History Main / ExhaustionInducedIdiocy

'''[[BigBad Kayaba]]:''' ''[clearly embarrassed]'' That was my thought process, yes.\\

Compare:
* AlcoholInducedIdiocy
* BlindedByRage
* HeroicRROD
* WorfHadTheFlu

May result in TooDesperateToBePicky when someone is so hungry that they'll eat something they probably shouldn't. Contrast with HeroicBSOD and AngstComa, which result from ''emotional'' exhaustion instead.

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'': In Season 15, Wash is completely exhausted and loopy after [[spoiler: being locked in his armor by Temple without receiving food or water]]. He is generally disconnected from reality during that time and says many things that he wouldn't in a clearer head. [[spoiler: This also leads to him walking out in the middle of gunfire without a care in the world, ending with him getting shot in the neck.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' "The Mess" has Gumball and Darwin stay up all night watching an internet video, and the next day they constantly black out and proceed to do random things such as build a meat snowman.

* In ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', Denobulans like Dr. Phlox don't sleep for a full year outside their six-day hibernation cycles. When a medical emergency forces the crew to wake Phlox up from hibernation, the results are ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcL8Fw4KBoY&t=58s hilarious]]''.

* ''WebVideo/SwordArtOnlineAbridged'': Unlike in [[LightNovel/SwordArtOnline canon]], [[BigBad Kayaba]]'s plan was ultimately boiled down to how sleep-deprived he was after working three weeks without so much as a wink of sleep to finish the game. The game was ChristmasRushed and he needed to get it done after already being delayed twice. Thus, he busted his ass to get it ready for release. Unfortunately, this resulted in causing a glitch that killed the players when their avatars died.

* Max Damage from ''ComicBook/{{Irredeemable}}'' and its sister series ''Incorruptible'' gets this way after spending a long time sleep deprived. The worst part about it is that he needs to stay awake a really long time to become stronger.

* ''WebVideo/SwordArtOnlineAbridged'': Unlike in [[LightNovel/SwordArtOnline canon]], [[BigBad Kayaba]]'s plan was ultimately boiled down to how sleep-deprived he was after working three weeks without sleep to finish the game. The game was ChristmasRushed and he needed to get it done after already being delayed twice. Thus, he busted his ass to get it ready for release. Unfortunately, this resulted in causing a glitch that killed the players when their avatars died.

* Early in Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians the heroes stumble into a novelty statue shop the reader will immediately peg as Medusa's lair. Percy explains that yes, it was dumb, but they were exhausted and had been staggering through the woods of New Jersey for a long time.

* In the ''Literature/NeroWolfe'' short story "Murder Is Corny", Archie is exhausted after having been up for 30 hours. He needs to have a conversation with Susan, and suggests to Wolfe that he have the conversation elsewhere, but Wolfe offers the use of the office. Archie {{Lampshade}}s the fact that if he hadn't been so exhausted, he would have realized that Wolfe intended to eavesdrop on the conversation.

->'''Kirito:''' So, you thought that critics would be harsher on a game that killed a few people by accident, than one that killed ''thousands'' on ''purpose''?
->'''[[BigBad Kayaba]]:''' ''[clearly embarrassed]'' That was my thought process, yes.
->'''Asuna:''' WHAT THE FUCK IS ''WRONG'' WITH YOU!?!
->'''Kayaba:''' ''Hey!'' Cut me some slack, okay? Can you two even begin to imagine 500 uninterrupted hours of consciousness? Forget Mole People! About halfway through, I swore I saw the face of ''God!'' Until I realized it was just the night janitor, Reki. On the plus side, I gave him a hell of an ego boost. Man was riding that compliment for days.

-->Now, in this case, any ''sane'' man would simply turn off the servers before anyone else got hurt, but because you've now been awake long enough to think the government is run by "Flubar, King of the MoleMen," the best idea that comes to your mind is to double, triple, and quadruple down. So you lock everyone in the game, tell them they'll die if they don't finish it, [[IMeantToDoThat and try to make it look like this is all part of your "master plan" instead of an ever-spiraling series of events that you have long since lost control of]].

** Apu once stayed awake for days because no-one could cover his Qwik-E-Mart shifts. By the end of it he thought he was a hummingbird. There's videotape.

