How Long Can You Go Without Sleep?

[OILFAN #81]

I need about 6-7 hours of sleep. The longest i've ever gone without sleep was 3 days (72 hours) when I had 5 finals in 2.5 days and I had to cram for all of them. I'm fine until 2 days without no sleep, after that my head starts to feel weird. I don't drink coffee, but I had a lot of hot chocolate in those 72 hours.

[Sylvanfan]

I'm a lazy jerk. I sleep at least 8 hours every night, and up to 10 on weekends because I can. I think the longest I was every up for was maybe 27 straight hours when I flew home from Australia because of what time the flight left and than not being able to sleep on the plane. It was like 27 hours to me, even though in actual ellapsed time it was more like 20 due to the 17 hour time difference. ie, I woke up at 5:30 AM on December 8th and went to bed at 2:30 AM on December 9th. Just that with crossing the date line the difference between the time at start of day and end of day was 7 hours.

[4X4]

You guys with the 72 hour records are insane. The few times I skipped a night of sleep were hell. I remember when I was 17, my and a few friends stayed out all night climbing on roofs of buildings. I got home about 10 minutes before my mom's alarm clock went off. I had to go to school that day and then work at the gas station after school. I fell asleep pumping propane and almost got fired.
Didn't learn my lesson though. Still pulled the all nighters a few more times after that.

[CaptainCrunch]

I remember one long weekend in college we had a last man standing contest that went for 48 hours.

The rules were simple, the bathtub was filled to the top with cold beer.

You couldn't sleep, you always had to have an open beer in your hand, and our mormon room mate marked the bottle so you couldn't nurse it for two days.

Every hour everyone put 1 dollar in a jar, the last man standing won the contents.

You fell asleep, you were out, you passed out you got your eyebrows and head shaved. you could eat whatever you wanted.

I think that one went two days and the winner won about $300.00 dollars. We were fortunate that we had a sober friend that would drop people out of the contest if they were too far over the line.

[Igottago]

I've pulled some all nighters for papers in university..but then I would hand the paper in and skip the rest of the classes for the day and go home to crash.

Going without sleep for long stretches is horrible. I would never do it on purpose, even to get something done. I'm not sure how some of you guys pulled of 2-3 days. I'd be going crazy.

[worth]

Same as the guys with Military experience. They keep you up for 72 hours straight digging trenches and all that good stuff. By the tail end of it I was hallucinating also. Sitting down was bad because you'd blink but your eyes wouldn't open back up. Extremely hard to physically keep your eyes open, but the threat of a MCpl reaming you out makes it a little easier.

[FlamesAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by worth

Same as the guys with Military experience. They keep you up for 72 hours straight digging trenches and all that good stuff. By the tail end of it I was hallucinating also. Sitting down was bad because you'd blink but your eyes wouldn't open back up. Extremely hard to physically keep your eyes open, but the threat of a MCpl reaming you out makes it a little easier.

Haha I remember near the end of our stretch a Sgt. stole a C7 from someone who had fallen asleep, fired the entire mag of blanks within about 3 feet of the guy and he didn't even move. When he finally did start to wake up after the yelling that ensued he was so out of it he told the Sgt. to "###### off" and was subsequently charged.

[FlamesAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I remember one long weekend in college we had a last man standing contest that went for 48 hours.

The rules were simple, the bathtub was filled to the top with cold beer.

You couldn't sleep, you always had to have an open beer in your hand, and our mormon room mate marked the bottle so you couldn't nurse it for two days.

Every hour everyone put 1 dollar in a jar, the last man standing won the contents.

You fell asleep, you were out, you passed out you got your eyebrows and head shaved. you could eat whatever you wanted.

I think that one went two days and the winner won about $300.00 dollars. We were fortunate that we had a sober friend that would drop people out of the contest if they were too far over the line.

That is awesome!!

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by worth

Same as the guys with Military experience. They keep you up for 72 hours straight digging trenches and all that good stuff. By the tail end of it I was hallucinating also. Sitting down was bad because you'd blink but your eyes wouldn't open back up. Extremely hard to physically keep your eyes open, but the threat of a MCpl reaming you out makes it a little easier.

Yeah you think you had it rough wait until you get into the junior or senior leadership courses. Then they really sock it to you.

Yeah, lead a platoon on a all night patrol while you haven't had sleep for three days.

I remember I almost socked a instructor, they'd kept us up for about three days with stand to's, stupid tasks and patrols, then he preached to us about sleep dicipline.

[Matata]

I thought it would be a great idea to book a plane to London, then figure out how to get to Dresden, Germany without any plans besides the plane to London.

