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

In My Humble Opinion
1

I found out today, one of my dearest friends in the whole wide world is in Canada for a few weeks. He lives in Florida. I’ve seen him exactly 3 times in the 4 years isnce I moved to Boston. So upon hearing this, I of course began to try to make plans for me to go visit him in Ottowa, as Canada is a lot closer to me than Florida is…

It’s a 6 hour drive. There’s no way I can take time off, because we’re down managers as it is, and for me to take days off would require that my store manager works a 60 hour week (on salary…), and I’m too softhearted to do that to him. I usually get Monday and Wednesday off. If I can’t get someone to switch with me, so that I can have 2 consecutive days off, then I’ll be forced to go sleepless. Say I close Sunday night. Immediately after work, I leave town (at 2 am…), and drive through the night. Arrive in Canada on Monday morning, spend the day with Sean, and depart back to Massachusetts, in order to make it back in time for work at 5 pm on Tuesday. Close Tuesday, and sleep for the first time in days at 3 am Wednesday morning…total time without sleep, noon on Sunday to 3 am on Wednesday, about 40 hours, if I’m counting right. (Which I’m probably not, because I suck at math…)Hopefully, I can find someone to cover Tuesday for me, and I can get an extra day in there to sleep. Otherwise, caffeine OD, here I come…

So, what’s the longest you’ve gone without sleep?

2

36 hours.

3

67 hours.

4

73 hours.
Things started getting very weird after the first two days, I wouldn’t reccomend driving like that.

5

42 hours, slept for one hour, then was awake for another 39. I regularly do 24 to 36 hours without sleep, but I’m a trained insomniac :slight_smile:

Pammi-doll, please consider taking a bus. It’s not fair to the people you will run into when you fall asleep or start hallucinating at the wheel.

6

All day.

7

48 hours. But I once worked 26 hours sraight. That could have been when I was up 48 hours. I start to hallucinate when I’m up for 36 hours. It happens more often than you might think.

8

I was once up for about 42 hours when I was at a magic convention. On the 3rd night, I pulled an all nighter with some friends and never was able to get to sleep the next day until about 11:30 PM.

9

In college: Woke up around 7 on Thursday morning, went to class, went to work, came home, wrote paper that was due Friday, went to class on Friday, drove 5.5 hours to girlfriend’s house in south Georgia, had dinner, made small talk with her and her parents, went to bed around 10. 39-ish hours if my math is right. Don’t remember much of Friday at all except for almost being killed by somebody who ran a red light.

I’ve got a feeling Qadgop the Mercotan or one of our other Teeming Medicos is going to show up and put us all to shame.

10

About 40 hours.

I would just like to echo what Barbarian said - I’d really, really advise you not to drive when you’re sleep deprived. A lot of accidents happen due to drivers being tired and it’s a danger to yourself and to other people - take a bus if you can.

Also - be careful with the caffiene - while it does get you up, it also brings you down quite sincerely. And too much of it can really do your head in. Sorry to be such a wet blanket, but there you are.

Fran

11

But the whole of that time was spent working or driving to/from work (which happened to be several hundred miles away that occasion), we only had about three half-hour breaks for food in the whole time.

Driving home (a five hour drive) was an absolute nightmare and most certainly illegal.

At the end of it, I was hallucinating - the pattern on the carpet was washing in and out like the seashore and when I finally collapsed into bed back home, my wife’s teddy bear waved to me from up on top of the cupboard.

12

About 60 hours, a radio marathon.
You have these dark phases fairly early (20-24 hours in), try not to drive during them. Pull over if you even think you could sleep. A nap in a rest stop could save your/my life.
Afterwards, you think you’re gonna sleep for 16 hours? Wrong. You’ll sleep in and out fits of 1-2 hours, it takes days to recover fully. Lotsa water, no caffeine or drugs, (trust me) and eat healthy, which is difficult on the road.

13

81 hours here. That made me just about the sickest I’ve ever been, too. I’m often up for 48-72, being a chronic insomniac and all, but that time nearly drove me around the bend.

At some point during day 2 I get what I call “elevator syndrome” where the equilibrium falls off a bit and I spontaneously get the sensation you feel when an elevator is trying to line up with the right floor. Then, at some point during day 3 I start to get auditory hallucinations. A little bit deeper into day 3 I get swimming vision and my depth perception goes to shit.

That’s all kind of normal. The one time I went beyond 72 hrs., though, my body temperature wouldn’t regulate - MAJOR hot and cold flashes back to back, bright purple rings under both eyes, nausea, difficulty articulating, thinking I was talking when I wasn’t, and a host of other weird little physical responses including, twice, having vivid dreams while still wide awake. My girlfriend at the time caught me REMing and thought I’d finally fallen asleep - scared her silly when I started talking.

Get some rest, take a bus and whatever you do, make sure you’re actually awake and functioning if you’re on the road.

