What is the longest you have gone without sleep?

[cahullian]

When I was a kid I used to read under the blankets at night with a torch as I didn't ever feel sleepy. As a teenager I used to go out clubbing on a Thursday night and not get to bed (sleep) until Sunday night. Now that I'm in my fourties I hung a Sunday morning through to Thursday night without getting any ZZZ's has anyone gone longer?

Gazz

[cahullian]

On a different tangent I used to jog at 3 am in the morning until the local police used to harrass me whenever they could. I was always asked" why are you running away from us?" I would say "because I like to run." Then I would be asked for some ID and seeing I was running I didn't have any and more than once was escorted back home to prove who I was. Now I jog during the day and play backgammon at night. : )

Gazz

[GrahamL]

Sheet gaz .. theres a Phd in you :lol:..shiftwork and 48hours of no sleep used to wreck me .

[Ian Robinson]

I worked from 7:30am until 3pm the following day once to manage a process trial , I was home by 4pm and was too tied to get to sleep so hung out intil about 10pm before hitting the pillows.

I wouldn't recommend it.

I don't know my longest period with no sleep , gotta be 2 or 3 days .

[Robert_T]

Just goes to show what a variety of capability there is out there... hell I have trouble these days staying awake for 12hours at a stretch;)

the sleep deprivation torture of three kids cured me of any capacity (or desire) for long periods of sleeplessness:D

[Phil]

I was at work once for 36hours with no sleep not much got done after 25hours of working.

[DJDD]

about 64 hours.:screwy:
but that was when i was finishing a thesis.

i remember almost throwing up at about 58 hours when the "fireworks" screensaver on the Windows 3.1 PC started- watching those colours arc across the screen...

[Lee]

Geez - I've done a fair few 24hr stints with night shifts, can hardly keep my eyes open after that.

[wavelandscott]

A smidge over 48 hours is about all this old man can take anymore...after that I am wrecked for the week...

[DJDD]

sorry, maths wrong- it was 60 hours (2.5 days- obviously not a maths thesis...). :whistle:

sure, but i was 22 at the time, had a deadline to meet, experiments to finish, too many illustrations/diagrams, etc. to caption, and chapter/section headings to compile into Contents and index. plus get all of the references in order.

now I have a 19 year old bloke in my team who can go 48 hours no problem when he is out clubbing. i am pretty sure that's drug free :) and he does not drink, so...

[h0ughy]

about 3 days when i was working dogwatch over the weekends when i was slighly younger, now proabably a tad over 24 hours. At astrofest i have to have a kip from 5am until 11 - then i am up the rest of the day

[Starkler]

Longest I have gone is about 48hrs and it was fairly recent too. Wrecked me for a good few days. I find if I don't get a solid 7hrs every night I suffer for it.

[Ian Robinson]

Coke Cola and No Doze are wonderful things , I don't know how many graduates owe their degrees to these.:D

I still have a serious Coke Cola addiction ....

[Ric]

If I'm on a STARG team with the RFS we will be on the go for around 72 hours, you do get a couple of 4 hour breaks but there is usually too much noise and you are too hyped up to really have a good kip.

Cheers

[gman]

Longest I can remember without sleep is about 63 hrs
7am Friday to Sunday 10pm
Used to be a wall & floor tiler in my younger days
Worked half a day on the friday
Went and got materials on the Friday afternoon then starting tiling 3 shoe shops in the city from 5pm onwards
Slept all day on the Monday

[MrB]

A few days was the norm when I was younger, now I can only go 48hours max, knocks me around too much.

Note that sleep deprivation has apparently been confirmed to have similar effects as being mildly drunk, I know I feel kinda tipsy after a long stretch, even micro-sleep where I just kinda stare at nothing for a few mins, so... no driving if you haven't slept for 24 hours or more.

[AlexN]

21 and a half days....

Recovered ice addict....

[DARKMATTER]

Once on the fairstar funship i did 9 days without sleep, well 2x 4hr naps but the second one I was so wired i couldn't sleep at all. I was 17 at the time and very very drunk the whole time.

these days I'm out by 9 unless i'm on the sauce.

[FarmerBen]

When I was a student and programming for PC I pulled a couple of 60+ hours straight.

I think it would kill me to try that now. Unless the skies are particularly clear, I'm in bed by 9:30pm.

[mrsnipey]

48 hours is the longest I've been - flying to London screwed up my sleep pattern for ages. I usually only sleep between 3 and 4.5 hours a night anyway. I can go for weeks before I crash for a night and then I'm ready to go again. I don't think I could last 60 hours though DJDD. That's pretty impressive.

My wife has commented quite a number of times that the amount of sleep I get (or don't get) is directly proportionate to how grumpy I am.

[Kevnool]

I used to drive trucks 15 yrs ago and drove for 27 hrs, that was the first and that was the last, so i quit that hectic life and joined the public service.......cheers kev

[sheeny]

Back when I was a teenager I went for a week with <8 hours sleep while on holidays with a cousin... we had a ball!:D

In the early '90s I had a rough week on call for work and worked >100 hours in the week, very much sleep deprived. That episode started me on many years of migraines - triggered by any reasonable sort of sleep interruption.:( I think (hope!) I'm getting over that these days!

There have been several times when doing search and rescue in the Kanangra Boyd National Park that I've gone 2-3 days without sleep (often followed up within the next week by a migraine!)

When I went to Canada last November, I didn't sleep on the plane and then went on a buck's night on arrival... I think that was 37 hours, but I didn't notice any problem with jet lag!:P

Al.

[jjjnettie]

I was so excited on my first trip overseas that I went for approx 56 hrs without sleep.
I had to go to work on the day I left, so I was up at 5am, I spent the afternoon packing and repacking my bags, my flight left at 11pm, I think it was an 8hr flight to Seoul, where we had a 5 hr break before the next leg of the journey, flying to the UK via Siberia.
It was morning when I got into Heathrow, and I was buzzing with excitement. It wasn't until quite late that night, after partying with cousins, that I made myself drink a few fingers of neat scotch to knock myself out, otherwise I reckon I'd have stayed up till morning.
I was up bright and early the next day, ready to start exploring London.
Jetlag? what Jetlag.

[MrB]

Same has happened to me on three trips to Europe, I just can't sleep in planes, too much activity and noise. Strange though 'cos as a kid, the hum of those old pedestal evaporative airconditioners would knock me out cold. (Oops, bad pun!)

I kinda remember seeing something on Catalyst about links between sleep(or lack of) and aging?
Afterall, our body repairs itself while we sleep.

[ving]

crickey! i worry bout you lot!

i used to get by on 3hrs sleep every day for years. cant do that any more tho.