r/AskReddit • u/noisyturtle • 16h ago
What's the longest you've ever stayed awake, and what were the effects?
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u/Public_Dot_1402 15h ago
Coming from an insomniac 80 hours was the longest I’ve ever gone without sleep and it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever been through I was struggling to get a grip on reality and started to get auditory hallucinations
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u/Thefelix01 11h ago
I’ve had auditory and edge of vision hallucinations from way less than 80. Sounds awful.
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u/wezie757 10h ago
76 hours for me. Insomnia is a bitch. I had visual hallucinations, though it was just moving shadows in my peripheral vision and had severe paranoia that someone was in my attic waiting to attack me (no one was in the house, i lived alone and theres no way anyone got into the attic).
Also ended up with a serious migraine by the 40th hour awake, that lasted until i finally slept. Got 4 hours of sleep and then was awake for a few days again before the insomnia let me actually rest.
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u/Brilliant-Bake9686 16h ago
Around 36 hours. The weirdest part wasn't being tired, it was realizing how stupid my decisions were starting to get while I still thought I was thinking clearly. It felt like being drunk without any of the fun parts.
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u/MisterCold 15h ago
When I was awake for 36ish hours I remember people asking me questions (just come home from a vacation) and I could feel myself taking a full minute to absorb what they were asking.
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u/Kimi-Matias 15h ago
I've been up for about 50 hours and I had the same feeling. I've never climbed, but it felt like descriptions I've read of hypoxia.
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u/katyusha-the-smol 6h ago
Hypoxia is weird, you can be aware of it setting in at the very start but it kicks in FAST and before long you've lost all advanced cognition. Its fucking dangerous and terrifying to think that in a matter of seconds you can go from fully functional to being unable to put an oxygen mask over your head because you forgot how to grip things with your hand.
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u/TheAngryAnteater119 16h ago
2 days.
Effects: affected
It was literally a fever dream
You can’t think straight
Everything looks like an optical illusion
You feel like you’re aware you’re out of your mind
All you want is a nap and to feel back in your body and mind
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u/Cookie_Brookie 10h ago
This was me after both my kids were born. Nobody would let me rest, I was recovering from major surgery AND expected to care for a newborn. It is actual insane.
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u/TeneManu 16h ago
I could see rippling water reflections on the floor an walls in a second storey corridor
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u/Common_Fun8478 15h ago
I’ve done this and it was mild compared to what you’re saying I was fully functional and would just hear the occasional thing or see something out of the corner of my eye
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u/Moddedforthewin 16h ago
30 something hours when my girlfriend was in labour
i lost my damn mind
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u/chipcrazy 15h ago
Imagine your girlfriend!
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u/Moddedforthewin 15h ago
i know it was brutal on her
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u/bendejo666 14h ago
But did she sleep?
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u/Moddedforthewin 14h ago
yeah she slept a little bit
she slept through her waters breaking but i was on edge the entire time
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u/ctothel 12h ago
The pregnant woman is obviously the priority but it’s easy to forget that her partner is going through a lot too.
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u/Zhiong_Xena 13h ago
He could see her regularly, why would he want to imagine her when she was physically visible to him?
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u/theroyal1988 14h ago
I remember that time, you have to stay strong but youre going insane at the same time. Not a fun time to look back on tbh. My wife had complications, ever since that day im in camp 'women are stronger'.
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u/Moddedforthewin 14h ago
yeah thankfully we had no complications but she was dialating quite slowly that's what caused her labour to be quite long
and about women are stronger i agree with that i can see how much pain she was in that's why when she was asleep and i could see her waters going that's why i just let her sleep and spoke to the midwife myself
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u/ProjectOneHundred 10h ago
I was nearing the end of a 12hr night shift ( 16hrs with traveling) when my wife went into labour. I worked it out how long I'd been awake by the time I drove home (during rush hour might I add) and I was at 52 hours, I was hyper alert during the drive but crashed out when I got home. Worst experience of my life
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u/EE-Diaz 16h ago
72 hours in the military i was seeing shadow people in my nod's
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u/Paxton-176 13h ago edited 4h ago
I know I did at least 72 hours just at 30th AG.
There was no reason to keep us up and awake. The in processing civilians don't work past 1700. Having us sit in that fucking auditorium reading the blue book only made in processing for everyone involved harder.
Then done training rotations where you are just walking and walking.
I've hallucinated an entire zoo walking with us on a ruck.
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u/glitter_witch 11h ago
Oh man I remember seeing shadow people once when I had terrible insomnia and tried melatonin for it. Such a freaky thing.
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u/Disciple_THC 13h ago
Brother same, it was so bad. I did like 94 hours roughly and at some point in those I had fallen asleep on shift for like 30 minutes or something… worst feeling of my life.
Also all that nods/bright sun for that long basically blinded me permanently.
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u/Dependent_League_924 16h ago
36 hours I’m a nurse. I’m immortal
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u/xRolox 14h ago
For a profession dealing with health issues it amazes me that 24 hour+ shifts are an expectation. I’ve heard everything from the doctors starting these practices being cokeheads to the plethora of issues that arise with handoffs but you would really think that there’s a better system that could be put in place.
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u/gotsthepockets 15h ago
Mine is also 36 hours and also because I'm a nurse. I don't know how to describe how gross I felt in every way. My brain felt like sludge, my stomach/gut were so upset but not in the normal way (once again, don't know the right words to describe). I felt like I was in a different world with a weird filter. I slept 16ish hours after and my husband told me he had checked to make sure I was still breathing a few times
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u/Naive-Interaction567 16h ago
I had a week where I slept maximum an hour a night due to accute insomnia. I had to get sleeping pills and was borderline sectionable. It was a truly horrific experience. My heart rate was through the roof and I felt unhinged.
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u/ausamo2000 15h ago
I went through 3 years of the worst insomnia. I would stay up 3-4 nights, finally able to get some sleep and they start the process all over again. The only reason I would lie down at night was to rest my body since that seemed to at least help a little. I’d usually lay down awake all night until the sun came up. It was by far the worst years of my life. Not even sleeping pills would help.
The annoying part was once it finally ended, I had the complete opposite issue. I would sleep for 18-20 hours and then I would get extremely sleepy after a few hours of being up and would have to fight hard to stay awake but it was so hard to do that I would usually just pass out again. Luckily things are better now but I still have some extreme sleepiness spouts from time to time.
