4 ms·

4 or 5 days? I'm not convinced a healthy person could make it that long. I've asked hundreds of classmates and grad students over the years for their records an

by eyegor 7y ago

4 or 5 days? I'm not convinced a healthy person could make it that long. I've asked hundreds of classmates and grad students over the years for their records and have yet to meet anyone that claimed over 72 hours. Personally my body was almost completely non functional around 65 ish hours -- stumbling and slurring words, no concept of time, incapable of focusing. The only reason I was awake long enough to reach that point is because it took hours to finally fall asleep. Honestly I'd love to hear what happens if someone could get to 72+ hours.

htfu 7y ago
50-60h is my limit, and luckily haven't been near that in a long time. Shit gets weird. Not having met anyone that claimed 72h+ probably mostly just means you've never known any speed freaks - what happens after that mostly depends on whether or not you're on meth.
PuffinBlue 7y ago
I made it to 82 hours. It was forced upon us (military training, trench digging sleep deprivation exercise). I made it all the way to enforced rest period. Others didn't. Up to 48 hours things were mostly normal in all areas, I was just tired. After that second night things started to get weird. Hand eye coordination worsened dramatically (not good when swinging pick axes and shovels in close quarters with others). Speaking and forming thoughts was definitely affected negatively. One funny thing was we'd frequently have to 'stand to' and prepare for an attack by downing tools and standing in the trench with our rifles ready to fire on any attackers. Standing still for long periods staring at nothing was enough to bring on repeated and severe micro-sleeps. I distinctly remember standing there and hearing clattering noises and soft cries of pain from the field around me. I wondered what it was, until I watched my trench buddy slip into a micro-sleep, his body go limp and fall into the bottom of the trench. His rifle made the characteristic clattering sound against the corrogated iron and his cry came from smashing his knees into the side of the trench as he crumpled. I was 20 at the time, the youngest from my company and dealt best with the deprivation of anyone. Youth plays it's part I think, though I am also predisposed to need less sleep even now, so some genetic factor is probably at play too. From 48 hours onwards I began to realise the less I did the more difficult things would be. I volunteered for soime arduous patrols during the day and we were all forced to do some recce's during the night. That night I fell twice, once down a bank. I cut my hand pretty badly. In a year of training it was the only time I injured myself. My performance was definitely affected. Crouched under a tree in the pouring rain about 70 hours in I remember feeling physically sick from the brain fog. Night time caused the world to close in around me in a very disorientating way. At about 80 hours I remember seeing an old Sergeant from early in my training as I was coming back from a patrol. My directing staff had gone back to their harbour area ahead of us as the assessment phase of the patrol was over and it was our responsibility to get back to our trenches. So, free from interference I went over to shake his hand and found it to be extremely sharp and prickly. I recoiled and couldn't understand what was happening. Trying again I gripped tighter, feeling the sharp needle like pains in my hand again. For some reason I pulled him closer and then I felt the shooting pains right in my face, especially my lips. As I stumbled backwards I forgot to let go of his hand. It came away and I fell back with it. As I hit the ground hard my 'vision' cleared and I could clearly see I had been shaking hands with a Holy tree. The sharp pains were caused by the needle like spines digging into my skin. I chucked the branch from my hand and got back in line. No one noticed my excursion, they were too busy picking two of my patrol buddies up from the track. They were laying face down asleep having simply shut down right as they were walking along, falling face first into the dirt and staying there, snoring. Sleep deprivation is a powerful drug!
jlokier 7y ago
I stayed awake for approximately 85 hours once -- in order to sit 18 hours of exams over three days at the end of the first year of my engineering & computer science degree. I wasn't a very diligent student in my first year. (I spent most of it programming instead, and the internet was brand new to us as well. Both were addictive. So I ended up doing that instead of studying the degree materials.) When the end of year exams came, I hadn't really done much revision. The night before the first day of exams (6 hours of exams - two subjects, one in the morning, one in the afternoon), I decided to stay up and study for a change, which is what I did. Lunchtime that first day was spent preparing for the second exam. Phew, those went ok, then I realised I didn't know enough about the next day's subjects either, and did the same again. And again the third day. Amazingly, after the third day of exams (about 78 hours awake), when it was time to relax, I felt so relieved that I felt light and great. Went out to the pub with friends, and wasn't tired at all, which surprised me. Slept quite normally that evening. I can confirm, the hallucinations after multiple all-nighters are quite real. Dreams seem to keep trying to start up, speech is slurred, and things get strange. Yet somehow, in the midst of that, I was able to write adequate answers in difficult, long technical exams. The hallucinations, and the slurring and reduced physical coordination, seem to go away in the "relaxed" phase after something is finished. It's like the relief makes a new wave of physical resources available to work with. I've done a few highly-stressed all-nighters (and sometimes 2 or 3 nights in a row) since then (due to hard life events than bad planning on my part). I've also been up 4/5 nights (I can't remember which, it was a very stressful event), but got short (<1 hour) naps in the day. It's a similar pattern at the end: When the thing that needs to be finished is done, the tiredness disappears, and my body feels light, great and not tired for a while. Relieved, even happy. Although, the cost afterwards has become greater over the years, and there may be days of exhaustion afterwards. Although the exams 3 nights 4 days awake for exams was a kind of success, and it might seem like I must be one of those people who doesn't need much sleep, the opposite is true. The longest time I've slept straight through, without waking (except for the usual wake-and-roll-over-back-to-sleep moments), was 25 hours. I'm sure, because I decided to find out when I was a student (a bit older than the above story). I knew that I slept a long time generally, and needed to if I was to feel rested, and that the timing was unpredictable. One day I decided to just sleep and sleep until I felt completely rested, and see how long that would be. So I did that, and it was 25 hours before I felt like I'd had all the sleep I could take. It felt pretty good, though waking at midnight, having gone to bed the evening of the day before, made me feel isolated. I spend most of my life feeling rather tired, and I need about 9-11 hours sleep to feel good the next day (it varies but 10 feels like the average), but it's rarely achievable, for social and work pressure reasons, as well as difficult to predict insomnia. I've had fairly chaotic sleep "cycle" since the age of 15, which started due to staying up at night to do homework from school, and has never really recovered. By chaotic, for about 20 years (until ~35) most days it was unpredictable to me when I'd sleep and when I'd wake. Which as you can imagine, made work difficult. Since 35 it's been more regular in that I sleep almost every night, although not always the same times. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of it, and sometimes I won't get to sleep at all, despite everything being dark and quiet and comfy, and me being tired. If I get sleepy and think I'll sleep, I need to go to sleep or I risk missing the "window" of opportunity to fall asleep. I would love to feel rested some day. I can't remember the last time I felt like I had a really good sleep and was fresh and rested the next day. (ps. None of the above involved any drugs, not even legal ones, unless you count Coca Cola. I didn't even drink coffee in those days. Saying this upon seeing the other comments about speed/meth etc.)

