2 AM rolls around, I'm still balls deep in this stupid template, and mind you, now everything I have written is starting to sound ridiculous and stupid.

I think I'm gonna be a laughing stock once this gets published. (I'd fully believe that myself if only I did not believe wholeheartedly in my supervisor)

Don't let your brain fuck you up and loose all the progress you have!!

>everything I have written is starting to sound ridiculous and stupid

Generally speaking that is when you gotta take a break lest you miss why you did that stuff in the first place.

There's a term for this, but I forgot what it's called.

TLDR you need to stop and wait until you've slept before continuing.

You know how when you try perfume at the store and after a little while all you can smell is that alcohol smell, so they give you a little jar of coffee beans or whatever to "reset" your palette so you can begin to discern between the different aromas again?

It's of course not the same exact thing in the brain but it works in much the same way. You work on one creative project for too long and begin to only notice the flaws. The dynamic range of good things/bad things begins to diminish in your head and you only see this monotonic "blah" product, like you describe.

Two things happen:

1. You lose interest and motivation, oftentimes permanently
2. You make poor creative decisions that can waste time or even ruin the project.

You need to let your creative palette reset by going and doing something else, sleeping, and then coming back to it a day or two later.

This happens when I produce music. After an hour or two, I begin to hate the whole thing and can't discern between whether or not each iterative decisions I make is "good" or "bad". It all just sounds the same - terrible.

Then if I put it down and come back a day or two (or even a week) later and start over, I've forgotten all of the little critiques I made in my head and can look at it with a fresh start, which gives you a more objective view into the project overall and you have more stamina to make better creative decisions.

/monologue

If you are not working on your own peojects, do not sacrifice sleep. Not worth , even for your own project.

After 8hrs sleep:
Still everything I wrote sounds stupid.
Maybe I am stupid!
Maybe PhD is a long shot and I should go back to being a web dev again... Not that I was any good at that either...

Hmmffffffff.

@NoMad stop and breathe. This is what revisions are for. Get some feedback and go from there.
No you're not dumb.
No, you're not stupid.
Give yourself some credit, if you were stupid, and if you're thesis was also stupid, would your advisor not stop you from the begining and shut you down? If he hasn't it's because he trusts you, and your methodology. Give yourself se credit and some mg of faith in what you've learnt.