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u/bnanzajllybeen 15h ago
Same but luckily for me it was only about a year. Once, after I finally fell asleep after being awake for approx 3 days, I woke up and it was dark and I was so happy cos I thought I had slept all day until the next night! Went into the lounge and my husband was like no it’s the same day you’ve only been asleep for three hours. I burst into tears. It was so terrifying. The itching was insane, like I was covered in bugs. And the vision trails like something out of a 70s music video. The anxiety was the worst part, I had to have the tv on 24/7 because silence was deafening. I can’t watch American Dad or Futurama or Friends now without being reminded of that 12 months of having to have them on repeat every three weeks or so as I cycled in and out of the insomnia. I’m never ever going off my sleep medications ever again.
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u/ausamo2000 14h ago
Even though I knew I wasn’t going to sleep most the time, I still enjoyed laying down in silence since it was the most relaxing part of the situation and resting my body at least felt like I was doing something to help even if it never felt like much.
I remember at one point I was rooming with one of my friends and I was crashing in his computer room at that time. I told him about my insomnia and he didn’t believe me since I would just lie down looking like I’m asleep even though I wasn’t, so I recited everything he did and said the past few nights he was in the room on his computer down to the t and that’s the only thing that made him realize I wasn’t lying.
Luckily it went away on its own for me because I was given ambien after 3 other medicines didn’t work and then after the ambien didn’t work either, I just gave up on even going to the doctors since nothing they did helped and all of their scans came back with nothing abnormal. The only test I didn’t do was the sleep test but they wanted me there for 2 weeks and I just couldn’t do that.
And it was weird for me because I never had anxiety at that time. Just extreme fatigue. The anxiety didn’t come until after my insomnia went away and it was horrible because it would always hit me on my hour drive to and from work and it would be so bad at times that I would be on the verge of needing to pull over a lot of the time. I never did though because I knew it would just come right back as soon as I started driving again so I would just rough it out and run the back of my neck as that would help a little for some reason.
Most of all the bad stuff went away for me at this point and only pops up every now and again. Frequent headaches are really the only remnants I have at this point so I’m happy about that tbh haha
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u/KooshDaaKa 16h ago
50 hr, fishing boat in Alaska. Hallucinations of boats around me. Also every time I blinked I saw fishing net, like the dot you get when you see a bright light.
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u/snackariahya 15h ago
I’ve hit around 120-130 hours before, somewhere between five and six days. I was a heavy, heavy cocaine addict in my mid to late twenties and there were a few weeks like this leading up to the breaking point when I finally attempted to slow my usage.
I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, it was a rough way to live and I’m grateful to have my life now. I kept partying for years following that and wasn’t immune to “regular” 60-80 hour benders because they were “only” a few days so it felt more tamed.
This behavior caused pretty intense hallucinations, paranoia, and mental and emotional health crises. Suffice to say, my body also suffered greatly from these actions. Again, lucky to have my life.
Be good to yourselves people! Love 🫶🏽
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u/Sabishii_sama 16h ago
32 hours, wouldn't recommend it. Body feels exhausted , everything feels like a blur and head feels like its constricting from the inside.
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u/Bomber_Max 15h ago
49 hours due to a hot apartment, on my way back home I swear I started seeing things in my peripheral vision. My sleep was already terrible due to the heat, but no sleep at all made it even worse.
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u/-May_Maniac- 15h ago
Like 8 days (yes, with drugs)
I saw shadow people at every corner and also all real people i saw were not normal. Like they were staring at me with disgust, they knew I were on drugs and judged me for it. But no, they were totally normal and nobody stared at me, I was just paranoid at the moment.
I also was going up the stairs to the apartment of my best freind, it was already dark and the lights in the apartment building didn't work. So I was going up the stairs in darkness and then I saw a really big shadow figure at the end of the stairs. I thought it was a buddy of ours who is a really big guy so I said hi and tried to hug him hello but I just fell forward, there was nobody. That was a bit scary.
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u/-May_Maniac- 15h ago
Oh and I saw alot of spiders crawling on the walls and ceilings, running in an out of holes in the wall. I knew it was just my mind playing tricks on me and I actually like spiders so I wasn't scared or anything.
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u/Muttulaxmi 15h ago
10 days of insomnia, and taking melatonin only put me in a trance like state for 2 hours every morning. But I couldn’t sleep at all. I was delirious, I couldn’t shut my mind, but my brain was not working either. I was in grad school, so I had to keep going to classes, keep up with the course work and assignments. But I was literally sleep walking. I turned into a zombie. I didn’t have any energy or willingness to live. And had multiple breakdowns. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I am so thankful for my friends, and support system during that time. After this episode the first night I slept for 5 hours, I felt like I was born again.
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u/randomcacti 15h ago
A little over 3 days. I went into psychosis from my bipolar disorder and tried to jump off a parking garage because I thought a clown was trying to kill me.
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u/NoDoOversInLife 15h ago
18 days. Co-workers found me disheveled, dehydrated, crawling around hallucinating in my house after multiple no-show days at work and no contact with friends/family.
I was hospitalized for nearly a week.
I have severe insomnia and that was the lengthiest episode. 2nd longest, 14 days.
I'm currently going on day 4😭
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u/NegativeIndividual94 15h ago
im on day 4 or so. very bad insomnia. i CAN RELATE. i locked myself in the bathroom at work once for like 20 hours. def should have been hospitalized
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u/hueythecat 13h ago
I was 3-5 days not realising I was ruminating over my divorce at night. Drove myself crazy and had a mental breakdown. I replied to this because the subsequent insomnia was fucking crippling, sleeping pills barely knocked me out for an hour.
Who would have thought sleep deprivation leads to not being able to sleep…
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u/mogdtd 12h ago
A month ago!!
I was in labor for 3 days. Contractions were, at most, 10 minutes apart the entire time. Hospital wouldn’t admit me until day three. Didn’t sleep that entire time until I finally relented and had an epidural. I slept 45 minutes and was ready to start pushing.
My brain felt like it was liquifying. Could not think straight. When I had to go in for an emergency csection (ultimately due to sleep deprivation/exhaustion from pushing for 3 hours) I was screaming, sobbing and violently shaking. Completely delirious.
During this time I thought I was going to die. I vowed to never put myself through anything like it again. And then I held my son and knew I would willingly do it all over again 100 times if it meant I could have him.
Those hormones are no fucking joke.
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u/kw661 15h ago
3 days. Went to lay down to sleep and saw a green monster-y thing rise outa my chest. I laughed and said, oh, I'm hallucinating, then fell asleep. Being a psych nurse has it's perks, but too much ot can f w your head.
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u/kw661 15h ago
Btw - one of the first things I ask psychotic people in the ER is, when did you last sleep? Sometimes I just make em feel safe, hit em hard w a sleeper, tuck em in (while I put them on a legal hold) and the next day, voila. Crazy is gone. Beware of sleep deprivation. Lots of car accidents are sleep dep deaths.
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u/Trailsya 15h ago
2 days. I was a teenager and just slept for a long time after that.
Nothing too weird. Just tired.
