Longest you've gone without sleep

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Genefreak

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Just out of curiosity what's the longest you have gone without sleep? And why? For me it was last semester about 60 hours, I had like 3 big exams over three days and a lot of assignments, home-work due, post away.
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Genefreak said:
Just out of curiosity what's the longest you have gone without sleep? And why? For me it was last semester about 60 hours, I had like 3 big exams over three days and a lot of assignments, home-work due, post away.
Click to expand...

60 hours with legittly no sleep? 😱😱😱

How can you do that and function?

Personally I find my ability to function depends on sleeping a fair amount, I've only pulled like 2 legit all-nighters in my academic career...
 
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Low 40s, I think. I honestly didn't feel as bad as I've felt when I've gone 4-5 days with 8 hours total sleep. Easier to just stay awake.
 
Never pulled an all-nighter to study or do school work. However, while I was studying abroad we would stay out all night and go straight to class come 8am. Good times!

~30 hours
 
Never done an all-nighter. I think the longest I've gone is actually less than 24 hours.
 
50 something. Two consecutive all-nighters for tests...completely bombed the second one haha.
 
About 42 hours, it was aided by anhydrous caffeine so I had no issues lasting that long.
 
just under 72 hours...I couldn't quite make it to the 72 hour mark. Not recommended, coming from a professional insomniac.
 
the duck said:
60 hours with legittly no sleep? 😱😱😱

How can you do that and function?

Personally I find my ability to function depends on sleeping a fair amount, I've only pulled like 2 legit all-nighters in my academic career...
Click to expand...

Yes about 60 hours, I work the night shift from 11pm -7am, so I have of staying up to do anyway. In this particular situation this is what happened, I got up at 3 am Wednesday morning, for work. I started 3am and got off at 7am. I had class from 10am and then done done that day around 5pm. The following Thursday I had a genetics exam so i stayed up the entire night for that. Friday I had physiology exam, I would have gone to bed that night, but I had to work from 11pm - 7am.
So from 3am Wed-3am Thurs = 24 hrs
3am Thursday -3 am Frid =24 hours
3 am Friday- 3 pm Friday afternoon (test was at noon and I have one class after it)
By that Friday afternoon things were pretty bad, actually from the morning, I was very sleepy at work---didn't too well on that physiology test.
 
Not including insomnia a little over 30 hours. Including insomnia maybe 3 straight days (72 hours) without any sleep, I'm not really sure.

I don't think I've ever studied all night for a test. Honestly I'm not even sure if there's a point in that.
 
My brain doesn't function without sleep lol. I don't really understand all-nighters, unless your writing a paper that you've procrastinated on and that's due the next morning.
 
longest I've gone for something academic is 20 hrs in med school...never pulled an all nighter for school and DON'T recommend it....I have pulled an all nighter before on a vacation and I was up for like 30 hours
 
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It isn't uncommon for me to stay up for about 36 hours straight. I have a Circadian rhythm disorder and my sleep is pretty messed up right now. It's a big problem that I am trying to fix before I start med school in July 2011. 🙁
 
24 hours and that was for a party. The longest night I have pulled when I was studying was 22 hours.

Honestly I feel better after staying up real late than I do after several days of little to no sleep.
 
I think I'm in the high 40's. Rarely for studying, though.

I really need my sleep though. I can be a real monster when I don't get at least 5 hours.
 
Somewhere around 40ish.

I remember some guy in my human anatomy class claimed 6 days straight without drugs or for a medical reason. Couldn't believe the instructor didn't call him out on such a blatant lie.
 
I'm a vampire, I don't have to sleep.

For the record, my girlfriend made me see twilight with her for her birthday. I know what some of you were thinking.
 
Probably close to 40 hours after an all-nighter, then driving home after finals. Nearly drove off the road a few times!
 
Somewhere around 48 hours last year when I had like 4 exams and an essay due all in the same week.
 
In undergrad I've managed around 30ish, nothing too crazy.

High School was much worse, though. I had a summer AP English Literature assignment of reading three different books, fully outlining them each, and then writing an essay to thematically tie them all together. Being the procrastinator back then, I waited until the very last week to start. Unfortunately, even after working on it intensely, I still had quite a ways to go. At nearly 72 hours left to go, I was not nearly finished and it seemed like the only method left was to brave a triple all-nighter. I managed to finish and submit everything but I slept for sooo long afterwards. I think the final count of being awake was around 54 hours. Insanity, I say.

I don't think I'll ever pull that stunt again. Staying up is not fun at all :/
 
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I've gone maybe a week with 2-3 hours of sleep per night, but probably only about 40 hours straight without sleeping at all. How long without eating, that's another story. Never intentionally. I think my clockwork is faulty.
 
You guys are intense. I think the longest I've ever gone is about 38 hours, with 24 of those hours going toward my first Dance Marathon. You stand during all 24, too. Haha. My body refused to cooperate with me for days for that.
 
Roughly 72 hours. I was talking to imaginary people near the end.
 
^^^
I do dance marathon too at Iowa
did you sign up this year?
 
32ish hours. I could barely use my pen. lol.
 
On nights I barely get any sleep I notice that my depth perception tends to fail at times and I perceive steps that aren't there.
 
I once saw fog on the floor after 48 hours. Since then, I decided that was my limit.
 
About 2.5 days, so somewhere around 60 hours. I had really bad insomnia in high school, and I only slept 3-4 hours a night for about 2 years. Sometimes I'd skip a night or 2, but I was nowhere near functional after 48.
 
