OT: What Is The Longest Amount Of Time You Have Stayed Awake?

Submitted by Santa Clause on

I'm bored as hell and thought with all the crazy threads being created lately, maybe I'd throw this one out there. My personal record is 3 days in a row, which is a record I think I'm about to beat if I don't sleep at all tomorrow.

South TX MFan

June 24th, 2016 at 4:33 AM ^

The longest I've stayed up with literally no sleep (not even a nap or nod off) is 40 hours. I was working nights. Got up at 10am Thursday morning to start getting my car ready for a cruise and track night. Worked all night then went straight to the cruise and the track and got home at 2am Saturday morning. I was wiped.




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San Diego Mick

June 24th, 2016 at 4:39 AM ^

I'd have to say anywhere from 24 to 30 hrs., a few times, slept like a baby afterwards everytime. All from all night partying with friends or after going to a club where the alcohol and women were plentiful.

MGoGrendel

June 24th, 2016 at 12:22 PM ^

Got up early to catch a 7:00 am flight to Vegas. Got off the plane and had work meetings until 4:00. Set up a booth and stood there until the trade show floor closed. Had dinner with a customer then hit a private party. I was exhausted and drinking water when I realized how long I was awake.

I was the only one to be at the booth at 9:00 that morning. But I took a looooong nap that afternoon!

CarrIsMyHomeboy

June 24th, 2016 at 5:01 AM ^

3-4 days because I procrastinated before a neuroanatomy exam. The worst part was flying through material that I expected to hate but rapidly learned I loved and could never, studying like that, do justice.

JTGoBlue

June 24th, 2016 at 5:09 AM ^

I think about 36 hours. Flight to Europe, can't sleep on the plane. Land at about 8:00 a.m. local time, go straight to the office, work a full day, then dinner etc.




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I Love Lamp

June 24th, 2016 at 6:36 AM ^

Same thing, was up all day, flew to Ireland, got there at 8am Dublin time. Stayed up all day until around 9pm and crashed and burned. Woke up at 9 the next morning not knowing where the hell I was. I'm a pretty big baby when it comes to sleep, so that was my max.

xtramelanin

June 24th, 2016 at 5:38 AM ^

and ending with the final leg being me driving about 4 hours.  i was actually okay until that last evening.  i was sitting at the dinner table and trying to carry on a conversation and said some totally nonsensical phrase like, 'peanut butter wood for drapes makes green' and realized it was time to go to sleep.  

a family member is just out of army rangers and he tells some stories about the sleep deprivation they go through.  they call it becoming a 'drone', as guys will be on a mountain hike/manuver and they have to watch them so they don't just walk right off a cliff as they struggle to put on foot in front of the other.  

xtramelanin

June 24th, 2016 at 12:38 PM ^

i was obviously crumbling at that point, but i was pretty old by the time that adventure came around so hopefully i can be forgiven. 

i do remember that series of days though.  i did load up at detroit metro on the last leg of the journey with mountain dew and for the first time in decades, some cope.  no music.  windows down.  drove in silence for 240 miles on a stunningly sunny and cool day.  

1VaBlue1

June 24th, 2016 at 8:35 AM ^

Interesting story about your family member.  A few months ago, I worked with a guy that was in the Rangers and he told many stories about marching while sleeping, and not remembering how the last several miles were covered.  I was never inclined to really believe them, but this adds to the reality of it.

xtramelanin

June 25th, 2016 at 6:26 AM ^

i had two of my sons with me and they were only just-turned 3.  they were alternately inconsolable on the plane.  one would calm down/sleep, and the other would spin up and vice versa.  then with customs, bags, etc.  

when we got in the truck for the last leg i fed them and told them, no talking, close eyes, sleep.  they went out like lights and thus the 4 hours of silent driving on that gorgeous sunny day. 

JamieH

June 24th, 2016 at 5:18 AM ^

Did it twice in college for projects and have done it once since. I start hearing stuff around hour 50. Not voices or anything crazy--just like noises in the room next door like someone is working in there even though the room is empty. Around hour 54 I am just done. Cannot possibly stay awake anymore, even with a Mountain Dew IV.

Wolverine In Iowa 68

June 24th, 2016 at 10:28 AM ^

I was working at a bank in Southfield and we brought in a new check processing system in 93 (we were the first in our market to start imaging checks).  I was running the system and we had a major failure.  I worked 2 full days straight (48 hours of OT) and kept going until we got the system up and running, so somewhere around 54-56 hours awake before I went home and slept for about 4 and went back to work another 20 hour shift.

During that 5 month period, I averaged working 20 hours/day, sleeping 3, until my body had enough and I crashed hard over a weekend.  Thankfully, I was still paid hourly, so I cleaned up in overtime hours.

M go Bru

June 24th, 2016 at 5:33 AM ^

Its called second year of design in Architecture school at the University of Minnesota in the mid 1970's. You then sleep 16 hours. We used to refer to it as Architorture.

