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What's your record for going without sleep?

I

iMacZealot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Mar 11, 2005
2,237
3
My record for going without sleep is 34 hours...it wasn't fun. I did it to cram, of course. I also went for most of it without food because I threw up. By the end of it, I got a big shake from Dairy Queen and went to bed to have one of the best night's sleep I've ever had.

What's your record for going without sleep?
 
I've only ever had 1 full night of no sleep, so that's about 41 hours? That happened on the way home from Ireland. I had just met my now girlfriend a couple of weeks earlier and was excited to be seeing her again. Kept me awake on the ferry home!
 
I think the worst one I remember (and then still having to function the next two days) was at the height of the insomniac teenage years. I didn't sleep all one night and then couldn't sleep until 5am the next night (and then had to get up for school again at 7am in the morning). I fell asleep in assembly the next day. :eek:

It's hard to explain how nice it is to be able to sleep relatively normally these days.
 
Mine was about 58 hours as a result of two parties on consecutive nights. That was a fair number of years ago.

In the last year it was about 39 hours living of just polos, candy sticks and coca cola. I had to start/finish a project in one night and then drive 3 hours to London for a birthday party.
 
Three straight days/nights in 1989…

Final year Architecture Design Thesis.

The last few hours I was drawing on auto-pilot. Back then no computers for us, it was still pencil, pen and paper… lots of paper.

Subsisted on a diet of Coke and cigarettes.

My sister, bless her, drove me to university while I sat in the passenger seat with fuzzy black dots floating in front my eyes.

Mind you, I only slept for a day afterwards and felt fine.
Ahhhh… to be young again, eh? :p
 
3 nights passed me by with no sleep. (I finally passed out on the morning of the 3rd) If I have anything to say about it, I will never go through that again. Horrible.

I also went through a couple years of dreadful insomnia, I would usually get a few hours per night.

I treasure my sleep now.
 
Something like 54 hours. Leading up to surgery last year. I can't really say that I was awake, but I certainly wasn't asleep. Was on oxycodone for the pain, but it didn't help me sleep.
 
52 hours. Necessary to get five pieces of University coursework in before the end of term. Stupid lecturers on some subjects thought it was reasonable to keep giving us coursework during exam season for other modules, so Wednesday lunchtime I finished the last exam, went home and started on everything that had to be finished and in before Friday.

Needless to say when I did finally sleep it was for fourteen hours straight :eek:
 
One week. It took me several months to feel vaguely sane after that, sleep dep really takes it's toll on your sanity and after 30 hours or so the hallucinations begin to make themselves apparent, I went ~40 hours without from monday early morning to late last night.

My sleep issues are caused by sleep paralysis, sometimes when stressed I'll not be able to sleep as when I drift off instead of sleeping I stay conscious as my body's paralysed and the world drifts off into psychedelia, it's utterly terrifying and it usually lasts 3-4 minutes before I can break out of it.

I started suffering this as a result of being prescribed a rather horrifically nasty drug and I've had recurrent issues when under stress every since, they seem to be reducing in incidence steadily, prior to monday night I'd not had a problem in over a month but I was under a huge amount of stress barely able to keep my life together, everything looks like it's going to be ok now though :)
 
I`ve been awake for 40+ hours on 8-9 occasions. I really have a hard time going to sleep. A minimum of 2-3 hours in front of TV is a must for me to sleep. Sometimes those 2-3 hours extend to 6 hours leaving me no option but to not sleep at all as I find it easier compared to sleeping for less than three hours. Waking up without sleeping for atleast 6 hours is the most difficult thing for me.
 
Longest straight was 48 hours

it was part of an 80 hour stretch where I slept about 8 hours total. However, that was before I discovered Red Bull. With that stuff I can now do 40 standing on my head. Probably taking years off my life, but hey thats the price you pay.
 
Well

The most number of hours I stayed awake was around 48 hours I think. But that was during a vigil/wake. I drank plenty of coffee, ate plenty of chocolates, and played plenty of World of Warcraft. Of course I was mourning deep inside during that whole time.
 
Around 4 days, and I'm estimating around 90-93 hours with no sleep. I was 19.

I was studying for exams. I had 3 exams in 4 days, and they included Chemistry and Biology. I suck at Chem, and for some reason, I wasn't doing well in biology. Lets just say that I'm was a very persistent person, I had around 7 days to study for 3 exams, and I don't give up easily. ;) After the 1st night, I felt like a zombie. On Day 2, I got my second wind and felt fine in the afternoon of day 2. By Day 3, I was tired but I didn't need to sleep.