About 40 hours. I pulled a few all-nighters early in college and I think I was too hopped up on some combination of coffee, amp, and chocolate covered espresso beans (mmm) to go to sleep until it was bedtime again.
 
I haven't pulled an all-nighter, yet, but I have gone 4 days with 1-2 hours of sleep each day.

When I first started premed, I did that a lot. I started getting pains in my arms and legs, though. It was, well, quite painful. I haven't done anything like that in a while.

It's the worst thing because I usually started on a Monday night and Friday's classes were over, I couldn't get anything done. Most of the time I tried to do homework or study for about 1 hour, realize nothing was happening and then deciding to go to sleep. I usually slept for 12-16 hours. It wasn't healthy at all. 🙁
 
luke587 said:
^^^
I do dance marathon too at Iowa
did you sign up this year?
Click to expand...

I did DM the last two years but this year I have a seriously mean workload so I decided to skip out, sadly. I'm probably going to volunteer at the event to make up for my transgressions. Is this your first year in Dance Marathon?
 
Staying on topic (ish), has anybody gotten the feeling they're so busy their days are blurring? As in, you're not really having Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays anymore, just one huge 120-hour day with periodic 8-hour naps?
 
probably around the 60-72 hour region. up early one day, a group stayed up all night since it was our last night in japan, flew back to the Cali, 2nd flight to home, drive from the city to home, and was so enthused about the trip that after rambling to my mom about it I decided I was going to paint a picture. that was so far back in the day. i definitely don't do all nighters like i used to. i think i used them all up.
 
MizuNoHane said:
Staying on topic (ish), has anybody gotten the feeling they're so busy their days are blurring? As in, you're not really having Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays anymore, just one huge 120-hour day with periodic 8-hour naps?
Click to expand...
Yes, that's happening for me this week. I stayed up all night on saturday so now my sleep schedule is all screwed up. I end up falling asleep at like 3pm and waking up at 10pm. Then I stay up for the rest of the night and do it all over again. I'm trying my hardest not to fall asleep today. Feels bad man.
 
Maybe 30 hours as the longest. My schedule was so packed in undergrad that if I stayed up all night, I could only squeeze in a 30min-1hr nap after my all-nighter which were always unsatisfying. so I avoided staying up late if I could. I love sleep lol.
 
Almost 4 days so bout 90 hours. Was not due to school, exams or anything to do with studying. I was going to school though, also working, and pledging. I did NOT do it naturally though, and as I was driving home from work the last night I was kinda hallucinating.... seeing cats jump out of nowhere. Hopefully they were indeed figmets of my imagination . Kinda freaked me out, but I was almost home and I immediately crashed as I walked into my room.
 
100 hours, back in 2003-2004ish. Never again. Can't really verify those last few hours, though, as I would blink and time would seem to have accelerated...
 
I can't say I can stay up late, but I do function on a 2-nap system. 2-4 hrs at night before class and 2-4 hrs afterward. Noisy neighbors upstairs caused me to develop this since they stomp around those first 2-4 hours at night when I -should- be asleep.
 
about 36 hours, and I would not recommend it. I normally function really well on 4-5 hours of sleep, and even if i do plan on studying ALL night, i find it better to study til like 4-5 am and sleep for 2 hours, wake up at 7, and review the material a few hours before the test. Even those 2 hours of sleep, albeit little, are better than NO sleep at all. I would highly recommend this as opposed to staying up consecutive days.


I did have a friend who was the manager of whataburger, and dual majored in Chem + Bio and he would constantly go without sleep. He regularly was up for 2-3 days straight and I have no idea how he functioned. Oh wait yes I do, he called it a study cocktail, containing redbull, monster, and a little bit of adderal with a shot of 5 hr. 😱 Would not recommend this because I cant imagine it being remotely healthy.
 
About 28 hours probably.

I'm so insanely sensitive to caffeine (and theobromine I guess) that I need only consume a candy bar in pieces throughout the night to give me energy to get through.

Coffee turns me into a disaster zone.
 
ColeOnTheRoll said:
You people are ridiculous. I can't function after pulling an all-nighter.
Click to expand...

+1 bro.

Do you people workout also? How do you have energy to stay up over 50 hrs?

I don't think I've made much over ~30 hrs. I guess I'm a lightweight in this category.
 
You guys are crazy! I've never pulled an all-nighter; the longest I've gone without sleep is about 20 hours.


Genefreak said:
Just out of curiosity what's the longest you have gone without sleep? And why? For me it was last semester about 60 hours, I had like 3 big exams over three days and a lot of assignments, home-work due, post away.
Click to expand...
 
I was part of a study many many years ago where the goal was to see how people functioned on little to no sleep. I was allowed 20 minutes of sleep per night. And yes, I had to go about my normal routine as best I could (luckily I did not drive at the time.)

I lasted about 2.5 weeks. Mild performance degradation and personality changes started to occur at day 3. Multiple complex seizures also started. By a week later, I was almost unbearable to be around (so I hear). I called it quits when I started to hallucinate.

I will never do that again. Since then, the most I've gone without has been 36 or so hours. It was just too scary to repeat. If anyone ever asks you to do this type of thing for science take my advice and just say no.
 
familyaerospace said:
I was part of a study many many years ago where the goal was to see how people functioned on little to no sleep. I was allowed 20 minutes of sleep per night. And yes, I had to go about my normal routine as best I could (luckily I did not drive at the time.)

I lasted about 2.5 weeks.
Click to expand...

So you slept only 6 hours in 2.5 weeks?

lol. Forgive my skepticism.

Post link for study please 👍
 
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