So I kinda just realized I didn’t sleep for the past 24 hours. Noy sure if it’s the longest I’ve been awake, but probably of the top 5 longest. I’m dealing with depression so my sleep cycle have been fucked up. Got coffee I think around the 12th hour mark.
I’ve basically just been watching youtube videos, browsing lemmy. Googled random things.
Idk why, I guess I just wanted some dopamine boost from coffee and now I can’t sleep lmao. Maybe a bit of anxiety around certain recent political events.
I honestly am not sure if I’m actually awake or dreaming.
Anyways, what is the longest time you’ve been awake without sleep? When did it happen and why?
Hmmm, I think mine was 96 hours? I worked nights, and was taking classes during the day time. I had set the schedule so my classes directly matched the work, which was Monday night starting, and the class ended at 1600 hours on Wednesday. Some weeks I would have to work Thursday nights, some I wouldn’t. I would usually grab 1 hour of sleep between work and school, and 1 hour between school and work.
That week though, I agreed to help someone out on the Sunday shift at work, and the Thursday day rotation at the hospital, and I just couldn’t get any sleep. So Sunday starting at 1800 hours, up until Thurday ~1700 hours. I drove home, and thanks to an agreement with my boss, I didn’t have to come into work until 2200 hours, so I crashed. Lo and behold, I woke up to a cop in my bedroom, because it was 0200 hours and I was late for work. My boss didn’t know exactly what I was doing, so they had no way to know that it was for lack of sleep. I hadn’t been late to work ever and only called in sick once during the 10 years I’d been working there. They panicked, thinking I was dead, and sent that damn cop, lol. Oh well, boss agreed I didn’t have to come into work and I wasn’t complaining.
Like another poster said, things just got weird as the sleep deprivation kicked in. Shadows sometimes wouldn’t line up with where they were attached, background objects would fade in and out of focus while looking at someone in front of me, and my recollection of what had happened five minutes ago blended with what had happened five days ago. What was reality and what was just in my head couldn’t be distinguished. Then, sitting on top of all of that, is just this weird ache where you’re craving sleep but you’re doing things like standing up or walking around to prevent any random lean from turning into a collapse as you nod off.
Anyway, two weeks later I hit a pothole on the side of the highway as I drove home, because I was drifting off the road with the lack of sleep. The pothole broke my oil pan in half, and I quickly realized how stupid I was being. I took time off in the middle of the stretch of classes/work, so I only ever was up for 36 hours at a time for the month after that.
When I was a student I wrote a piece of software. Originally an assignment to be done within 6 months, I decided to go for it at once. I started programming on Thursday, and finished it on Saturday, while living on snacks, pizza, soft drinks, and tea. No time for sleep while being 100% in the zone.
I used to stay up all night when having fun on occasion. The longest was two nights and then I went to bed at around 8pm on the third day. It’s been awhile since I lived that life but I used to wake up feeling great and generally be in a great mood, and it helped me reset my sleep cycle so my insomnia would get less disruptive for awhile afterwards. That said, not sleeping is bad for you. If you’re doing it regularly you will have negative health effects, and if you stay up for more than a day you will start hallucinating and probably make bad decisions.
I did a little over 4 days when I was a teenager just to see how long I could go. Really kinda sucked after the first 2 days. But I was just playing video games.
I did many 2-3 day stints in the Army. That sucked way, way more because yeah, I was definitely not playing video games.
Ohhhhkay comment was great but that username, lmfao.
72 hours, uni final exams
My sophomore year of high school I snuck out of the house one night, my friends and I pushed the car down the driveway and got it going. Hung out all night. Got caught about 5AM by the local police. (I didn’t have a license either, I was 15 I think.) Cop drove me home and dropped me off to my mom. By then I had been awake 22 hours and was exhausted and tried to go to bed. Oh no. My punishment was going to school. So about 4PM when I got home…. 34 hours awake? (I was a pretty good kid in school…. Most of the time…) 😁
About 24 hours. I’ll almost fall asleep standing up at that point and whatever reason I’ve got to stay awake just is not worth it.
Not very long. About one and a half nights. Went to a rave where I stayed up all night and day then went straight to a metal festival next night. Tried to drive after to go back to my far away home but couldn’t drive safely because my eyes couldn’t see the road very well. I was exhausted and had to nap for a few hours mid trip.
36? 38 hours? Something like that… I kind of lost track around 30.
Gaming. Ultima IV.
The hallucinations were interesting. Hard flat surfaces like table tops and counters started rippling like water.
I can’t even do a proper night-out so I have nothing to say about your question. I just hope you get better from your depression OP. Here, enjoy my upvote and comment notification dopamine!
About 36 hours. Borded on the plane for Mauritius (afternoon) , after 12 hours of flight, landed there, was told I need a visa to get in. Borded on exactly the same plane , flew 12 hours back. 2/10 wouldn’t recommend. Still gets 2 points for psychodelic effects of tiredness
About 20 hours. Half it was on a 10 hour flight and no matter how much booze I poured down my throat I just couldn’t fall asleep
I’m not entirely sure, but it took place over a week long military exercise. We setup SHORAD missile defenses at night too act as OPFOR for the Air Force, and then moved positions during the day. It was my first long distance extended training mission as an NCO so I was making sure I did everything I was instructed to do. Stay in constant radio contact, scan the skies, id targets, shoot move and communicate. My gunner started hallucinating by the 3rd or maybe 4th day. I don’t have any memories of sleeping that entire week, but I assume I must have been dozing off constantly. We rarely saw anyone else that week and just spent the days wandering the desert alone in some sort hazy dreamlike state. I should have made sure we slept more. It was a good lesson…“Hey Srgt., did you just see a Puerto Rican woman with a red balloon? Wait, did you just say yes!?”
I stayed up for over 2 nights but I was on some heavy drugs. Near the end I was hearing voices and there was shadow people in my peripheral vision. I also couldn’t put together a sentence , the words would come out in the wrong order .
I’m not sure it was the longest, but most recently I was up over 36 hours straight.
Worked then pulled an all nighter driving to Florida to visit my friend. Got there at 7:30 am and then did a whole day with them before passing out after midnight.