I mean NO sleep at all. not a wink. and what side affects did you have.
4 days for me, complete with hallucinations, migrane, tunnle vision, and a constant buzzing in my ears. yes, i have insomnia, much better now though 
In summer 2000, I shot the Good Morning America concerts on Friday mornings. That typically meant that I awoke on Thursday morning, and was up all day, then drove into NYC for a midnight call time. We set up all night, prepped for the show, went on the air at 7am. Off the air at 9am. ( So, now we’re lookin at roughly 26-27 hours).
Wrap out the shoot, and drive home. By then I’d have a second wind, and would be safely awake to drive home. The longest I ever went was 41 hours nonstop. A few coffee cups- 2 or 3 really, I’m highly caffeine sensitive.
By the last few hours, I was long since home and safe, and figured, what the heck- could I stay awake longer? I was online, working, writing, talking to family. I was just not capable of focusing for more than a few moments at a time, I’d lose it. I was irritable, and sick to my stomache.
A little bit of tunnel vision,and a little bit of that buzzing. I can relate to that. It took me a few days to recover. Those days are over now, and I assume I’ll never again be awake for more than 24 hours nonstop.
Cartooniverse
The longest I’ve gone without sleep was 37.5 hours! I don’t think I had any side effects, really… for some odd reason, I just didn’t feel like sleeping or crashing! (and that’s pretty damn good for me)
I woke up at 8:15 on a Sunday morning to go to church; afterwards, I had lunch and then went home for the afternoon. Then my friend picked me up to go to a friend’s surprise birthday party. After he and my brother drove me home, I just simply stayed up all night just writing in my journal! (as I said, I didn’t really feel like sleeping!) I thought that at around maybe 7 the next morning, I’d feel like going to bed, but NO! So I went through my Monday: checking email, listening to music, going out to run errands, then going to my brother’s house for dinner. After my brother and his friend drove me home at around 8-ish, I STILL could not sleep! So I made a few phone calls, and finally decided to sleep at around 9:45 PM. Needless to say, I had about 12 hours of sleep after that marathon (done without caffeine, thank you very much!)! 
(One of my Australian friends has got me beat, though… he once stayed up for 54 hours straight: partying, drinking lots, working on music, etc. Near the end, he said that he was hearing voices, so he turned his music equipment all the way down; he could STILL hear them! It was around then that he decided that 54 hours was too long awake… I’d say so! Of course, he had LOTS of caffeine to stay awake, whereas I had none… I don’t know whether this makes me better than him, or what!)
83 hours. One of the best long weekends I’ve ever had. At the end I think I slept for 22 hours.
DaLovin’ Dj
46 hours, back in '99 when I had some papers to get in, then a flight to catch, then a drive to my final destination before I could sleep. Funny thing is, I wasn’t feeling too bad at the end of it; I slept for about 10 hours and was fine.
:o
24 hours.
36 hours. This was back when I started working nights, and the change to night work did funny things to my circadian rhythm. I could stay up late for a good long bit. Now I’m on daywork. I still can’t get all the sleep I want.
While I was in university, I made extra money by volunteering for a number of different things and some were experiments that students in the psychology department were conducting. The money was generally good and they fed you.
One of the experiments that I took part in was a sleep deprivation study held appropriately enough at the local mental institution over a long weekend. Anyway, with the classes, my regular job and the experiment (at which they gave us these incredible tests and observed us through a one-way mirror [or is it two-way?]), I (and I imagine the other guinea pigs) were up for around 56 hours or so. Following that, I got six hours of sleep and was back at my classes and then my job.
I apparently was so out of it at classes that day one of my professors complained to the psych department that they shouldn’t use me for awhile. My girlfriend wasn’t too crazy about the whole thing either.
She claimed that my IQ dropped to something around that of fungi. When my friends heard this, they claimed if that were true, it was in fact a marked increase not a drop at all.
Honestly, I don’t remember too much about it.
By the way, I had weird dreams for weeks afterwards.
4 days… if i remember right
About 36 hours with the help of a lot of coffee and exercise. No real side effects, outside of just a general unfocused, very tired feeling. Slept for about 14 hours after that.
Never gonna do it again.
Seven days. It was a weird experience. I was alternatelycold and hot, I was always hungry and smoking a cigarette, and I felt like someone had given me a concussion.
I’ll never do that again.
I think it was around 48 hours or so. I was at a buddies cottage and hit my head pretty badly and they didn’t let me sleep until one of their dad’s showed up…
The reason we couldn’t go to the hospital was due to the fact their cottage is on an island, had no power, and we were dropped off without the boat. In hindsight, that perhaps wasn’t the best idea ever…
Close to a week. Mania, I think they call it. After the first day I actually felt alright. Energy level was up there, just a minor head ache, and boy did I get a lot of chores done. Started writing my second book, cleaned out the garage (gack, very dirty), organized
and ORGANIZED until I ran out of things to organize.
I don’t recommend it. I have terrible insomnia now, and it sucks. Last night I got about 1.5 hours and had to work today. I need to go have a sleep study, or maybe just drink heavily in the PM.
Right now, it’s 24 hours. But I’m going to bed, and this thread’s going to IMHO.
G’night. 
I’ve hit the 40-hour mark quite frequently this semester. I don’t get side effects, but am trying not to push it any further than that.
It’s strange: I’ll be up at 2 AM reading the SDMB, and it’ll occur to me “I haven’t slept in about 40 hours.”
I’m an insomniac I think. I don’t get close to records for duration, but I am consistenly awake for periods of 48-56 hours, followed by 12-14 hours of sleep. This has been going on for about a year and a half. No bad side effects, except the planning that this involves around exam time.
I thought it was longer at first, but upon re-adding I see the longest for me has been about 36 hours. I had no real odd effects, just a general feeling of “disconnectedness”.
12 days. I must say it was the longest 12 days of my life. By the end of that time I was hallucinating so bad that I was dodging imaginary images flying at my head. I also experianced audible hallucinations as well. I was constantly hearing things from all directions even when it was totally quiet. I still have a few planck spots in my memory of that time period due to the lack of sleep. I must say that being high on meth is a very strange way to spend two weeks. I dont recommend it.
About 40 hours. I hate final exams.
You people are amazing.
I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than about twenty hours. I need my sleep. Even when I was in my late teens and early twenties, I didn’t have the staying power of my peers. Maybe it’s because I didn’t take the drugs -I dunno. I’m also a caffeine junkie with a high tolerance to the stuff: I can drink an espresso then go straight to bed.
I can go with two or three hours’ sleep per night for a week or so, but then I need a fourteen hour marathon sleep.