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[Digital-Aftertaste]

What's the longest you've been without sleeping? What were the effects?

For reasons, I am currently running on fumes, pushing on a day and a half without any shut eye. I've currently have experienced a slight sense of visual distortion similar to being drunk but thankfully my rest will come soon. The last time I was this sleep deprived was in college, when I started seeing 8-foot tall shadow people out of the corner of my eyes.

Sleep deprivation is incredibly unhealthy and can lead to serious brain issues down the line. That being said, it'd be nice to hear what other people's experiences have been with this phenomenon and how long have they gone with no slumber.

 

[touchfuzzy]

Not that long actually, probably only like 22 hours. I would get up for work at 4 AM, but it was my Friday so then I would stay up late playing video games online and drinking til like 2 AM the next day.

Way too old for that now, even. Never had issues sleeping.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I did about 45 hours once. I was working all day with an early morning, had to get on a flight around midnight, it got delayed till 2. First leg was about 5 hours with a 2 hour layover. Next flight was about 2 hours got to my location and went to check in to my hotel but couldn’t lay down as i had meetings. Had those all day and into the night then they want to socialize. It was awful. The next day was an early morning too but I shut it down much earlier and went to bed.

A normal person would have just slept on the plane I’m scared of flying so I was awake the whole time.

I have no idea how people do that. I was dying inside but had to stay sharp for work.

 

[Bojji]

Over 24h but I'm not sure how long exactly...

 

[HRK69]

50 hours of smoking weed and playing games

This happened recently. I didn’t feel too bad, but I had a hard time falling asleep.

I can easily go a night without sleep, and I end up skipping sleep once or twice a month.

 

[JimmyRustler]

2-3 years

I’m sure I slept an hour here and there but it surely felt like I didn’t sleep at all. Can’t recommend. It was a horrible time but as weird as it sounds, I’m kinda happy about it. Did a lot of introspection during that time (duh, I was just lying there for nights on end with my thoughts). Learned a lot. Came out of it a better man.

 

[Hookshot]

A little over 24 hours probably. Never crossed my mind to see how long I could go. If anything I'd be annoyed if I deliberately cocked my sleep pattern up.

 

[jason10mm]

Somewhere in the 40-48 hour range of legit no sleep. To the point where keeping body temp becomes difficult, you are living off sugar rushes, eyes are dry and hurt, even JOINTS start hurting and you get so exhausted you can't actually sleep.

Done plenty of 3-5 day stretches of just 3-4 hours of broken rest which I think is way worse. I'm not a napper so I find if I get more than a 5-10 power nap it just WRECKS me for the rest of the day. So its either basically no sleep or a full 6-7 hours. Alas I rarely get more than 7.5 hours of sleep so I'm probably pushing myself into early dementia and heart attack, but it is what it is.

 

[f~N_CH_1:3:3:3_SushiBoat]

33 hours . End of quarter cram session / capstone. Early 20s. Was just super exhausted by the end of it. Folllowing nap, stayed in bed for about 16 hours lol.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Like many others, probably a little more than 24 hours a couple of times in my life.

 

[John Marston]

50 hours of smoking weed and playing games.

I once stayed awake over 36 hours but I was drunk all that time and on shrooms.
I was 21 and on vacation in New York city.
Doing that today would put me in hospital

At work I also did a 28 hour shift of crunch time.
Nothing bad except getting random giggles and hallucinating spiders from the corner of my eyes.

 

[Bartski]

not much but when I'm in my chronic gaming mode I can go all weekend only on powernaps

 

[N0S]

Sleep is the cousin of death

 

[Senua]

3 days+ when I used to do cocaine

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

44 is about my limit. I regularly run 24 to 30 hour deficits, but it is always out of necessity and it is typically related to work.

Some of my clients are in the medical field and constantly tell me that post 22 hours you are entering "impaired thinking" territory and they say it is the same thing as being drunk.

I don't get much sleep either when I do, I top out at around 5 hours or so on a GREAT day, I can do 8 to 10 but that requires sleeping drugs...the snap back on those for me is awful and I end up with a few days of really shitty sleep after I use them.

