I've been awake for 22 hours.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

And I’m beginning to fall apart at the seams.

Long story short: my sleep schedule has been almost completely turned around for the last week or so and I HATE it. In a desperate attempt to fix it, I decided to pull an all-nighter and see if I can’t fall asleep at a normal time today.

But I’m now into hour 22, I have another seven hours to go before we hit my goal and I am really. freaking. tired.

Share with me your feats of resisting the siren song of sleep while I go make myself another cup of tea.

2

I do this almost every other week. Sometimes I manage, sometimes I don’t.

I think the longest I went without sleep was 46 hours. Don’t ask me why because I can’t remember.

3

Oh, and since I stopped drinking, my ability to sleep has been shit. I get about 3 hours a night, with regular wake ups.

4

Lobsang, you’re an unusual sort of person, you know that?

5

Once you make it past the 24 hour mark, the tiredness is replaced with surreal visions. I once pulled a 72 hour stint with no sleep, back in architecture school, to complete a project. After 24 hours, I felt detached from my body, almost like I was watching myself from the outside.

Kinda cool, in a weird, self-abusive sorta way.

6

most nights i get little sleep and the longest time with no sleep was about 36 hours

7

Oh, super, I can’t wait.

I’ve actually stayed awake past 24 hours a couple times previously, but if I hit goal, it’ll be my longest time without sleep ever. And the previous two times were as a result of travelling which is so stressful and exhausting anyway. Hopefully it won’t be so bad without having to go out.

8

Good luck, I hope you don’t go crazy. :smiley:

9

Thanks. I can feel your confidence in my sanity oozing through the intarweb.

Coming up on 23 hours.

10

This is exiting. Keep us posted about the effects of your insomnia. Posterity will be grateful. :smiley:

P.S. If you start to hear voices, don’t listen. And turn off your speakers.

11

Same here. In the 15+ years since I quit drinking, I get about three hours of sleep most nights, sometimes less, but it’s never uninterrupted.

As for the OP, my limit is about 40 hours, but I’ve never done that intentionally. If I’m awake past the 36-hour mark, I start to hallucinate.

Good luck with the remaining hours.

12

I do about the same thing every now and then when my sleep schedule gets totally screwed up. I find that if I can overcaffinate myself through the first stage of tiredness, I coast into a non-tired state for several hours. Then get really weird.

13

About 3 years ago I woke up one Thursday at 7:30 pm and didn’t get to sleep until 2:30 am Sunday. There was actually a reason for it but it still sucked.
Another really long story somewhat short, I worked the night shift. I dropped my roomate off at work and continued to my job. Halfway there, my car died. Finally got to work (2 hours late because of the towtruck). My ex-boyfriend agreed to pick me up after work to help with my car. Unfortunately, his car died the same day. We got my alternator and belt fixed and then spent the rest of the day fixing his car. As I dropped him off at work (we worked at the same place, different shift), my muffler fell off. I drove across town to have one of my mechanic friends fix it. Went back home, showered, dropped my roomate at work again, went to work, lent my car to the ex and did my shift. He picked me up that morning and we spent 6 hours finally fixing his car. I then drove 50 miles away to Mr. Congo’s house. I fell into bed about 4:30 on Saturday. At 4:45, he woke me up to go to dinner with his family (he didn’t know I’d just gone to sleep). Went to dinner, went to movie which I kind of watched in a daze, returned to his house and passed out. Didn’t wake up until 10:00 Sunday night. Drove another 50 miles back home and went to work.

I went through the surreal out of body stage about 12:00 pm on Saturday but it only lasted until about 6:00. Amazingly enough, I felt great after my sleep on Sunday and I had one of my best nights at work.
Thanks to the kindness of friends and strangers, all the crap with the car only cost me $100 and a bottle of wiskey to fix.

14

I do a 36 hour stretch on occasion. It seems I get a ‘second wind’ after about 24, then crash hard around 36.

Wishing you happy dreams soon!

15

I did most of my sleep-deprivation experiments in college, naturally. A few days ago I almost did the same thing as you Kyla. Decided going to bed at 6am and getting up at 9 would have to suffice. But I still didnt go to bed until 4am the next night, so it didn’t fix my mental clock.

Usually my second wind comes around the 30-hour mark. My record for nonstop awake is 45 hours. My meltdown point is generally around the 40-hour point, which I have reached way too many times. Once I did four days awake with only a 6-hour sleep about halfway through.

16

I made it 52 hours before practically fainting. And before that 48 hours (almost exactly) as a test with a few friends.

The key is to keep busy. I’ve done lots of 24 hour wake days when I was hooked on ICQ and the internet.

I don’t know if 22 hours is long enough to suffer any sleep deprivation problems but the early signs for me were poor sight/grey vision/tunnel vision.

The purple gremlins came later.

17

The last few days I’ve been pulling all nighters to finish some essays. I’m pretty much where you are Kayla. I’m trying to stay awake so I can get a decent sleep schedule thingy. To my great sorrow, the bottle of beer did not help at all. Neither did the turkey sandwich.

That couch looks comfortable and so does the blanket. I don’t think I’ll make it…

18

Longest time awake was about 50 hours while in Desert Storm. Ironically it was spent mostly debugging rushed code from civilian programmers from stateside. Schwarzkopf needed to see numbers from a certain report so my boss kept flogging away until I had it done.

Longest time in my current job was about 38 hours. Worked a 12 hour shift, went to a 10 hour class, went home and showered and said hi to the family, then back to work for another 12 hours. During the class I kept popping dark chocolate espresso beans, which had me all jittery by the end of the class.

I find that if you can stay awake up to when you would normally wake up that you can usually go at least another 12 hours without much hurt. After that, walking around, loud singing, coffee, cigarettes, and hammering my forehead will keep me going for another several hours.

When working the night shift last year I would routinely go for 28-30 hours every Sunday staying awake and trying to get back to a daytime schedule for my days off so I could spend time with my family. That got old after 10 months.

Hang in there. Keep us posted on your mental state if you can.

19

Lobsang, that’s pretty normal for the first few months after quitting drinking. In rehab, they gave us trazadone so we could sleep.

The person who still sleeps like that after quitting 15 years ago, wow. Try Calm’s Forte. It’s a homeopathic remedy that works for me.

20

OKAY! I’m still awake, coming up upon 29 hours. I’m actually feeling more awake and … sane … now than I was a few hours ago. I made matzah ball soup for dinner and it’s simmering right now. I think I’ll probably pass out right after I eat it.

It’s been snowing for the first time this year here in Chicago and everything is covered with a thin white powder. Very pretty.