What is the longest amount of time you've gone without sleep?

[POed_Ex_Repub]

My personal record is 96 hours. I was working on a monster project in college, started hallucinating a little by the end there...

[BlueEyedSon]

1. 72hrs, finals freshman year, lots of coca cola

hallucinating A LOT

[Birthmark]

2. That's about my personal best, too.

I wasn't working on a project, though. I was just having too good a time to sleep.

[stepnw1f]

6. Like 56...

was feeling nautious, while the room around me started to do a tumble roll..

[Lauren2882]

3. About 40

I think

[Exultant Democracy]

4. A little over 3 days

midterms and midterm projects.

[Edge]

5. 72 hours...

during finals week 3 years ago.

[ixion]

7. 5 days, or thereabouts

the last day or so was pretty much a delirium... I was wandering around Europe, and wound up in front of the Prado in Madrid. Things get pretty strange at that point. ;-)

[DS1]

8. Quake2, 30 hrs straight

Stood up and threw up from motion sickness.

[TrogL]

9. 52 hours

work

[maveric]

10. 6 days. I was once a Tweaker.

Many moons ago I hopped on the meth wagon and liked it.
They were the worst years of my life.

[HawkerHurricane]

11. 72 hours

Cruising in the Persian Gulf in 1985, hoping the Iranians didn't shoot at us (using weapons Ollie North sold them)... we were 'showing the flag' because some Iranian official claimed 'the next American ship to pass through the straits of Hormuz we're going to sink'... so there we were, alone, unarmed, unafraid, flying the biggest American flag we could find, doing 3kts back and forth through the straits...

[bubblesby2002]

12. No more than 36 hours one time in the late 70's

dropped much acid during those hours. Didn't ever do it again though.

[Lostmessage]

13. 2 days

:puke:

[Bundbuster]

14. 20 days - not shitting you - almost died

No drugs involved.

[POed_Ex_Repub]

16. Wow... that's a lot!

How did that happen?

[Bundbuster]

18. severe clinical depression, without realizing it

resulted in hallucination, metabolic breakdown, month-long hospitalization, permanent sleep disorder still after 20 years.

That's part of why I'm an unchallenged thread-killer - when you're awake & posting at 5 or 6 a.m., you're gonna kill much more than your share.

[southerngirlwriter]

25. See my post below -- I was very nearly there.

I understand what you mean. Sanity is much more perilous than almost anyone realizes.

[LastKnight]

15. 4 or 5 days...

ive been known to procrastinate my major school projects... and thus, the result of this is staying up a whole schoolweek to finish it, go to school, and get my regular work done. lotsa pepsi and loud music

-LK

[Enraged_Ape]

17. 96 hours, in college, same as you

By the time that stretch was over, I had literally forgotten how to go to sleep. I remember lying in bed and wondering, "Now what do I do?", while in the meantime, I was hallucinating that dwarves were eating my fingernails. Not good.

[REP]

19. Several Years

I have severe sleep apnea, which before treatment meant I got no meaningful sleep (nothing beyond Stage 1). Not only did I get no real sleep, I woke up every 20 minutes or so, so the Stage 1 sleep wasn't that good! Yes, it nearly killed me.

[Bundbuster]

20. Mercy, REP

(see message #18) You have my deepest sympathies & compassion. Last week I actually slept 8 straight hours for the first time in years. It was simply the best gift possible - wouldn't have traded it for a king's ransom. Non-insomniacs will never understand the dread and destruction of permanent sleep disorders/insomnia. Best wishes for future improvement, REP.

[kid_nz]

21. 120 hours...

Had a final art show for my Fine Arts degree and WAY underestimated the time it would take me to do it all properly. I ended up going to the opening in a semi-altered mind state with ALL my friends and relatives looking vaguely familiar and kinda swimmy. If my memory can be trusted, it was well received, though...

[beevul]

22. 80 something hours...

Playing Everquest, lots of MT dew. I have since broken the addiction. Everquest that is.

[CanuckAmok]

23. Four days, twice in my life:

Once, in highschool, a friend and I had a 'staying awake contest', and the other time was in Somalia, for less recreational reasons.

[southerngirlwriter]

24. When I was 18, I was robbed at gunpoint

(while delivering pizza). It was on a Sunday night. I did not get any sleep at all until late Friday afternoon. It wasn't fear, just adrenaline and shock and trauma.