 

[Roberts]

First of all, I sympathise with anyone struggling with insomnia. For someone who loves sleeping and almost never had trouble falling asleep (I used to be able to fall asleep anywhere, even in a vertical position), this feels like the worst nightmare.

I once didn’t sleep for 45 hours because we were behind schedule on finishing a movie and sleeping was out of question. Slept like a baby afterwards.

 

[IntentionalPun]

I was partying late last year on a Friday (starting at about 5pm) and then thought it was the next afternoon (which was not abnormal for me) when I was like “need to go to bed” but realized it was actually Sunday almost noon. I had woken up for work at 7AM on Friday and didn’t actually get to sleep until around 3pm on Sunday.

I’ve since chilled out but still party way too much for someone my age with my responsibilities.

 

[Mikado]

Obviously an "all-nighter" isn't 24 hours, it's closer to 36, since the whole point is that you need to be ready for the next day - which you then have to get through.

My record is over 80 hours while preparing my final thesis in university - three whole days and then a crash as soon as the submission was done.

I swear to god it was nearly 30 years ago I ain't been quite right ever since.

 

[Forsete]

Not sure, it was a long time ago. But around 38-42 hours somewhere, in the end it felt like I was controlling my body from outside my body for some reason.. and I had really sharp vision.

 

[poodaddy]

Plenty of folks here served in the military, so they all know what a 24 hour shift feels like. Well, I had one of those, a CQ shift specifically, but you can't leave duty until you're relieved. My relief never showed up and there was no one else to do it so I ended up pulling two CQ shifts in a row, that's 48 hours straight, then my relief the next day was late, so around 52 ish hours straight CQ and then I got to go home. On the drive home I straight up felt drunk, like really, really drunk man. Was not safe at all, and I aim to never do that again, it's just fuckin bad for your head dude.

 

[kevboard]

the longest I was awake was maybe 35~40 hours... that was when I was a teenager, so it wasn't really that much of an issue.

I think if I did that today I'd be an absolute wreck.

 

[jason10mm]

My record is over 80 hours while preparing my final thesis in university - three whole days and then a crash as soon as the submission was done.

I swear to god it was nearly 30 years ago I ain't been quite right ever since.

I've read your thesis....

 

[IDKFA]

Around 36 hours.

It was a house party at a villa in Ayia Napa with an stupid amount of drugs and booze.

I don't remember much. It's all a blur and I was tripping hard. It's a miracle nobody died.

 

[lifa-cobex]

About 35 hours.
I felt drunk and just generally awful.

With cocaine about 2 and a half days.
I don't remember much.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

40-48 hours or so. Random double all-nighter during finals week of college. Don't remember the details beyond not really going to class that semester and having to pull a lot of bullshit straight from my cornhole in order to pass some classes. Did graduate though so that's not to say it didn't work.

Low trait conscientiousness, I'm so sorry Daddy Jordan

 

[Neolombax]

I think it was 1 day and close to a half maybe? That was during uni, trying to meet a paper deadline. It was horrible.

 

[od-chan]

3 days+ when I used to do cocaine

Yeah, drugs are fun. I found for me the treshold to be around like 100 hours. Like 80-90 (3-4 days) were usually pretty safe and you didn't need to worry really, but I very strongly would advise to not push it past 100.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Nearly 40h

 

[Aesius]

When my first son was born. Woke up at 7 a.m. on a Thursday and was getting ready to go to bed at around 1 a.m. that night when my wife said her contractions were getting closer and closer together. So we went to the hospital. She was in labor for the entire night and next day, so basically all of Friday. Our son was finally born around midnight right as it turned to Saturday.

Tack on another 3-4 hours of post-birth stuff and they finally moved us to a non delivery room, where we couldn't sleep because he cried a lot and my wife had to feed him constantly. Finally, a nurse came in and offered to take him to the nursery for a few hours. Normally I would have been hesitant to let him out of our sight, but we were deliriously tired by this point and welcomed it. This was around 4 a.m. on Saturday, so by then we had been awake for almost 48 straight hours. We both instantly fell asleep when the nurse took him, which felt heavenly and recharged us enough to make it through the next day before they finally discharged us to go home.