Don

June 24th, 2016 at 3:28 PM ^

LOL  I was in Michigan's architecture program in the mid-70s and it was the same damn thing. It was like boot camp in the marines—it trained me to work without sleep for long periods of time, and I think it permanently re-set my biology. I haven't slept for a full 8 hrs two nights in a row ever since. I went past 36 hours a bunch of times, although I learned to take short catnaps.

It could be dangerous, too... one of the guys in my section had been up for a couple days like the rest of us and was cutting mat board for a model with a very sharp exacto knife. He just about cut his thumb off.

EGD

June 24th, 2016 at 5:39 AM ^

I can go about 40 hours with no sleep at all, and have done that several times. But what stands out to me is when I was joining a frat at UM and we had our "hell week." Over an approximately 5-day period I got maybe 3-4 total combined hours of sleep, max. What sleep I did get was in short increments of maybe ten minutes here or five minutes there--but the brothers were determined not to let us sleep and they did a good job of it. Those last couple days or so, when the fatigue was just unbearable and the adrenaline was pretty well spent, were just absolutely miserable.

EGD

June 24th, 2016 at 9:38 AM ^

Yeah, I don't know.  On the one hand, I'm still friends with most of those guys 20+ years later, so I certainly don't regret it from that standpoint.  But if I hadn't done the frat thing, I have to imagine I would have made other friends and gotten involved in other activities that would have been equally or more rewarding (or, at least, less self-destructive).  It worked out okay for me in the end but I don't necessarily recommend the same path to others.

dragonchild

June 24th, 2016 at 6:10 AM ^

I procrastinated, and had to do it to avoid failing basically every class.  I don't brag about it, because all it means is

<--- really, REALLY STUPID IDIOT

. . . at least when I was a freshman.  By the end of it I was literally hallucinating.  To this day I'd like to do college over, especially after reading about yet another recruit profile of some 17-year-old who's more mature than I was at 27.

I won't pull all-nighters anymore except in the most dire of circumstances.  They're much tougher as you get older, your productivity goes to shit, it's really punishing on the body, and usually avoidable unless you're in the military.

gobluedave

June 24th, 2016 at 6:24 AM ^

wtf people? I'd have to guess 30 hours for me. I drove from Naples to Warren straight through and for some dumb reason I couldn't sleep when I got home. more than 2 days without sleep is crazy and I'd have to believe u napped without knowing if so.

softshoes

June 24th, 2016 at 8:26 AM ^

Vegas for me too. My first time going I played blackjack for around 36 hours. I played at the same table, same seat the whole time. Drank like a sailor, smoked like a chimney(I've siince quit), tipped like Rockefeller and ended up 80 dollars ahead. As a matter of fact my first trip was 4 days and the maid never once had to make my bed.

GoBlueGoWings

June 24th, 2016 at 7:45 AM ^

24 hours.

In 2010, a friend and I woke up at 5:30am drove to Chicago. Went to Eric Clapton's Crossroad Gutiar Festival. After the show drove home, head hit the pillow at 5:30am. I saw the sun rise both days.

Perkis-Size Me

June 24th, 2016 at 7:49 AM ^

Probably about 36-48 hours or so. When we went to Europe for the first time, when I was about 11 or 12. I was so damn excited I couldn't sleep the entire night before the flight. Just watched the clock tick by. And then on the flight over, I was still so excited that I couldn't sleep. Just stayed up and watched in flight movies the entire time.

Touched down in London, got to the hotel, first thing we decided to do was, of course, take a double decker bus tour. I only remember about 5-10 minutes of it, because after that I passed out in my Dad's lap with drool all over my face. They proceeded to take me back to the hotel, where I believe I slept for upwards of 12 hours.




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Rabbit21

June 24th, 2016 at 1:08 PM ^

Longest I made it was about 72 hours. I was in the Air Force and got surprised by a "mobility inspection". I took the night shift at the command center and had my guys go home, I got caught up in exercise activities throughout the following day and by the time I got home that afternoon there was enough time to shower and eat dinner before going back to the command center.

After that night shift was over, I gambled that the exercise would not go another night and so I made myself stay awake during the day so I could get back to a normal sleep cycle that night. At five I got the call to report back and so headed back to the command center where I spent most of the night just tying up some loose ends and really around midnight it was mostly over. I did have one phone call that came in at five in the morning that I realized after about a minute I had not heard a word of what the person at the other end of the line was saying and they were expecting an answer, so I invented an excuse as to why they needed to talk to someone else, handed the phone off and prayed that there would be no more reasons for me to have to make decisions until we were relieved at eight. I was told to stick around until nine as that was when we would be formally released from the exercise, which was the grand bull moose of mixed emotions for me at that minute.

Driving home that morning was not fun at all and when I got home I slept for ten hours woke up, ate dinner, showered and played with my son for a a little bit, and watched a little tv with the wife before I went straight back to bed. Six months later I refused my follow on assignment and started the separation process.








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