Day 4? Same. I even felt fine after I finished my last exam. Then I packed my bags, brought everything over to my car, and it was around 2 AM. I was going to drive home. I felt wide awake, and completely OK. My eyes felt bruised or something, but i didn't feel "tired". For the first 20-30 minutes in the car, I felt on top of the world, and really excited about finishing my bio exam. After 45 minutes, I was in serious danger of falling asleep and crashing my car. In fact, my eyes felt heavy, and closed quite a few times while I was driving. Uh oh. I didn't feel tired until I was allowed to sit continuously in my car, despite the music I had at full volume! Anyway, I opened up my windows and turned my music on really really loud. Didn't help. I pretty much fell asleep, so I pulled over, pinched myself as hard as I could on random parts of my body, and got out of my car for a breather. It helped a bit.......just enough for me to get home. I zonked out after that for a good 12 hours or so, and still felt exhausted. I spent the next 2 or 3 days sleeping well at night, and taking 1 or 2 hour power naps during the day to recover.


I'm 28 now, and I occasionally still stay awake for 40-50 hours without sleeping. I'm guessing around 12 times per year? :p That's how I roll.
 
I had insomnia after I graduated University due to the stress of a lack of career prospects, breaking up with my girlfriend of 5 years, and the looming prospect that I might have to move back in with my parents if I didn't get it together.

During that time I frequently went more than 48hrs without sleep, but the longest stretch I think was on the plus side of 72hrs. :( Ugh, I never want to feel that way ever again.

P.S. Mord, wow a week! :eek:
 
I stayed awake for three days once, and it was both one of the best and one of the worst experiences of my life.

I did it when I was still at school and had a number of big assignments due in all around the same time. The first day was completely normal as you'd expect. The second day I just felt incredibly tired the whole time and slightly zoned out. The third day was utterly bizarre. I would keep catching myself falling asleep at ridiculously impractical moments, like when walking down the stairs. Whenever I had to sit still I would experience the most vivid and realistic hallucinations, and accept them without question for a good 15-20 seconds or so.

I had to attend a piano concert on the third evening which was really strange, as it meant I had to sit still for about 2 hours while trying to stay awake. During the concert I repeatedly saw the pianist do perculiar things, such as opening up the piano and stroking it, as well as taking off his jumper and crawling underneath the stool he was sitting on - I have been assured that none of this actually happened!

Would love to do it again but expect I never will.
 
Stardotboy said:
I stayed awake for three days once, and it was both one of the best and one of the worst experiences of my life.

I did it when I was still at school and had a number of big assignments due in all around the same time. The first day was completely normal as you'd expect. The second day I just felt incredibly tired the whole time and slightly zoned out. The third day was utterly bizarre. I would keep catching myself falling asleep at ridiculously impractical moments, like when walking down the stairs. Whenever I had to sit still I would experience the most vivid and realistic hallucinations, and accept them without question for a good 15-20 seconds or so.

I had to attend a piano concert on the third evening which was really strange, as it meant I had to sit still for about 2 hours while trying to stay awake. During the concert I repeatedly saw the pianist do perculiar things, such as opening up the piano and stroking it, as well as taking off his jumper and crawling underneath the stool he was sitting on - I have been assured that none of this actually happened!

Would love to do it again but expect I never will.
Click to expand...

What the hell... That is scary and funny at the same time :D
 
I can't miss a nights sleep now. Don't know if it's old age (22) but sometimes I'll go with full intentions of staying up for kicks. By 4am I'm usually too tired to continue.

Also had a period of insomnia, for a week I probably managed 10 hours sleep and was just constantly drained.
 
About 30 hours when I ride the Minnesota 1000 endurance rally. 24 hours for the rally itself and the rest of the time before and after the rally.

Some friends in law enforcement had snitches working for them who were former meth users. When they were on meth they stayed awake for a looong time. One guy said he stayed awake for 2 weeks and another guy would stay awake for 3-4 weeks. I'm glad they got off the habit but it's hard to kick; most relapse.
:(
 
Longest I have ever gone was about 36 hours, if I counted correctly. It was Feb. '07 on school break when I went on a school trip to Rome. I woke up at 5AM Sunday Morning EDT, and my flight took off from Boston to France at 6PM EDT that night, I was not able to sleep on the plane for whatever reasons and we ended up getting to Rome at about 9:30 AM Monday local time (which was either 6 or 7 hours ahead of Boston, I forget). I was awake all day as we were touring the city and was up until 11 PM Roman time that night, which I believe was 5 PM EDT. So that means I was awake from 5 AM Sunday Eastern U.S. Time, through Sunday at 5PM Eastern U.S. Time, which is about 36 hours if I counted correctly, somebody correct me if I was wrong.
 
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