Arriving home with a newborn and being insanely sleep-deprived was a trip. It's funny now because he's 4 and I also have a 2 year old. So dealing with a single newborn baby is ridiculously easy in comparison. But at the time it was the most difficult thing I could possibly imagine.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Around 40 hours a few times because it was the weekend, I had no obligations, and I wanted to maximize my free time. So I'd stay up from ~8AM Saturday until ~9PM Sunday. I'd get irritated easily, but it didn't matter because I didn't need to be on point.

That Sunday night sleep would be some of the best I ever get.

 

[dispensergoinup]

Funny this thread would show up after 32 hours with no sleep due to Oracle cloud taking a shit last night.

Bonus round of server maintenance tonight too, let's go!

 

[Robot Carnival]

around 70 hours and change I think. just work and depression screwing with my mind. nothing that bad ever since. still would be up for 36+ hours from time to time thou.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

I'm actually dealing with insomnia right now. I've gone three nights without sleeping. I think I maybe slept an hour or less this morning but that's it in the last 3 nights.

 

[DrFigs]

2 days for some finals week in college. terrible time

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Oh man this is bad. I'm seeing people here saying 24 or 40 hours and I'm going on three nights which is more than anyone here has mentioned. I'm surprised I'm not seeing shit right now.

 

[GymWolf]

When i travel to foreign countries during the summer i usually go dancing/clubbing at night and return in the morning, so for an entire week i only sleep like 1-2 hours per day.

 

[Hudo]

probably 50 hours or so. Was during a crunch

Edit: what's far more brutal is when you can only sleep for about 4 hours per day for a couple of weeks. That will fuck you up.

 

[Azzurri]

30-35 hours.

 

[GHG]

3 days+ when I used to do cocaine

Yep, 48 hours awake in London one time, genuinely took me weeks to fully recover.

 

[Moneal]

70-something hours. Was just over 3 days total. I have always had trouble going to sleep. Staying asleep has never been a problem, often to my detriment. I was working opening shifts at McDonalds, almost 20 years ago. I even took sleeping meds and turned off everything and laid in bed for 3 hours before I realized that falling asleep then would just make it harder to get up. This happened 2 days in a row. I fell asleep for a split second standing up around noon on the 3rd day in the kitchen of McDonald's. My knees buckling woke me up. Thankfully I made it home without issue and went straight to sleep after my shift. Didn't experience much in the way of hallucinations, but there was a bunch of brain fog. I also started to have headaches on the 3rd day.

 

[Rival]

I think it was about 38-40 hours one time when I went to Vegas. I was up all night before flying out at 6AM. I really can’t stay up too long anymore I just get so tired. I just woke up from a nice 9 hour sleep last night.

 

[DeafTourette]

48 hours... I ended up sleeping for 12 hours when I finally went to sleep. For 7 years while working at my former job, I got mostly 4, maybe 5 hours of sleep ... Even on the weekends.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Longest stretch for me was when my mother passed

My wife and I were in Australia when we got the call around 4:00 AM there and got a flight from Sydney to LAX later that day and then had to fly back to Indiana and I too am one of those who simply can't sleep on a plane no matter how many miles I have flown in my life.

Got to bed close to midnight the next day so around 44 hours and was pretty wiped out but only slept for a few hours then spent the day with family

Was just in a terrible brain fog for a couple of days and really feel for people that can't sleep even though my normal sleep pattern has always been around 6 hours or so then I am good to go

 

[Shubh_C63]

40 Hours in my college days for an exam.
Definitely would not recommend anyone to destroy their body like this. Obviously.

I'm actually dealing with insomnia right now. I've gone three nights without sleeping. I think I maybe slept an hour or less this morning but that's it in the last 3 nights.

omg. How are you dealing with that. Do you plan to take medication or tire yourself up just before nap time ?
If I am eating right, I feel like crashing at 7PM right out of office if I don't involve myself in something productive or talk to another human being.