honest, it was ok. There was a line of school kids waiting for the bus behind me. Could have been worse than crunching my car. Much worse.
In the Journal of Neuroscience (May 21), Duke NUS graduate med students in Singapore showed what happens to the visual perceptions of someone that is fighting to stay awake while driving all night. We lose the ability to make sense of what we are seeing. The brain starts to pulse on and pulse off. Think of it like an energy-saving system. It's trying to conserve energy, and function without the resources. It's doing the best it can. The back up plan is start to shut down what might not be as important. The image above of the blurry stuff makes sense in terms of what we know about vision. The amygdala, your safety sentinel, makes 'rough images' in an attempt to quickly sort for danger. The amygdala then, is allowing the frontal lobes to rest as much as it can, and says "it's ok honey, we'll take over for awhile". Of course, it can only do as much as it can do. It's not visual, it's 'rough visual'. The frontal lobe processing need the most fuel and are the first to suffer if there is a lack of sleep, good nutrition, oxygen.
So, when we are sleep deprived, we don't see as well, we don't process as well, we make stupid choices, we take more risks. Think of all the high risk jobs people do at night-gives you pause doesn't it? Air traffic controllers, pilots, doctors, nurses, police to name a few. Truck drivers.
Lack of sleep can cause break downs in the immune system. It can cause weight gain because of the added stress. It can contribute to cognitive breakdown and emotional breakdowns. Get your sleep!
References:
Lapsing during Sleep Deprivation Is Associated with Distributed Changes in Brain Activation
Can a lack of Sleep Cause Psychiatric Disorders? / Scientific American
Sleep Deprivation Elevates Expectation of Gains and Attenuates Response to Losses Following Risky Decisions