Poll: How long have you stayed awake for?

[Sam G]

The instruction booklet on my old copy of FF7 said "you need" a memory card to finish the game. I took this as a challenge and stayed awake for about 33-35 hours to complete the game in one run. I tell ya, by the 24 hour mark coffee and red bull was having no effect and I had to keep standing up and walking around my room to stay awake. Was alot harder than I thought it'd be.
immediately after finishing the game I conked out

Umm... what did you do when you got to disk 2?

 

[antidonkey]

40 hours is the most I've done recently. 36 of those hours were spent at work. It was not a good time. Massive database issues that crippled this place until I got it fixed. The only good point is that I was doing this all with a friend so we were able to help keep each other awake between energy drinks.

 

[Gabanuka]

'bout 30 hours. It was at a mates sleep over, since he had two TVs and two Xboxs all 8 of us just played halo online together.

 

[ThreeWords]

52 hours with some friends, to see how long we could manage without stimulants =D

 

[zHellas]

3 weeks is my record

I call bullshit.

OT: I guess like 2 days? Not sure.

 

[GrinningManiac]

This is not an insult, just some solid no nonsense advice.

Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me. Where's your proof that resting exclusively and not sleeping at all can still allow a human to function normally? After about two weeks they'd probably snap. Have you done rigorous testing with large control groups? Have you tested for extended periods of time?
The consensus in the scientific community is that the body needs sleep to function. You can go a few days without, but you'll always need it in the long run.

Yeah, you are right, not resting and just being active for 24 hours is better than resting. Trying to rest for the 6 hours a day you don't sleep has no actual benefit, nor does it promote any chance what so ever for actual sleep. You have studied this well, and I have not.

Mr. Thal, can you prove that you have managed to function with this 6-hours-of-rest-not-nessecarily-sleep method? Or are you, as I somewhat suspect, taking figures and facts out of your own backside or some strange website with no real basis in fact?

In any case, you cannot, and will not, say that insomniacs are 'doing it wrong'. It is a condition they suffer from, and they cannot do anything about it. You think they sit up all night going "Gah, I cannot sleep!"? Of course not, they lie down in the bed and try to sleep, thereby indicating that they are resting IN THE BED

However, it amounts to nothing as they garner no sleep from the attempt, and they cannot function properly.

If we could all survive without sleep and just rest alone, why the F*CK do you think we sleep in the first place? Sleeping, for our ancient ancestors, would have been dangerous, because some mean ol' sabertooth might come along and attack 'em when he's down. If we could get by without dropping our defences and conciousness, I'm pretty sure the nessecity of SLEEP would have never risen.

If you suffer from this condition, go see a doctor. They will ask you all sorts of personal questions to determine if you are an insomniac. Then they will advise you to attempt to sleep by dedicating several hours to laying still and clearing your head..... if you don't understand how the attempt at rest can benefit those who "can't sleep" then I don't know what to tell you.

When insomniacs fail, is when they (like most of the people who have posted on this thread) try to stay awake. Meditation has proven (in some individuals) that "sleep" as we know it, is not required.

I have said a lot more than just 'people who stay awake are wrong' in my posts.

I see what you mean, and I sympathies with you, but when you take this condition seriously, you will be advised to attempt at rest. After so long, you will sleep, if not, you will be put on medication, or seek therapy for your mind. This isn't like having a serious illness like HIV or Cancer, if I have failed to make myself clear, then I apologize.

EDIT: To say people who suffer from insomnia can do nothing about it, is rather silly. There are people called doctors who have dedicated many hours/weeks/years/lifetimes to the study of curing such simple illnesses.

2nd EDIT: Please don't talk about my backside unless you are complementing me after buying me dinner.

Ah, I see

We (by which I mean the people who have taken turns arguing with you) intepreted your statements as "God! It's so Eaaaaasy to get over insomnia! Just lie down and rest, it's not hard, you morons!" and later "It's not as if you need sleep anyway! Resting alone is fine for any period of time!"

But now I see that you mean you can overcome insomnia by starting with simply resting before the body learns to take over

Yes

I agree with that statement

This was an interesting debate brought on by a lack of clear communication on all sides. Hopefully this regretable occurance will not repeat itself

Good day!

