# What is the longest you've gone without sleep? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 23, 2002, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-longest-youve-gone-without-sleep/99747 "2002-03-23T20:53:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cougarfang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c67d28/32.png) [@Cougarfang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cougarfang)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-longest-youve-gone-without-sleep/99747/41 "2002-03-26T10:48:10Z")
Ironically enough, my record’s about 36 hours (give or take a few… my memory’s gotten very fuzzy, for obvious reasons) and that was around third or fourth grade. Elementary school. I was “sleeping over” at **Wind Sorceress** ’s house, and it turned out I didn’t sleep at all that night, and WS slept for about two hours. Stayed up the next day, too. AFAIK, I didn’t suffer. I might decide to break that record someday… or some night… ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-longest-youve-gone-without-sleep/99747/42 "2002-03-26T13:08:08Z")
I can’t recall. But I do know I spent over 24 hours of it in **Coffee Etc.**. Man I got my money from that all you can drink tea. Friends came, friends left and I stayed. And all that caffine. I probably went over 50. Not that much compared to most here though. Jeez, why? ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-longest-youve-gone-without-sleep/99747/43 "2002-03-26T13:31:56Z")
Going 36 to 48 hours with no sleep is common for me. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-longest-youve-gone-without-sleep/99747/44 "2002-03-26T19:07:57Z")
This weekend I worked 19.5 hours in a 24 hour period, so I was up for 30 hours or so. That’s not a record for me though, it’s actually pretty common. When my mom was sick, I almost never slept. I’d take an hour nap (2 if I was lucky) every 5 days or so. After about a month, I couldn’t decide if I was hot or cold, hungry or not, happy or sad, and I constantly felt like screaming just out of frustration. Audio hallucinations (clock chimes), but nothing visual. I didn’t talk at all, to anyone, except to ask my mom if there was anything I could do for her. The longest I went without speaking even to her was well over a week and, after speaking for maybe 10 minutes, my throat hurt and I had to stop. Very interesting experience. I didn’t sleep at all from the day my friend died to her funeral (roughly four days). I don’t think the sleep deprivation side effects are accurate, since I was way stressed anyway. I did experience some visual hallucinations (there was a plant in the corner of my vision that I could swear was a small japanese child) the day before her funeral. And my longest chemically-aided stretch without sleep is about 8 days. It stopped there because I chose to take sleeping pills rather than more meth. I slept for almost 40 hours and woke up feeling worse than I did when I went to sleep. It took me almost a month to get back to “normal” after that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-longest-youve-gone-without-sleep/99747.md?page=2)