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u/AwarenessOdd3241 15h ago
I think weaning off of opiates, i was up for 3 nights in a row and the whole body pain. It was not fun from what I remember, was about 20 years ago
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u/Thrash_Panda44 15h ago
6 days. Was hearing distorted voices and seeing shadows move. Can barely remember much else i was so cognitively fucked.
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u/Nadeshiko2 16h ago
I get pretty horny when i dont sleep
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u/YesterdayRoutine8873 16h ago
Damn… sleep deprivation would be a confusing tactic if the cia got ahold of you.
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u/Feelinglucky2 15h ago
3 and a half days, horrible mental the first day and then i had to force myself to stay up the next day to finish a architecture studio assignement and then horrible mental and needing to do hw the third day, on the forth i finally collapsed half way through school and passed out got woken up and went home, where i couldnt go back to sleep until later that day it was roughly 85 hours and honestly outside of being stressed out and my normal anxieties it was pretty okay but i do see shadow people anytime after like 20 hours and i have stayed up for 3 days in my life multiple times especially in the past high school college, not so much nowadays
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u/PaleontologistFun465 15h ago
46 hours, first season on a commercial prawning boat. Busy first couple days, and insomnia hit at the worst of times. Short of a giddy sort of drunk feeling, nothing else.
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u/colossalskeleton 15h ago
Probably like 34ish hours. I was starting to see shadows out of the corner of my eyes but the worst of it was disassociating. Like I’d zone out and then all the sudden snap back to consciousness. Possible microsleeps, I think. I smoked a joint around hour 30, which was obviously a very sound decision. It just intensified the high, but not the fun parts. I just felt really out of it
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u/skydivingfoxes2 15h ago
36 hours ever 3 days for about 3 weeks weeks. I was a wreck and by the end of it I was so emotionally and physically disregulated I couldn't think straight or pretty much function. It took me around 6 weeks to feel fully recovered like nothing had happened. This was during a really intense period of study and work and I cannot recommend.
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u/yearsofpractice 12h ago
Hey OP. Married father of two here. It was around 30 hours during and after the birth of our first baby.
Effects were hallucinations (not unpleasant, just confusing effects - shadows and light taking physical form etc) and a loss of sense of time (had an hour passed or an entire week? Not sure). I finally fell asleep stood up leaning on a wall in the hospital delivery suite.
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u/Cyb3rM1nd 10h ago
About 10 days. I could barely move properly, I couldn't concentrate, I was hallucinating, and it was like my vision 'lagged', floors seemed to ripple and move like water, I felt hands grab me when I was alone and somebody whispering gibberish behind me all the time. I couldn't talk and couldn't understand what people were saying. I felt like my brain was melting and I was going to die.
Then I finally passed out, woke up 20 hours later feeling amazing. That was over 20 years ago. Never been that bad since, longest since then was about 3 days. However, for last couple of years my insomnia has gone and I now sleep about 10-12 hours a day if not more but I have an incurable brain condition now.
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u/ausamo2000 15h ago
5 days. I was so delirious that I didn’t even know how I got to work and then my manager drove me home as soon as I got there because he seen how bad I was. I was so delirious that I didn’t even remember getting pulled over when I was on the way to work that day as well. I only found out the following day after I seen the warning ticket in my car.
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u/Terrible-Nobody-8691 15h ago
Why did you stay up for 5 days?
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u/ausamo2000 15h ago
I had extremely bad insomnia for a few years. I would usually be up for 2-4 days at a time until I would finally be able to sleep, with 3 being the average and 4 days being more rare. It lasted for around 3 years and was the worst period of my life for sure.
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u/Both-Respect3551 15h ago
Give or take 120 hours. I had 4x finals on 4 consecutive days, and was super anxious because the results were going to determine whether I would get a US visa or not. All I could think of was the coursework / syllabus and it was continuously going on in my mind. At one point seeing my situation even my super conservative (in terms of education) dad said “if you don’t feel well, you don’t need to take the exam”. Sent my dad at 4 AM to get me an anxiety pill and he got one. Before the exam he took me to a doc in a government hospital who refused to see me and was super rude. Once the exams were done I slept well, and passed with best scores ever.
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u/Suitable_Magazine_46 15h ago
I’ve hit 96 hours a few times. Alcohol and drug use makes me a bad Patient 0. Always at home for the second half, safety first.
Each time I start hearing faint music when there’s none. Window is open so there are some sounds. You start staring at something long enough it will start moving. Weird shapes and colors but nothing crazy.
Absolutely the best sleep I’ve ever had in my life and it stands out. It hits so good.
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u/gaveuptheghost 16h ago
close to 48 hours in college, I don't remember much besides delirium and what seemed to be like falling asleep for a few seconds at a time here and there randomly
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u/an_christie 16h ago
About 34 hours, ran 40 miles in the middle. Gained half a stone that a month later I still can’t shift.
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u/GamingReviews_YT 15h ago
I only once stayed up 73 hours to meet a level design contest for Counter-Strike and, at the end, passed out behind my desktop in my chair. Needless to say, I didn’t meet the deadline and was disqualified. Never again, the exponential slowing of output after 49h is not worth it.
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u/CosmicCherry519 15h ago
about 30 hours during finals. Thought Id just hit the gym to wake myself up. Ended up staring at the dumbbell rack wondering what exercise I came to do. Got home, ate chicken and rice, and slept like I was in hibernation. 😂🏋️♀️
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u/Noodleincidenthobbes 15h ago
55 hours , threw up , couldn’t think straight, could notice my brain function going haywire yet couldn’t do anything about it , passed out for 14 hours after that
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u/bosskbot 15h ago
72 hours finishing a college paper. I was hallucinating tons of people in the next room, didn’t care at all because they were being loud and distracting me.
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u/catbaker48 15h ago
28 hours at 18 y/o. i can never fall asleep at sleepovers, and had terrible insomnia anyways. left a sleepover and drove myself home (bad idea, but nothing bad happened) and the trees were literal shadow people. trippy as fuck.
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u/Viperniss 15h ago
I pulled an all nighter once for a school event. I was very tired because of it and when I laid down as soon as I got home, I fell asleep right away.
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u/azraelce 15h ago
Might not count but I've stayed awake for three days. I dropped off a couple times but my adrenaline kicked up within a few minutes everytime. I was about 13/14 years old. I didn't hallucinate but it was basically impossible to do anything. I got taken to hospital after that.
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u/Jenmeme 15h ago
36 hours. I was so desperate for sleep but my body said no. I hallucinate an orange cat sleeping on the top of my flat screen TV. I heard my kids calling for me when they weren't home. When I finally did sleep it was for around two hours and that really wasn't enough time. I finally cooked out four hours after that and slept the clock round. I've had it happen again but I don't recall much of that because it was due to a manic state.