I've never added it up before....so, let's see....assuming I got up that morning around 9 (the pizza shop opened at 11 on Sundays), that would be, um, from 9AM Sunday till about 5PM Friday.... 5 x 24 = 120 +8 = 128 hours.

By the end, I was more than hallucinating. I was on the edge of insanity. I honestly believe if I'd managed to stay up another 12 hours, I would have permanently fried my brain.

[Rex]

26. Maybe 2 weeks, I don't really know for sure

When I was in the Army we went on a field exercise and it lasted for a month. The first two (maybe even three weeks) I got no sleep, after 4 days (this includes massive hallucinations) things kinda got...sharp and hairy. I stopped thinking about exhaustion and lost all sense of time (sun up, sun down). The reason I stayed up so long? Everyone in my MOS that worked in the TAC got 'killed' and were not released until the exercise was about done. I was they only guy left in my pay grade and was not allowed to leave my post. I objected after about 3 days but my platoon sgt didn't give a rats ass.

[put out]

27. 3 days, 2 full nights.

On the third night, I began hallucinating, having feelings of depersonalization, and thought, this is what mentally ill people feel like. I was doing a job and lives depended on my being there and able to do my job. An experience I would not wish on any soul. I got to sleep that third night, for 6 hours. Then, after, I had to stay up for an additional 2 nights.

[tsakshaug]

28. 3 days and nights

Jolt cola and chewing tobacco--Yech!

Doing programming and was on a roll. Did not want to quit. I think I sort of smelled by the end of the second day. Finished the project and it worked well. Until the trolls got ahold of it and made changes. Then it was another 24 hour straight job.

So why did I leave programming?

[buddhamama]

29. 86 hours

i, too, started to hallucinate toward the end.

it was fun, thank goodness i wasn't driving.

[Kamika]

30. maybe 30 hours

I'm lame I know

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

31. 36. More than that and I just shut down...

...no matter what.

[Beaker]

32. 4 days.

when I was in college, another guy on my floor and I had an acid/speed laced staying awake contest.

[Aristus]

33. About 80 hours. During Gulf War I.

And that was just a training exercise!

[HEyHEY]

34. ABout about 40

On the via, between Saskatchewan and Toronto, the train was late, and I ended up meeting some cool people in the smoking car. Stayed up the whole time yaking. Got to Toronto, met some neat folks at the hostel and stayed up until 3 AM. The guy running the hostel promised to wake me up at five for a Canada-Finland hokcey game (this was during the 98 olympics)

He tried to wake me up, and I opened my eyes and started to get up....I swear to GOD I had no control, my eyes on their own just fell and so did I, I went back to sleep.

[beyurslf]

35. 72 hours.

Dont ask me to do it again now though. Oh to be 19 again.

[catzies]

36. 40 hours. Daughter riding her bike was hit by a truck.

Emergency room and hospital drama.

That was 1992 and she was 12.

She's fine now and I'm caught up on my sleep.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

37. about 42 hours

when i took a road trip to the tibetan freedom concert in wisconsin

[afraid_of_the_dark]

38. Not long enough

To post on this thread. It would seem wimpy in comparison. :dunce:

[Interrobang]

39. About 50h, all told...

I was at The Pennsic War, a big Society for Creative Anachronism event in Pennsylvania. I'd stayed up all day the day before finishing my last paper for grad school, handed that in, stayed up all night packing and cleaning my apartment, then rode down with a friend (driving) whom I had to keep awake (8 hrs.), and then the whole evening (set-up) and night and the next day... By the time I got to Pennsic and finished the set-up, I was so stoked to be there that the concept of sleep was just alien. However, by the time I'd been up for about 2 days more or less, I started to feel really weird -- cold, nauseated, and hyper. I went into my tent, bunked down on my nice padded bed, pulled the sleeping bag around me, and slept for 14 or 15 hours.

Other times I've done something similar (I had a *lot* of 36 hour days when I was in grad school!), I noticed that I feel ok up until about the 20 hour mark, then I feel really crappy (cold, shaky, nauseated, and dizzy) until about Hour 28 or so, and then I go into hyper mode and feel ok until I crash. I've also found that dressing warmly and eating *a lot* mitigates the effects somewhat. (With my body it seems to be a trade-off: food, or sleep.)