I went about 30-40 hours, started in calgary, slept for ~2 hours in a London airport, booked and took a plane to frankfurt, took a train to dresden, met up with friends, had supper and drinks, and patted myself on the back for being so damned resourcefull.

The day before that I played a show with my band, the day before that I partied hard with friends and then made out with a babe in a soccer feild; the day before that I wrote the last exam of my Engineering degree and drank/partied my ass off.

I had never been so tired in my life, it was awesome.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by FlamesAllTheWay

Haha I remember near the end of our stretch a Sgt. stole a C7 from someone who had fallen asleep, fired the entire mag of blanks within about 3 feet of the guy and he didn't even move. When he finally did start to wake up after the yelling that ensued he was so out of it he told the Sgt. to "###### off" and was subsequently charged.

Hey private, we're having a little party in your honor, why don't you bring a couple of friends, oh you don't need your belt or your beret.

Good times, good times.

[@theCBE]

Longest I've gone is about 40 hours.. skipped one night and kept going through the next day. Done it a few times, it was always related to school and I always swore I would never do it again. Most weekdays I get 7 hours of sleep.. up to 10 on the weekends.. just because I'm in school and I can. When I'm back in Calgary and working I get about 6 hours during the week.. 8-9 hours on the weekend.

[ken0042]

Like others have stated, as a teenager/ early 20s I could stay up for 40 hours or so. But often I would crash so hard that I really tried to avoid it if at all possible.

Also, once when I was 17 I was saving up money for a trip so I was working 50 hours a week on top of going to school. After 4 months of this I finally had a weekend off, and ended up sleeping for 36 hours straight. I think I got up once to use the washroom, but that was it. I woke up hearing my family talking about how nobody had seen me the previous day, and if I was still alive. It took me quite a while for them to convince me it was actually Sunday and not Saturday.

These days I really need 6 hours of sleep to function. 7 or 8 is ideal though. And if I end up getting less than 4 I usually end up having to call in sick for work.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Hesla

I average about 6 to 7 hours on weekdays, and probably closer to 10 hrs on the weekend. I can sleep into 2 in the afternoon sometimes on the weekend.

About 36hrs is the longest in a row i have stayed up, and i hated it... i was hallucinating allready.

All of that is pretty much exactly the same for me. Sleeping in until 2 on Sundays is what kills me though. I can't fall asleep when I should on Sunday nights ever.

[flamesdyehard]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

All of that is pretty much exactly the same for me. Sleeping in until 2 on Sundays is what kills me though. I can't fall asleep when I should on Sunday nights ever.

That's the problem. I have found that I like to go to bed on Friday nights very early, and then sleep in (If I actually get a whole weekend off). Then Saturday night I usually force myself to get up around 9am, so then I can sleep by 10 or so Sunday night. It has worked well for me, but it does take away your Friday night somewhat.

[tete]

I work best with 9-10 hours sleep - rarely get it - instead more like 7 hours. Longest I've gone is around 48 hours - Got up at 7 am Prague time (so 11 pm or midnight Calgary time), toured the city for the day, caught the red-eye train from Prague to Frankfurt and was so scared that we'd get mugged that I didn't sleep on the train, took a 8 or 9 am flight to New York and I don't sleep on planes at all, a flight from New York to Houston and a flight from Houston to Calgary - arrived in Calgary at midnight, in bed around 1:30 am. I was a walking zombie by then. I think I slept 12 hours that night.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by flamesdyehard

To those who were up for 72 hours, HOW??? Man I thought it was horrible going for 40. I think I'd die.

Stay active....do something.

I've done it many times. 48 hours I mean.

Not 72...geez.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Like others have stated, as a teenager/ early 20s I could stay up for 40 hours or so. But often I would crash so hard that I really tried to avoid it if at all possible.

I'm the opposite.

When I was a teenager, I almost always got at least 9 or 10 hours of sleep. Heck, sometimes I would sleep until 2:00 pm.

Now that I am older, I find that I need less sleep, and there is usually too much on my mind or too much to do to actually be able to sleep.

I find that after 24 hours without sleep, it gets easier to stay awake. It's hard to think straight, but staying awake is easy.

[worth]

I need 7.5-8 hours per night. Most mornings I work out at 5am, so I try to go to bed sometime around 9-9:30.

[habernac]

I did a 50 hour stretch once. It was ugly, I can't imagine 72. This summer I'm going to attempt to ride the entire 24 hours in the 24 Hours of Adrenaline mountain bike race. Should be a gong show.

I work well on 8 hours, I usually get 5-6. One of my goals this year is to get at least 7 per night. With all the bike training I'm doing, I really need it (I'm also doing the Transrockies race, a 7 day 600km slog through the Rockies).