14

I’m up there in AquaPura’s neighborhood–a couple of trips to the 72-hour vicinity were plenty to convince that sleep deprivation is a Bad Thing.

24 hours–feels fairly normal, maybe a little achy
36 hours–very achy, irritable; not feeling sleepy, but drowsing off if I don’t stay active
48 hours–auditory distortion, mild visual distortion, aches develop into actual pain, coordination hosed
60 hours–auditory hallucinations, moderate visual distortion, feels like I’ve been beaten with baseball bats, physical activity required to remain awake
72 hours–mild visual hallucinations/hyperreality, feels like I’m currently being beaten with lead pipes, lost time, poor temperature regulation, slightly erratic heart rate

I would never try to drive after the 24 hour stage unless it was a matter of life and death–and then it depends on the “which life?” question. There’s good advice in this thread–listen to it. Take a bus or something, get all the sleep you can, and don’t drive if there’s any chance of dozing off. You’ll enjoy your time with your friend more if you’re better rested and not worried about the trip back.

Recovery patterns can vary quite a bit from person to person. After my 72 hour stints, I did indeed sleep straight through for many hours. On one of these occasions, I woke up exactly where I had fallen–sprawled just inside my bedroom door–nearly 14 hours after reaching home. I had to pee like you wouldn’t believe, was parched, and craved orange juice and beef. I second the advice on water and nutrition–all the water you can reasonably stand, no caffeine, and as little sucrose as you can manage. Fruit, bread, and vitamins are Good Things for the recovery period, along with reasonable amounts of meat–your stomach is likely to be touchy, so you should avoid fatty, greasy foods.

I was usually close to normal after the marathon sleep and fully recovered in two days. Mind you, this was when I was 22.

15

Freshman year of college. Finals week.

78 hours.

I think I got an A in the class for the last final I took by some miracle. Then, I somehow only managed 7 hours of sleep. No hallucinations or anything here, though.

Ah, to be 18 again…

16

A lot longer than anyone has posted so far.

I strongly suggest as the others have that you do not drive while sleep deprived.

17

Sleep deprivation is much like taking drugs, and you wouldn’t drive while high I hope! :slight_smile:

The longest I’ve gone is two days and I felt like a strung out junkie by the end of it.

On the other hand, I’m curious to know what’s the longest amount of sleep people have had. Barring illness, accident, and hospital stay. . . For me, I once slept a solid 14 hours. I felt just as strung out after that as I did from not sleeping.

18

12 hours…

OK, 28 or 32 hours at the most I would say. I have poor stamina.
Lack of sleep can’t be good for your brain, as too much sleep seems to be make things just as fuzzy. Which is why I avoid either as much as possible. :slight_smile: (gotta conserve whats I gots)

19

65 hours.

It was nasty. Would never want to do it again. Of course I had little choice in the matter, as I had volunteered for the study and they were paying me. I didn’t hallucinate but I suffered migraines, tunnel vision, loss of basic mental skills (I had to count on my fingers for simple addition and subtraction), loss of coordination, etc.

And as was said before, don’t drive whioe you’re sleepy.

20

Pretty much in the range of what other people have said - somewhere in the 70s for me.

One year in college, on Tuesdays, I’d regularly stay awake 40+ hours. I’d get up at 8 am, and that night was our weekly Rolemaster group, so I’d be up until 3-4 am, and then I had a Latin class at 9 am on Wednesdays, so I had little hope of getting out of bed if I fell asleep. (Although sleeping in on Wednesday mornings was So Relaxing…) I’d stay up all day and then stick it out to midnight just to make it an even 40.

But to repeat what other people have said- don’t drive, and when you sleep after a long stretch, you probably won’t sleep for a long period of time but rather short stretches of 1-2 hours apiece, interspersed with the most bizarre dreams you’ve ever had.

And leave the various drugs out of it. Learn from my mistake, and gather round, young children, and see the folly of someone who thought he could handle it.

Junior year, end of the spring semester, two papers due, about sixty pages left to write, and thirty hours in which to do them. I’ve already been awake for thirty hours, and I go through a wide, wide, WIDE variety of caffeine sources to keep me up and typing. I finished the papers successfully, and had four hours left until class. ‘Some sleep is what I could use,’ I said to myself, ‘but it’s too bad I’m so wired.’

At that point, my gaze fell upon the bottle of Nyquil on my desk.

‘Just a half-shot, and I’ll be sure to set my alarm. And then just a bit of caffeine to wake me up.’ I was out like a light, but when my alarm went off, I felt dead. My stomach felt like a lead ball coated in poison, my mouth was alternately dry and racked with pain, and my vision was blurred. ‘Hair of the dog that bit you,’ I thought, and had another few cups of coffee. Somehow I made it to class and deposited the papers in my professor’s hands and then stumbled back to bed.

I’m surprised I’m still alive. These days I need a solid seven hours of sleep every day if I hope to accomplish anything the next day. I’m such a wuss.