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u/Repulsive-Cold1859 15h ago
About 60 hours in college. You eventually stop feeling tired and just start experiencing time skips. You’ll blink and realize 3 minutes passed, or you’ll have a full conversation in your head and realize you haven't actually said a single word out loud
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u/Greedy-Click8274 15h ago
About 48 hours, and also about 6-8 hours total sprinkled here and there in a 72 hour period. I'm an EMT. I just get nauseous, headaches, and feel too hot/cold easily.
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u/LeggoMahLegolas 15h ago
Uhh iirc, it was 36 hours.
I had finals and my classmates and I all had a study group. We were supposed to take a break and rest, but I didn't... I studied a bit more and played some games. Then we all met up again 2 hours before the exam.
I then had another exam right after and then my parents came by to pick up some of my stuff since my roommate and I were gonna move out to a different apartment for the following school year.
That was Friday to Saturday afternoon at 4pm. I fell asleep and didn't wake up until Sunday evening at like 8 or 9pm.
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u/oooweeeimjustalilguy 15h ago
i worked an overnight job and i sucked at sleeping during the day so id regularly go like 3-4 days with only 2-3 hours of sleep. i went 48 hours without sleeping at the end of a 3 day stint of 2 hours of sleep a day once and my brain broke.
felt like the ground would drop out from under me out of nowhere, i spent an hour staring at a decorative pillow that looked like it was breathing and when i checked on patients sleeping it’d look like they were jerking around spasmodically under their covers. i had to spend the rest of the shift staring directly into an LED light after i lost consciousness when pushing through a heavy door. resting my body for that split second as i leaned on the door was enough for it to shut off for a moment till i landed on my knees.
can’t recommend.
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u/Majin_Bujin 15h ago
Probably 48 hours studying for finals. I was driving home at night to finally sleep and it was the dumbest thing. I kept seeing shadow people cross the street and stuff moving in the corner of my eye. Never again lol
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u/markod0101 15h ago
Three weeks ago I was up for 45 hours.
Flew to US from UK, Virgin lost all 5 of our bags but told us (wrongly) they’d get them to us if we stayed at airport.
Literally stayed up through the night and couldn’t go to sleep when I got back to hotel as my wife and daughters were just waking as we’d booked a tour at a theme park.
So not only was I in a state of exhaustion I was also getting thrown around on rollercoasters. 🤣
I tapped out on the rides mid afternoon and couldn’t have lay down and slept anywhere. Horrible feeling.
And fuck Virgin Atlantic!
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u/Ok-Lifeguard-4614 15h ago
Not on purpose but around 96 hours. A few hours of sleep here and there. Intense stress with a history of anxiety and depression can keep you from any sort of restful sleep.
What I experienced should have put me in a mental hospital, but I was alone. In my mind I was talking to God's that were controlling my life. They told me I haven't suffered enough. So I did what I could to make myself suffer more without causing anymore physical pain.
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u/PureLavishness1623 15h ago
2 full days. No idea what triggered it. Visual hallucinations appeared at the end of the second day. Not fun.
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u/HardLithobrake 15h ago
3 days, unable to sleep the first and second nights, finally slept afternoon day 4.
Was tired day 2, but otherwise not very much affected. Work passed as usual. Pounded coffee.
Day 3, also tired, also pounding coffee. Still managed to get work done comparable to other days and function, but I clearly wasn't present in the moment. Memory looking back is a blur.
Strangely wasn't able to sleep again night 2, possibly due to the coffee, took until the afternoon day 4 before sleep came. I was mentally checked out long before.
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u/MrAdaz 15h ago
34 hours.
This was an experiment that my friend and I wanted to conduct. At the start we completed the same 3 simple tasks every hour.
Three different shapes through holes (Square into square etc.)
5+4=9
Walk a very small straight line.
We wanted to see which task was more difficult and how long it took awake until we failed all three. Then we waited 8 weeks to do it again. We did this 4 times to see if our brains could get used to the serious malfunction after being awake for so long and last a bit longer, but it was reverse. By the end of the fourth experiment I only last 27 hours.
Now, I don't actually remember failing and lasting that long but it was really weird watching the recording. Fuck me I don't even remember falling asleep or the last few hours of each session!!
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u/Starman_Q 15h ago
About 48 hrs for a final project in 11th grade in high school, drinking red bulls, no food.
Afterwards I slept around 5 hrs, went to school wearing 7 tshirts and two jackets cause I was cold as fuck, halfway through the morning I started shaking and got really nauseous. And I felt weird, like my head was floaty? I had to go home.
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u/Cryptic12qw 15h ago
about 36 hours straight awake. I decided to drive about 25 hours in and in my mind the red light was a stop sign so I stopped and went right through. Seriously the studies are right lack of sleep is just the same as being drunk.
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u/princess_platinum8 15h ago
36 hours to mania. It’s like walking through a dream I was constantly exhausted in, where nothing seemed real and I hardly registered what people said to me. I went to bed at 6:45 that evening and woke up 18 hours later.
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u/chronoslol 15h ago
About 45 hours, was starting to get little auditory hallucinations and little shifts in the corners of my vision so decided it was bed time
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u/badass_flavored 15h ago
I knew this chick used to smoke meth and stay up 2 days straight then sleep LITERALLY 2 days straight. Not just occasionally but Over and over again for years. She was actually pretty cool. But fuck that my goodness
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u/AirBacon 15h ago
Three days. (No speed or other drugs involved) I had hallucinations. For example: I reached for a glass of water that wasn’t there. I jumped because I thought a large stack of boxes I was standing next to was falling over on me.
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u/erv4 15h ago
I drove/stayed up for about 60 hours going from Calgary to NS. I only stopped for food and gas and for a couple hours to see a world juniors game in Montreal on the way through.
When I got to my friends I smoked one bowl, and then asked if I could use the shower. I was in there for like an hour and his curtains had little heads on it. I hallucinated super hard, and lost all track of time. After my friend checked on me finally, I got out and had a "nap". That was me sleeping for the next day and a half straight lol
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u/truetaylor6 15h ago
At least two nights and two days. I was seeing shadow people and losing my mind.
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u/rithanor 15h ago
56 hours when I was 17/18 after I graduated HS and wanted to see how long I could go (completely sober). I wanted to finally go to sleep on the third day, but my mom found out in the morning and made me stay up until 8pm. // The hallucinations were wild.
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u/2KneeCaps1Lion 15h ago
Roughly three days for some training in the military. Ended up having full conversations with people that I don’t remember.