by eyegor 7y ago

htfu 7y ago

50-60h is my limit, and luckily haven't been near that in a long time. Shit gets weird. Not having met anyone that claimed 72h+ probably mostly just means you've never known any speed freaks - what happens after that mostly depends on whether or not you're on meth.

PuffinBlue 7y ago

I made it to 82 hours. It was forced upon us (military training, trench digging sleep deprivation exercise). I made it all the way to enforced rest period. Others didn't. Up to 48 hours things were mostly normal in all areas, I was just tired. After that second night things started to get weird. Hand eye coordination worsened dramatically (not good when swinging pick axes and shovels in close quarters with others). Speaking and forming thoughts was definitely affected negatively. One funny thing was we'd frequently have to 'stand to' and prepare for an attack by downing tools and standing in the trench with our rifles ready to fire on any attackers. Standing still for long periods staring at nothing was enough to bring on repeated and severe micro-sleeps. I distinctly remember standing there and hearing clattering noises and soft cries of pain from the field around me. I wondered what it was, until I watched my trench buddy slip into a micro-sleep, his body go limp and fall into the bottom of the trench. His rifle made the characteristic clattering sound against the corrogated iron and his cry came from smashing his knees into the side of the trench as he crumpled. I was 20 at the time, the youngest from my company and dealt best with the deprivation of anyone. Youth plays it's part I think, though I am also predisposed to need less sleep even now, so some genetic factor is probably at play too. From 48 hours onwards I began to realise the less I did the more difficult things would be. I volunteered for soime arduous patrols during the day and we were all forced to do some recce's during the night. That night I fell twice, once down a bank. I cut my hand pretty badly. In a year of training it was the only time I injured myself. My performance was definitely affected. Crouched under a tree in the pouring rain about 70 hours in I remember feeling physically sick from the brain fog. Night time caused the world to close in around me in a very disorientating way. At about 80 hours I remember seeing an old Sergeant from early in my training as I was coming back from a patrol. My directing staff had gone back to their harbour area ahead of us as the assessment phase of the patrol was over and it was our responsibility to get back to our trenches. So, free from interference I went over to shake his hand and found it to be extremely sharp and prickly. I recoiled and couldn't understand what was happening. Trying again I gripped tighter, feeling the sharp needle like pains in my hand again. For some reason I pulled him closer and then I felt the shooting pains right in my face, especially my lips. As I stumbled backwards I forgot to let go of his hand. It came away and I fell back with it. As I hit the ground hard my 'vision' cleared and I could clearly see I had been shaking hands with a Holy tree. The sharp pains were caused by the needle like spines digging into my skin. I chucked the branch from my hand and got back in line. No one noticed my excursion, they were too busy picking two of my patrol buddies up from the track. They were laying face down asleep having simply shut down right as they were walking along, falling face first into the dirt and staying there, snoring. Sleep deprivation is a powerful drug!

