Longest time without sleeping?

OctavarIan

In and around 35 hours for me. During 3 days I got about 5-6 hours sleep. Most of the time when I try to go ages without sleeping, I just get bored and fall asleep. Things start to get really interesting once you go past the 24 hour mark

What's the longest you've gone without sleep?

Black Swan

A little over two days or about 50 hours. The effects of sleep deprivation were kickking in. Was driving part of the time, and when extremely tired would think that my eyes were open and could still see the road, when in fact they were closed (the sound of gravel as I started to leave the road would wake me).

Feral Mutant

Something like 30 hours. I was coming back from the US and with the flight time and time difference, I missed night and got back in the morning and refused to sleep till the time I normally go to bed, otherwise it'd take me ages to get back on Irish time. Towards the end, I kept thinking I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, which there wasn't because I was the only one in the room.

Hobbes

Around 50-60 hours one time. You kind of reach a wall at one point, once you pass that its like your onto your next day. Oh and when I did eventually go to sleep I slept for well over a day. Parents thought I was in a coma as they couldn't wake me.

I see the US military have new drugs called "Zombies". Basically can keep you awake for days on end without any of the usual side effects like hallucinating, etc.

riddik

40 hours during the summer. was in canada and just couldn sleep, went to work the next day in bits then went home and had to stay up and smoke with a few of the lads. very tiring though, great night sleep after it

kinaldo

Hobbes wrote:

I see the US military have new drugs called "Zombies". Basically can keep you awake for days on end without any of the usual side effects like hallucinating, etc.

That's mad, they should make them available over the counter. Think of how much more work we could all get done if we cut out sleep, what with there never being enough time in the day and all.

Hobbes

kinaldo wrote:

That's mad, they should make them available over the counter.

Actually there is already a fear they will make themselves onto the street through illegal means so that people can pretty much party non-stop.

Think of how much more work we could all get done if we cut out sleep, what with there never being enough time in the day and all.

I can see that as a bonus in some ways, For example I think I need about a week nonstop just to catch up with my life.

littlebug

About 40 hours once, the last few hours of which were spent with my mates in the pub. I remember someone commenting on how drunk I was.. I hadn't touched a drop! I think I started to hallucinate just after that... i kept thinking there was a dog at my feet!

I think it's easier if you're busy. 24 of the above 40 hours were spent working. I had a 24 hour stint one Christmas Eve when I was stuck waiting for a plane at Dublin airport, then an 80 mile drive..... that was much harder than the 40 hours!

BlackWizard

26 hours at a LAN party. Probably could of stayed awake another 4 hours if I
had other things to do but beyond that is maddness for myself.

I feel like a lightweight amoungst ya guys

is_that_so

52 hours once upon a time and nearly drowned in a bath. :rolleyes: Slept for 14 hours and had to be woken up.

daithimac

I did about two or three days on the trot when I was working increadbly hard in a pub while the boss was sick in hospital. In the end one of my mates who had worked there before came in and forced me to go get some sleep because I was starting to fall alseep on my feet

MarkR

Think it was about 2 days. i was just after coming back from the states, couldn't sleep on the flight, and that night only got a couple hours cause of jet lag. Anyway, wife's appendix thought this was the best time to act up. Made worse by her being preggers. Was a bit zombiefied towards the end, but all's well that ends well.

As for doiing it on purpose? Nutter!

Ruu_Old

A little over 2 days, similar to the above. Stupid long haul flights.

GerryRyan

52 hours - a sponsored stayawake thing I did during the summer (I failed the task, packed it in at the 36hour mark)

NEVER AGAIN ...

24hours in and I was getting pissed off and cranky at the smallest things.

...didn't even raise that much money tbh

mountainyman

3 days (but not 72 hours) 2 years ago coffee and brandy no other stimulants.

MM

Red Hand

55 hours I think once when cramming for exams. Near the end I was aching all over and had trouble focusing my eyes on objects around me or even on the paper I was writing on.

Tar.Aldarion

The world record is 11 days I think.
If you have insomnia you could give it a shot...

Anyway, during the school tour I did a few years back I stayed awake for quite a few days out of fear, if you fell asleep you woke up hairless, and worse.

kano476

37 hour session. took a full week to properly get over it. never again.

gingerGiant

On my trip to Austrailia done over 60 hours.

flights left dublin in evening so was up for 10 or 11 hours before leaving ireland, then flight from amsterdam to singapore delayed by 23 hours so ya can't sleep when in amsterdam ya have to have a good time. arrived in singapore in evening and had 27 hours before flight to sydney have a mate living in sing and hadent seen in months so got no sleep here either as we went out to sample the singapore nightlife and then to see the sights on the way home the next day. then jumped on the flight to sydney and arrived at 7 AM spent the day organising accomadation and the night in Scruffy Murphy's. one of the lads reckoned it was 86 hours but i don't think it could have been.

I wish i was lucky enough to be able to sleep on flights but i never get a wink.

kensutz

Anything between 30-40 hours is a norm for me every few weeks going over to England and driving up and down to Dublin etc to get to the airport.

FreeAnd..