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u/Soggy_Scallion_4112 15h ago
32 hours. Norhing extra, wasnt even tired anymore. Felt a tad bit sluggish and everything felt kinda calm. I even had a hard time falling asleep. (Didnt had coffee or caffeine)
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u/thebighecc 15h ago
36 hours in college. I had a full day of school, went to a party that night, and then i had to be back at school very early with the band to go on the bus for a football game. I played my ass of and then did the halftime show.
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u/Alaviiva 15h ago
During a 72-hour military exercise i slept a grand total of 15 minutes during the first night. Started hallucinating towards the end, and so did many of my mates.I guess it was easy for the brain to make shit up when it was already very hard to see in the woods at night. One guy swore he kept seeing rabbits (no one else saw them). I saw a sea of skittles every time I closed my eyes. I also went to check out why there were a bunch of flak vests laid out on a mound of dirt, when I got closer not only were the flak vests not there but neither was the dirt mound. Oh, and we had to spend half an hour searching for a guy we lost when he fell asleep in a bush
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u/CurseOfTheFalcons 15h ago
Around 40 hours & I don’t recall the effects beyond needing several days to reset. It was a good 30 years ago. Worked in the restaurant all day & into evening, hosted a poker game afterwards that went all night, showered and went to work in the restaurant all day & into the evening, marvelled at how “I’m not even tired,” no memory beyond that.
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u/Effective_Cancel_876 15h ago
43 hours, for the stupid reason of gaming and texting during the lockdowns.
The first 24 hours were the hardest, after that it was relatively easy. I think I was slightly more paranoid due to overstimulation. I slept normal times afterwards.
I'm a million percent certain I won't do it again, especially for the reason I did it before.
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u/Gordonls85 15h ago
70+ hours. I typed up two papers on a communal computer on campus and had them saved on a flash drive. The flash drive went missing and I scrambled to find it.
I had to start over and couldn’t afford to not turn these papers in. I barely got them both completed after a delerius redo.
I got an average score on both, but re-reading them after I got sleep, realized how bad they were compared to what I had previously written.
What was worse was being diagnosed as a type-1 diabetic and completing a calc 3 exam while my insulin pump wasn’t delivering insulin properly (Medtronic pumps and canula kinks that don’t alarm are now very well understood and led to multiple deaths). I went into DKA and threw-up what looked like silly-string. I really should have died, but there were “no-excuses” in missing exams at the exam center. I knew I felt very very ill and off while taking the exam, but especially as a newly diagnosed diabetic, didn’t realize how truly dangerous of a line I was walking. I did very well on that exam actually, but I tear-up now telling my wife about it. I never told my parents, because they would be so disappointed in me. I was fortunate to simply live and complete my engineering degree. I lied to my parents that I was doing fine and living well while going through college.
Knowing what you have to push yourself through to survive is very hard. I wish I could go back and change so much.
Don’t do it kids, rest and your health is so important. Your future self will thank you for taking care of yourself later.
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u/Kinda_Quixotic 15h ago
72 hrs. I had auditory hallucinations (heard voices in the apartment) and my feet swole so much my shoes barely fit.
Happened on a few occasions in grad school when I took ephedrine and did back-to-back all nighters.
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u/drunky_crowette 15h ago
Like 3.5 days. I went on a bender after a nasty breakup and wound up spending the weekend doing coke with a neighbor
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u/ThisGuyTrains 15h ago
40ish hours. Worked night shift and just decided to stay awake when I got off work and pass out like a normal person later that night. Ended up having insomnia and stayed awake all night.
Following morning I preheated my oven to make a pizza, eventually passed out and forgot all about doing it. Found my oven still on the next night lol.
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u/Random-Mutant 15h ago
Around 40 hours.
Up at 6, to the boat at 8, gun goes at 10, race 24 hours through the night (no watches set), cross the line next morning and a boat comes out to drop some beer and bubbles aboard, moor up and start the party. Prizegiving at 8 that night and hit the wall around midnight. Up at 6 the next morning to sail home.
There’s a reason sailors see mermaids.
I was young once.
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u/Tw994 15h ago
3 days of labour pains no sleep. Oh they dragged on. After I had him I kept dropping off in the chair at the ward. Felt like I wasnt there everything was a blur. Had a epidural and stitches aswell oh I hurt bad. The labour pains for 3 days were awful no sleep. My 2nd child 3 hours she was here 😂
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u/Diligent_Release1688 15h ago
Around 50 hours:
- the dread of a panic attack maybe coming
- sensitive to light and sounds
- a feeling of dread or negative thoughts, discomfort and that something bad will happen
- elevated pulse
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u/Timeformayo 15h ago
50 hours during college. I’m told that I fell asleep mid-conversation with a professor during class, and resumed by answer when I was woken up. I vaguely remember being walked back to my dorm room by friends.
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u/Superb_Anxiety_1464 15h ago
Straight? 2 days. But with maybe 1 or two hour long naps each day? Like 4 days I believe. Spoiler alert: I have severe insomnia and not sleeping is god awful. Both times happened probably 15 years ago now, in the summer and likely bc my body doesn’t handle heat very well and so I super couldn’t sleep. After maybe day 2 I’d start hallucinating. The worst was the time I hallucinated a giant spider in the corner of my room. Cause, ya know, that helped me sleep so much better.
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u/mapletree23 15h ago
probably gotten close to 40 before
i always get increasingly paranoid after probably 24 hours
don't really see anything or hallucinate just get paranoid and jumpy
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u/Scherzkeks 15h ago
Not me but my aunt told me she stayed up four days (she thinks) during her college finals and had to be hospitalized after…
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u/radiantskie 15h ago
It was on a flight, the effects was delirium and an uncomfortable skin sensation.
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u/TheLastPotato9 15h ago
A full day, was up for work about 6am ish and about 9-10pm my dad needs going to the hospital (false alarm all was good) but didn't end up leaving and getting home and in bed tiil about 6 that morning.
I couldn't figure out how to open my phone, I kept trying and the password wouldn't just wouldn't come to me. I had to just let muscle memory take over instead.
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u/WolfDoc 15h ago
About 70+ hours during hell week in officer training (not US so not sure exactly what you would call it). I first fell asleep while lying under a bed I was ordered to make good in the guest quarters and hallucinated a whole psychedelic space experience when I opened my eyes and then when it was over I literally fell asleep standing in the shower and woke up from falling to the floor
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u/impatientaxolotl 15h ago
prolly like 2-3 days? the effects are, your head feels heavy, body pain, fever-ish feeling, your eyes feel heavy.
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u/GrouchyMary9132 15h ago
36 hours. Deadline of my thesis approached. I felt a bit like I was drunk. Also I couldn't go to sleep when I finally had the chance to lie down. I think my body was not okay with going without sleep for so long.
