Mania for me = a slow escalation over several months. Not sleeping, 40lb. weight loss, involvement in countless activites (painting classes, art exhibits, acting classes, political campaigns, meetings, travel, shopping, spending, starting an interior design business, took up cigarettes and chain smoked, got traffic tickets for speeding, hypersexuality, shoplifting, writing the great American novel, not being able to read because the words on a page were blurred nonsense, believing I had psychic powers, (at the end right before I went inpatient), listening to music and hearing messages that a spaceship was going to land in my backyard and "take me up"!