Four full nights without a wink, not sure in hours but its close to 5 full days and it was four of the longest strangest nights of my life, never want to be there again...

bounty_hunter

Roughly 55 hours without dozing off at all. By the end of it I was vividly hallucinating and my entire body was itchy and tingling. My head felt like it was detached from my body and I couldn't grip anything properly for more than a few seconds. Not a very pleasant experience.

empirix

26 hours max - hate it, feel like **** and just don't want to do it, i have been known to go asleep under my desk in work on the odd saturday i was asked to work!!had to be done

stagolee

bounty_hunter wrote:

Roughly 55 hours without dozing off at all. By the end of it I was vividly hallucinating and my entire body was itchy and tingling. My head felt like it was detached from my body and I couldn't grip anything properly for more than a few seconds. Not a very pleasant experience.

Also about 55hrs, got some hallucinations (someone dressed in black standing in the doorway of the room i was in, lots of tiny spiders on my hands etc.) but they dissappeared if i looked straight at them. The wierd itchy tingly sensation gets very annoying.

These days i'm more likely to sleep 55hrs than stay awake for that long.

Blowfish

Somewhere between 50 and 60. By the end I wasn't really hallucinating, but it was moreso that the distinction between reality and my imagination became blurred, leaving me horribly confused.

I can do 24+ suprisingly easily, and quite often hit the 5 in the morning 'ah sure I might as well do an allnighter at this rate' point.

admiralofthefleet

i concur with the second part of blowfish's post.
the longest i stayed awake was only a few weeks ago. i went from 6 am on friday til 9pm on sunday without sleep, it feels so weird, like looking at people when they are talking to you and you either ignore them or speaking bollox. i remember sometime on the sunday i was talking to my brother and i suddenly shouted 'are you renting the motorbike'. he was dumbfounded. its not a pleasent feeling staying awake for so long, i was getting chest pains and bad headaches by the time i finally went to bed

Chavster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_%28sleep_deprived%29

Randy Gardner holds the Guinness world record for the longest period of time a human being has gone without sleep. In 1964, as a 17-year-old high school student, Gardner stayed awake for 264 hours (11 days) with the help of friends, TV reporters, and games of pinball. On his final day without sleep, Gardner presided over a press conference where he spoke without slurring or stumbling his words and in general appeared to be in excellent health. "I wanted to prove that bad things didn't happen if you went without sleep," said Gardner. "I thought, 'I can break that (Peter Tripp's 1959) record and I don't think it would be a negative experience.'" Sleep experts now believe that such sleep deprivation stunts are dangerous (Veasey et al., 2002).

It is often claimed that Gardner's experiment demonstrated that extreme sleep deprivation has little effect. This is primarily due to a report by researcher William Dement, who stated that on the tenth day of the experiment, Gardner had been, among other things, able to beat Dement at pinball. However, Lt. Cmdr. John J. Ross of the US Navy Medical Neuropsychiatric Research Unit, who monitored Gardner's condition at the request of his parents, reported serious cognitive and behavioral changes. These included moodiness, problems with concentration and short term memory, paranoia, and hallucinations. On the fourth day he had a delusion that he was a famous black football player who won the Rose Bowl, and that a street sign was a person. On the eleventh day, when he was asked to subtract seven repeatedly, starting with 100, he stopped at 65. When asked why he had stopped, he replied that he had forgotten what he was doing.

Personally the longest i stayed awake was about 36 hours or so. I've done that a few times and the main thing that happens is that i always feel cold.

Kojak

The longest I ever stayed awake for was 40 hours when a 21st birthday party, scheduled for a Friday, continued on into a wedding for the next day Saturday.

User45701

ok well i don't know if you will believe me but i have you all beat,
do u believe i was awake for over 86 ish hours....
ye i know you don't believe and it was without drugs as well, no coffie either i was VERY young back then

i must have been around 14 or 145 and myself and a friend here mess fighting and long story short i got a knee in the back i the kidney was quite sore but not relay bad, anyway went home played bit computer went to sleep later that night.

When i woke up the next morning
OW is all i can say, somehow my back had "locked" in place and i couldn't stand up, it was the summer and my mom had already gone to work.

So lying in bed bored out of my mind about 9 hours later my mom comes home and one of my friends was outside so she let him in as well,

the 2 of them had to drag me up out of the bed and that was series OUCH, defiantly the most pain i have been in, anyway then went to doctor did piss test and no blood so i was ok they, he said it was just very badly bruised and would hurt like hell for a few days

So i was not going to go through that pain of the back lock thing again so i just stayed awake for 4 or 5 days TBH i think it was actually around 115 hours 5 days instead of 4 but i know it was defiantly at least 80 or 90 hours.

I had plenty of stuff to watch anyway kept me awake at least

5starpool

My best is about 48 hours when I was in my final year in college. No study wsa involved though. I had quite the lifestly pattern then. Slept when i was tired, ate when I was hungry, drank when I could afford it. 24+ hours up and 12+ hours asleep were common, and the worst was the 48 hour one when I was playing Quake 2 for ages and then discovered that I had a team presentation in front of the class in about 30 mins, so in my semi delirious state I had to do a few slides and all that crap. I held it together remarkably well I thought, and then went to bed for 22 hours.

Top quality student lifestyle.