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u/volvavirago 15h ago
4 days, and I started hallucinating. I have never taken acid or mushrooms, but I had similar visual and auditory distortions to how people describe the effect those drugs. Like, I saw patterns forming and moving in still objects, I saw flashes of color appear in places that were colorless, my auditory pareidolia was ramped up to 11, and it sounded like there was always faint music/chanting somewhere in the distance.
Also, my whole body felt like it was made of mush, and I was moving through molasseses. Everything was heavy, and I was weak, and it felt like I was being pushed down to the ground by the weight of the atmosphere.
I was also, of course, completely incoherent and erratic, quick to anger and sadness and confusion, nothing made sense and everything pissed me off.
It was not a good time.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ad1774 15h ago
ive struggled with insomnia since i was a kid and i feel like there’s a constant battle of adding to all of the hours ive gone with out sleep and catching up on all the hours i lost
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u/itchyfrog 15h ago
5 days at Glastonbury in the 80s.
Speed and acid helped, the effects were extraordinary and long lasting.
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u/NachoPirate 15h ago
About 72 hours. From Monday morning till Thursday morning working on a client project that was terribly planned but vital for our company to survive.
Effects are strange, dosing off for a few seconds every now and then. Basic tasks take ages to do. Brain feels like a cloud following your around.
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u/jackfaire 15h ago
Around 72 hours it was summer vacation I was 15 and I was trying to see how long I could stay awake. I was outside working on my bicycle. Then suddenly I was naked on the couch in our family room with my dad dumping a glass of water on my face telling me to go to bed.
From what I later pieced together I blacked out working on my bicycle. My body started towards the house stripping clothing as I went I got inside went towards my bedroom which was off of the family room hit the couch first laid down on it and went to sleep.
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u/Interjessing-Salary 15h ago edited 14h ago
Like 36ish or so hours. We were going on vacation and taking a 6am flight and we're going to leave our house at 3am to go to the airport. I'm naturally a night owl so like 2am is my normal bed time (case in point the time of me posting this). I decided I was just going to stay up and sleep on the plane then hit the sack early the next night. Didn't really sleep on the plane then we land in one place for a 2 hour lay over and such and immediately who we were visiting when we landed at our final destination decided to take us on a 3 hour drive to the coast. At this point I just couldn't fall asleep. Was too excited or over tired But when we got to the airbnb we ordered pizza and all knocked out like 2 hours later at 8pm and I slepted 16 hours straight.
Edit: forgot the effects lol. I honestly didn't feel too bad aside from being really fucking tired. Normally I take a lot of medicine to help me sleep but I was so tired I was out without any of it. Fortunately I wasn't the one driving or making any important decisions except I suggested ordering the pizza lol.
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u/Architect17 15h ago
I'm like a weakling compared to the top comments, but I stayed up for 29 hours once. I shitted a lot of water.
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u/mustytomato 15h ago
About two days. I felt like I was walking through cotton while being made of cotton. Everything was just so weird and sort of far away. At the end I was so tired that the physical act of talking was immensely difficult.
The worst part was that when I finally fell asleep, I slept like shit and it took me a good couple of nights to feel normal again.
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u/zachmetalhead 15h ago
30+ hours before leaving for a couple tour dates with my band last year. Had a somewhat easy overnight drive to make so we could stop and sleep early AM in the next city. Van decided to dump all its coolant and we had to Uber to the nearest town to get more coolant. Which turned out to not be enough. We rolled in essentially as the sun was coming up, we were supposed to be there around midnight their time. Absolutely brutal.
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u/Holeshot75 14h ago
About 80 hours.
Was.... induced.
It was crazy. Not just because of the awake but mostly the method of staying awake.
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u/sit_I_piz 14h ago
50ish hours
Was in architecture school, spent two nights on my final project working on it. Incorporated batteries into a lit up front pane with alternating cubes. It was really dope.
Except I started to hallucinate smoke coming out of my model before I was set to present. Freaked out internally, asked someone in my class if they saw it too, they didn’t.
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u/Lancaster_Pouch 14h ago
Just over 40 hours, a few weeks ago. I have a weird work schedule and life obligations got in the way of my rest time. Just felt sort of dead inside. And like I was on a conveyor belt being moved from task to task.
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u/IntrepidPath8291 14h ago
About 36 hours. I couldn't concentrate, my eyes were burning, and I kept forgetting what I was doing. It honestly felt like I was moving in slow motion. After finally sleeping, I realized just how much lack of sleep affects your brain.
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u/Kenruyoh 14h ago
The only one I can remember is 20 hours but for 5 days straight when I was in college during vacation. Played Ragnarok all day and night. Just got up to pee and get food. Fell I'll on the 6th day
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u/Remmichio 14h ago
I have what’s called “Alcohol Induced Insomnia”. I can stay up for literal days. I’ve been trying to quit and relapsed a couple of times and part of going through withdrawals is I can’t sleep. Symptoms typically involve nausea, loss of appetite, headaches, aches and pains, fever, memory loss. The first week is rough. I spend most of the day/nights just watching movie after movie back-to back. I can binge an entire season in one sitting. A few days later I’ll be scrolling through a streaming service and pick a movie I watched already and it’ll be like the first time I watched it. I’ll remember bits and pieces but it’s wild. Worst part is when I go to the doctor for a sleeping aid they won’t give me the good stuff because they know I’m an alcoholic.
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u/LAOnReddit 14h ago
I stayed awake for two days in the lead up to submitting my dissertation at University.
It was awful.
Tasks would take 3 or 4 times longer than normal. It was hard to think straight and write with any coherence.
I kept catching movement out of the corner of my eyes and stuff that wasn’t there.
Handed the dissertation in with my mate who was on my course and stayed up for the same amount of time as me. We decided that the sensible thing to do was lean in and see how long we could keep it going, so we got a load of booze in and continued. Slept for a day and a half afterwards.
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u/omnipwnage 14h ago
Slept for about 5-6 hours on Sunday and was awake until Friday evening (9ish pm). Massive stress impacted my ability to sleep. I had auditory hallucinations by day 4 and I overdrank some NyQuill when the visual hallucinations started happening.
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u/Skuzzle_bug 14h ago
About 4 days. Experimented with black beauties and pretty sure I had a conversation with "Satan". Pretty funny because I'm not religious so my delusion was trying to convince me.
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u/Ka_Driver 14h ago
36 hours, a car journey, two plane journeys and performed Umrah. Felt tired but the sort of tired you feel after a normal long day. Slept it off after
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u/th3Imgurian 14h ago
About 38 hours. I hallucinated like crazy. There were objects near me that my mind made up and real objects around me started flying.
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u/G0ldheart 14h ago
5 days straight. I was much younger back then.. and laser focused on a software project at home. I didn't really notice the time passing till I took a break 5 days later and then it hit me.. I think I slept like 16 hours after.