jlokier 7y ago

I stayed awake for approximately 85 hours once -- in order to sit 18 hours of exams over three days at the end of the first year of my engineering & computer science degree. I wasn't a very diligent student in my first year. (I spent most of it programming instead, and the internet was brand new to us as well. Both were addictive. So I ended up doing that instead of studying the degree materials.) When the end of year exams came, I hadn't really done much revision. The night before the first day of exams (6 hours of exams - two subjects, one in the morning, one in the afternoon), I decided to stay up and study for a change, which is what I did. Lunchtime that first day was spent preparing for the second exam. Phew, those went ok, then I realised I didn't know enough about the next day's subjects either, and did the same again. And again the third day. Amazingly, after the third day of exams (about 78 hours awake), when it was time to relax, I felt so relieved that I felt light and great. Went out to the pub with friends, and wasn't tired at all, which surprised me. Slept quite normally that evening. I can confirm, the hallucinations after multiple all-nighters are quite real. Dreams seem to keep trying to start up, speech is slurred, and things get strange. Yet somehow, in the midst of that, I was able to write adequate answers in difficult, long technical exams. The hallucinations, and the slurring and reduced physical coordination, seem to go away in the "relaxed" phase after something is finished. It's like the relief makes a new wave of physical resources available to work with. I've done a few highly-stressed all-nighters (and sometimes 2 or 3 nights in a row) since then (due to hard life events than bad planning on my part). I've also been up 4/5 nights (I can't remember which, it was a very stressful event), but got short (<1 hour) naps in the day. It's a similar pattern at the end: When the thing that needs to be finished is done, the tiredness disappears, and my body feels light, great and not tired for a while. Relieved, even happy. Although, the cost afterwards has become greater over the years, and there may be days of exhaustion afterwards. Although the exams 3 nights 4 days awake for exams was a kind of success, and it might seem like I must be one of those people who doesn't need much sleep, the opposite is true. The longest time I've slept straight through, without waking (except for the usual wake-and-roll-over-back-to-sleep moments), was 25 hours. I'm sure, because I decided to find out when I was a student (a bit older than the above story). I knew that I slept a long time generally, and needed to if I was to feel rested, and that the timing was unpredictable. One day I decided to just sleep and sleep until I felt completely rested, and see how long that would be. So I did that, and it was 25 hours before I felt like I'd had all the sleep I could take. It felt pretty good, though waking at midnight, having gone to bed the evening of the day before, made me feel isolated. I spend most of my life feeling rather tired, and I need about 9-11 hours sleep to feel good the next day (it varies but 10 feels like the average), but it's rarely achievable, for social and work pressure reasons, as well as difficult to predict insomnia. I've had fairly chaotic sleep "cycle" since the age of 15, which started due to staying up at night to do homework from school, and has never really recovered. By chaotic, for about 20 years (until ~35) most days it was unpredictable to me when I'd sleep and when I'd wake. Which as you can imagine, made work difficult. Since 35 it's been more regular in that I sleep almost every night, although not always the same times. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of it, and sometimes I won't get to sleep at all, despite everything being dark and quiet and comfy, and me being tired. If I get sleepy and think I'll sleep, I need to go to sleep or I risk missing the "window" of opportunity to fall asleep. I would love to feel rested some day. I can't remember the last time I felt like I had a really good sleep and was fresh and rested the next day. (ps. None of the above involved any drugs, not even legal ones, unless you count Coca Cola. I didn't even drink coffee in those days. Saying this upon seeing the other comments about speed/meth etc.)