* Max Damage from ''ComicBook/Irredeemable'' and its sister series ''Incorruptible'' gets this way after spending a long time sleep deprived. The worst part about it is that he needs to stay awake a really long time to become stronger.

[[folder:an Works]]

[[folder: Fan Works]]

-->''Now, in this case, any'' sane ''man would simply turn off the servers before anyone else got hurt, but because you've now been awake long enough to think the government is run by "Flubar, King of the MoleMen," the best idea that comes to your mind is to double, triple, and quadruple down. So you lock everyone in the game, tell them they'll die if they don't finish it, [[IMeantToDoThat and try to make it look like this is all part of your "master plan" instead of an ever-spiraling series of events that you have long since lost control of]].''

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/ACuriousConjunctionOfCoincidences'': In the third act, Jacob, who is supposed to be an expert when it comes to wooden pilings, is so tired from sleep deprevation that he ends up choosing a wrong type of wood for the pilings for the construction of the Royal Palace of Amsterdam.

* In the Literature/NeroWolfe short story "Murder Is Corny", Archie is exhausted after having been up for 30 hours. He needs to have a conversation with Susan, and suggests to Wolfe that he have the conversation elsewhere, but Wolfe offers the use of the office. Archie {{Lampshade}}s the fact that if he hadn't been so exhausted, he would have realized that Wolfe intended to eavesdrop on the conversation.

[[folder: Live-Action TV]]

[[folder: Web Comics]]
* In a strip of ''Webcomic/ThePetriDish'', Thaddeus is kept awake by [[AmusingAlien Gwog]] so he goes to the lab the next day tired and [[ComedicUnderwearExposure having forgotten his pants]].

[[folder: Web Video]]
* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'': In Season 15, Wash is completely exhausted and loopy after [[spoiler: being locked in his armor by Temple without receiving food or water]]. He is generally disconnected from reality during that time and says many things that he wouldn't in a clearer head. [[spoiler: This also leads to him walking out in the middle of gunfire without a care in the world, ending with him getting shot in the neck.]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]

** Apu once stayed awake for days because no one could cover his Qwik-E-Mart shifts. By the end of it he thought he was a hummingbird. There's videotape.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Homer (who's already stupid) is sleep-deprived because his baby daughter Maggie is keeping him awake at night and he mistakes Maggie for Marge (his wife) and Lisa (his eldest daughter) for Maggie.

* TheAmazingWorldOfGumball "The Mess" has Gumball and Darwin stay up all night watching an internet video, and the next day they constantly black out and proceed to do random things such as build a meat snowman.

** In Season 2's "Recap/MashS2E5DrPierceAndMrHyde", Hawkeye has been operating for so long that he is unable to sleep. Among his exhaustion-induced ideas are [[ItMakesSenseInContext shipping a latrine to North Korea]] and sending a telegram to President Truman reading "Who's responsible?".
** In Season 4's "Recap/MashS4E4TheLateCaptainPierce", Radar is on R&R because of overwork, leading to actions such as putting carbon paper in the latrines.

* Makes a couple of appearances in ''Series/{{MASH}}:

When you're running on fumes, you're not always in the right state of mind to make decisions. If you don't even have the energy to stand up, you probably don't have the energy to think rationally. Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy tends to be the result. This occurs for a number of reasons. The victim might be suffering from SleepDeprivation for whatever reasons, they been out in the blazing sun for too long and are potentially suffering heat stroke, or they've worked so hard that they have completely drained all their energy. In any case, their judgement is so hazy that they end up making some rather questionable decisions.

Compare AlcoholInducedIdiocy. May result in TooDesperateToBePicky when someone is so hungry that they'll eat something they probably shouldn't. Contrast with HeroicBSOD and AngstComa, which result from ''emotional'' exhaustion instead.

* {{Exploited|Trope}} in ''Series/{{Victorious}}''. Tori starts seeing a mysterious girl named Ponnie around school, who disappears whenever other people are around. Since she's tired after working on her school projects and being kept up at night by her sick sister, her friends assume this trope is in play and that she just needs to get some rest. Turns out, [[CassandraTruth Ponnie is real]] and is deliberately trying to make it look like Tori is crazy.

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!Proposed indexes: ContrivedStupidityTropes, SleepAndWakefulnessTropes