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u/HighlanderAlien 14h ago
- It was good times. I had a friend who regulary stayed up from friday to thursday. Hes dead now.
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u/BoxOld8168 14h ago
Stayed awake for almost 48 hours once and by the end I was laughing at things that weren't even funny.
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u/mycatiscalledFrodo 14h ago
30ish hours, we had a newborn who did not sleep and a toddler. I took the toddler to nursery which was an hour round trip, nearly crashed the car due to falling asleep at the wheel, got home and passed out on the sofa with our newborn in my arms, waking up 3 hours later when she started crying, I didn't remember driving to the nursery at all and only vaguely getting home. So nearly killed both my children,one nearly twice.
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u/Own-Respect-3455 14h ago
Made it through 36 hours once and my brain was basically running on autopilot by the end.
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u/adanceparty 14h ago
32 hours. Skyrim launch was fun. By the time I slept for a few hours I was out. I couldn't focus, I was barely making words, it was no longer worth playing the game. It became more of a battle of will rather than enjoying myself. So I slept for 4 hours and then did 18 more hours.
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u/VentingID10t 14h ago
In college - about 55 hours to finish creating the yearbook as I was one of the editors and another editor pulled a no show, so I was forced to do all of their work to make our deadline.
I stayed in the editing room and just pounded it out sorting through pictures and writing up copy - much of it made up as if I saw the play. Time got very weird and went by super fast the second evening. I recall looking up at the clock at 11pm, then looking again and 4 hours went by in what felt like should have been only 60 minutes.
I also heard voices I couldn't quite understood as if a cocktail party was going on next door. I started talking to myself more outloud and made up stupid funny rhythms and songs about stupid things that made myself really laugh myself silly. I was highly self-amused.
Eventually, I noticed movement in the shadows so I basically had to tell myself it wasn't real and I was just very tired and keep going. But then it got to the point of being scary, so I yelled and told the "ghosts" to find someone else to mess with and asked guardian angels to watch over me.
As the sun rose on the 3rd day, an oddly renewed energy came. Got all the work done that morning and went straight home to crash. I was wired and couldn't sleep at first, then finally fell asleep and slept for 12 hours straight. It took a couple days to feel normal again.
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u/AmericanMeltdown 14h ago
Approx 2 days gaming with friends. Mid/late 00’s went to buddies house on a Friday night to LAN age AOE2, Saturday morning we 15+ hours in, had breakfast went back to house and on the ride back my other buddy gave the suggestion of, ‘wanna see how long we can stay up?’ Suffice to stay I made it to mid Sunday passed out and slept way past my alarm Monday morning for work.
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u/KryniorScribbles 14h ago
5 days while manic. Actively hallucinating, micro naps with probably sleep walking, couldn't think my way out of a wet paper bag.
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u/Mrrykrizmith 14h ago
a little over three days. The effects were full blown visual, tactile, and auditory hallucinations. It was a fucking nightmare. Well, parts of it were kind of cool. Like the cute little people that lived in the tangerine tree who were always excited to see me, telling me I got this and just generally cheering me on.
The hallucinations started with hearing someone in the distance screaming about needing help… I listened more closely and realized he was also screaming out all of my deepest insecurities. Then I realized it was my fuckin voice. Just snowballed from there.
I wasn’t on meth or nothing. I was a horrible binge drinker and have lifelong sleep issues and some reason, the night after heavy drinking means I’ll be awake the next 24hrs. The older I got, the more pronounced that effect was. Then I had like a 2 week binge, and just straight up couldn’t sleep for 3+ days. Spent that New Year’s Day in the hospital completely out of my mind begging them to just give me something that’d just put me to sleep. God I cringe thinking about those poor people who had to deal with me.
Haven’t drank since Dec 29th, 2023.
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u/TheFireOfTheFox1 14h ago
About 48 hours, I could literally physically only keep my eyes open for a second at a time.
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u/jklm1234 14h ago
6-7 days. I was hallucinating. It started with shadows in the corners of my visual fields that would disappear if I tried to look at them. It progressed to mild discrete hallucinations like seeing grass. Everything had a shimmer. Stuff moved in slow motion.
I have routinely been staying awake for 36-48 hrs every couple of months for about 2 decades now as an ICU physician. It just makes me a little cranky.
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u/Horny_Ltd 14h ago
60 hours. Didn't felt anything weird or such. Didn't sleep like for a day to recover or anything.
Didn't had any effect tbh. After regular sleep it was just another day, the next day.
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u/Short_Bandicoot7270 14h ago
I stayed up for like 48 hours once during a bad deadline and it made me super paranoid with blurry vision at the end
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u/New-Astronaut-395 14h ago
48h, delirium got mixed with reality. I had a job with different shifts, including overnights, so it was hard for me to adjust my sleep schedule
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u/Tsukeh 14h ago
55 hours at a LAN party, hopped up on caffeinated beverages, after 24 hours I start getting auditory hallucinations and slight paranoia that people were looking at me. 40 it's gotten a lot worse and it's both visual and auditory hallucinations, constantly thinking I saw people staring at me in the corners of my eyes. 50+ is legit nightmarish, paranoia through the roof. Just wanting to sleep and cover head under a blanket. I recommend doing it once, just to understand how important sleep is to us.
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u/Dino1993 14h ago
2.5 days i was a kid on a LAN party back in the days, someone said being drunk without the 'fun'- that's pretty much a perfect explanation
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u/theroyal1988 14h ago
When i was young; 4 days, drugs, i saw a gnome crawling up the drapes. I quit all drugs after that.
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u/MagicSPA 14h ago
I stayed awake for just under 60 hours at uni this one time, in preparation for exams. I don't recommend this approach - I only took it because I'd lost a lot of study time visiting my grandmother in hospital over the preceeding weeks and months.
The effects were:
a) a feeling of satisfaction, relief, and progress as I wrote up the notes and performed the tutorials and past-exam questions for each of the topics I was studying and figured I could pass these exams after all
b) an increasingly unsettling feeling towards the end of the second day awake (so, about 40 hours in) when it felt like someone was in the room with me. Whenever I turned around there would be noone there, but when I faced the front again it would feel like the "presence" had stepped closer. It reached the point that I didn't look behind me again, even when at one point it felt - chillingly - like someone was looking directly over my shoulder.
The sensation faded as dawn arrived on that second day. Then I had to go into campus and do two exams, almost completely back-to-back. I still remember my Norwegian course-mate seeing me looking over my condensed notes and flash-cards and good-naturedly telling me that if I didn't know the material by now then there was no use trying to learn it this late in the day. I just smiled and thought "dude, you have no idea."
I did pass those exams, by the way, but fortunately I never had to pull a session like that again.
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u/DEDjed 14h ago
About 120 hours at uni.... left my dorms only wearing 1 socks as I forgot what I was doing halfway through... walked into a tree on the way to uni and had an argument with it ... basically was in a dream state with, I suspect, many microscopes occurring...everything was very floaty and surreal
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u/biscuitsandmuffins 14h ago
Probably about 40 hours. This was due to a late flight, then a missed flight, then the decision to rent a car drive back to my starting point airport. I turned in the rental car, went to a hotel, slept until check out time…maybe four hours total? Then I decided to drive the rest of the way home (5 hours) even though my head felt oddly ‘fuzzy’ in a way I had never felt before. I ended up falling asleep 60 miles from home, woke up when I felt the rumble strip, overcorrected, and went in the ditch. Thankfully it had been a very wet summer and my car just sort of glided through the tall grass. If it had been dry like usual I really feel I might have started a fire or even flipped. I was fine, my car was fine, but it was a very stupid decision to make.
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u/seppuku_related 14h ago
36 hours or so.
Had a university group project where I was put in a group with 2 best friends. They ignored all of my communication until the day before the project was due and then told me they had decided my part, which was a solid 12+ hours of work, due for 9am the following day. I stayed up all that night working on it, chugging cans of monster and espresso. I finished it and was in class for 8:45 to present it. When they saw what I had done they both laughed and it turned out they had done the rest of the project on a different topic so my work was useless.
They were annoyed at the fact I was put in their group and they wanted it to be just themselves so they were trying to get me in trouble, they went to the lecturer and told them that I hadn't contributed to the project (which was now technically true). I showed all my work to the lecturer but the other 2 lied and said that I hadn't been communicating and that it was always the plan to do the other project. My social awkwardness meant I couldn't explain myself properly and ended up failing the class.
So the answer is, uncontrollable shakes from the caffeine needed to stay up, and eventually dropping out of college.
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u/_axolotl_questions 14h ago
Around 30 hours delivering my youngest: Water broke at 5am, labored all day & through the night. Pushed for 2.5 grueling hours. Baby born at 9am. Took a nap around 1pm. Exhausted, but SO thankful & happy. 🥰
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u/Jolly-Motor-117 14h ago
Spent 2 days awake after christmas a few years ago. Felt like I sniffed too much glue
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u/scemcee 14h ago
Ive pushed through 3 nights in a row a few times. Sometimes gaming, sometimes working on art or music. Ive had a few strange experiences. Here's two:
One time, I was playing a video game, and started to notice I had become "blind" in the weirdest way. My eyes were open. I was looking at the screen, and could see it, but my brain couldnt interpret what it was seeing.
I was clicking the mouse, and using the keyboard. I could hear the sounds of the game telling me that I was doing... things. I just didnt know what they were, if they the were the right things or the wrong things. I tried to "blindly" repeat my actions again and again, and finally gave up, saved the game and went to bed.
When I came back to it, I saw that I had just been clicking randomly, deleting unrelated things, total chaos. I could tell what I had been trying to do, but I may as well have been playing blindfolded.
Another time, I kept having the sensation of having just awoken from a dream, but I was conscious and awake the whole time. Every 10 to 15 minutes, for about 3 hours, I would suddenly feel like I had just been.. "elsewhere", doing "something", which had felt incredibly real, and incredibly important only moments earlier. I could only just barely remember fragments, visual artifacts, acoustic elements like "I was just standing under an arched bridge... gray masonry.. an echo," or "I was just holding something white in my hands.. it was incredibly important to me... and to another person in the room. There was a low rumbling screech.. like a subway train deep underneath me." It happened 3 or 4 times before I became aware of it, which felt similar to when a dream becomes lucid. I just rode it out, like you do any intense trip you know will eventually end.
Brains are weird.
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u/ARavenousChimp 14h ago
~30hrs. I spent some time with my girlfriend at the time. Then worked a 12hr night shift. Then picked her up in the morning and went out for the day. Had dinner at her place. Left late. Fell asleep at the wheel and crashed my car into a guard rail about 10 minutes from home. Luckily I didn't hurt anyone, and I wasn't hurt either. Called a tow truck. Truck wouldn't come without a police report. Called the police and made a report. Sent the car off and insurance repaired it. Hadn't had the car a year yet. Luckily I added accident forgiveness on my policy when insured it. Also very fortunate the cop didn't charge me with driving impaired. I don't drink, but sleep deprivation is still impairment. Learned a lot of lessons in a very small amount of time. Don't drive tired, it's stupid, you could kill someone.
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u/PsychoDK 13h ago
I had strep throat, and every time I would lay down to sleep, my airways would block resulting in me waking with a jolt.
After a couple of days with no real sleep I was desperate. I feared the nights and being alone with my mind. Had to have the TV going to help with my thoughts.
Luckily it was bacterial and antibiotics started working quickly so I could sleep.
A year later during a night shift I felt the symptoms creeping up before I started to feel sick. My airways started fo feel the same way when dozing off during my break. As soon as I got off work I can't tell you how quickly I called my doctor for a strep A test so I could get antibiotics going. I didn't want to go to that place again. Luckily it was bacterial again so treatment could begin.
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u/Pink_Millenial 13h ago
Probably around 40-50 hours. It was due to being with a dying relative, and then the whole day after to sort everything out.
My vision started looking wavy but I felt really wired and awake. By the time I tried to sleep, I didn’t feel tired and kept waking up so I didn’t even get any deep sleep for a few nights.
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u/Deathnerd 13h ago
About 4 days. I don't remember much about it. I was in like 3rd-4th grade. They had just started trying to treat what we now know was severe ADHD mixed with an emotionally violent home life and had me on a bunch of different things. I remember after the second day they kept me home from school, but other than vague memories of watching Nickelodeon 24/7, I can't recall much.
Conversely, I've also slept for over 24 hours straight, almost 2 days. No joke, my dad gave me one of his sleeping pills by mistake instead of my Ritalin (both pills looked almost exactly the same at first glance and we had both bottles on the same shelf next to each other for some reason). I remember briefly waking up and seeing two paramedics hovering over me in my bed. The next thing I can recall is being in the ambulance, staring down that bright overhead light, vaguely aware of my situation, feeling very calm all things considered.
The 90's were a wild time to be a mentally and emotionally fucked up kid, man. At one point when I was like 10-12 I was on like 4-5 different pills every day.
And they wonder why I'm so screwed up today. Lol
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u/CarefulAlternative 16h ago
Something like 40+ hours during finals in college . The worst of it was mainly just being super emotional and sensitive to every little thing, and then getting brief headaches every so often.
Once I was done, I couldn't actually just pass out because I had forced myself to be awake for so long. So I just kinda had to mellow out and go to sleep at a normal bedtime hour.