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

Roughly 40 hours is my max with absolutely no sleep.

You are full of something that is not healthy if you refused to sleep for 5 days.

My point is that even if you don't sleep, you can rest for 5 hours and be able to continue on to working a full day.

I didn't refuse to sleep at all, I couldn't sleep, even if I wanted to. That's what insomnia is. I haven't heard of anyone outright refusing to sleep for 5 days, unless it was for an experiment or something. I would have loved to sleep, but I couldn't.

It is easy to say you didn't sleep for x amount of days....

My point is that if you rest for 5-6 hours, you can get the equivalent of sleep.

If you lay in a bed and do nothing, and control your thoughts enough to not twitch, you can get enough of the rest you need to live a productive life. It is possible to not sleep and allow your body enough rest to work the next day.

Actually, no. Your body might rest well enough if you just lay still for a while, but your mind needs sleep. Actual sleep, not just resting. If you go without sleep long enough it starts to have serious effects on your mental abilities, and your brain starts 'shutting down' for short periods (aka microsleeps). As far as I know, it's not humanly possible to go completely without sleep.

 

[Kie]

The max I've done is somewhere in the thirty mark, I wasn't really paying a massive amount of attention at that point. Couldn't do that now though, can barely reach 24 hours now without feeling like simple actions are just too much. Hell day to day is tiring enough so I don't need to sleep deprive myself anymore then I need to.

 

[Do4600]

About four days, but I had a metric ass-ton of work to do. I'm never going to take four lab classes in a semester ever again; or trust anybody in an assigned project group to do anything but come up with worthless ideas and waste all their time and our resources on something that will never work. Spiteful.

In any event it was almost the worst thing I've ever endured, after about 36 hours it hurt just to stay awake, that might have been the caffeine also. After about 50 hours everything just seems to be foggy and I started having peripheral hallucinations. After about 72 hours I started having slight audio hallucinations and I kept falling asleep until I my neck relaxed and my head fell forward waking me up, this was happening while I was actively working and eating Penguin Mints and drinking coffee.

Around 90 hours the semester was over, I got a steak because I was hugely hungry, I saw it fly off my plate like somebody had tied a rope to it and yanked it, it took me 15 seconds to find it, on my plate.

I went home to my bed and it took me four hours to fall asleep, I woke up on two separate occasions in those four hours in different rooms in my apartment on the floor, once in the bathroom and once in the kitchen; I was screaming and I couldn't breathe, damn succubi.

 

[himemiya1650]

I need my nap or else I won't be able to think and I'll be useless anyways. My record is 36 hours, just cause no one told me we were going to the airport at 3am, and i normally stay up till 2.

 

[Aura Guardian]

About 8 days. Never again

 

[SaberXIII]

Mine was around-about 120 hours. I had an Easter Holiday in which to pretty much redo my entire ICT GCSE, so I spent 5 days straight working on it on pretty much total autopilot -_-'
Handed it in, and my prick of an ICT teacher had changed his mind, and decided to only take 2 of the pages. Ah well.... X)

 

[rokkolpo]

4-5 days.

i can deal with it pretty good.
a friend of mine had a bad period of not sleeping 3 YEARS.
(his body repelled melatonine, and he does not suffer trauma. i never thought it was possible though)

 

[Hussmann54]

Just thought I would let you know, love your avatar. Skull squadron FTW!

Once there was a very chaotic week. My high school participated in a food drive between a bunch of schools in eastern michigan. This took place at the same time as our Snowcoming (similar to Homecoming, but in the winter with Basketball) as well as our theatre club having perhaps its busiest weekend ever.
So on a dreary thursday morning, I drag myself out of bed at 3 in the morning to go help set up and be at the pep rally for the food drive. The theatre group also did a sort of early morning bake sale which was a huge hit with everyone in the school. We were raising money for a recent graduate named Steven Arms. Steve was very active in theatre when he was there. Recently he was in an accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. So we got to school an hour and a half before everyone else to start setting up. Then we went to the pep rally and got on the news.

(BTW we later won that food drive and had to repeat this same process later in the year.)

We continued on our merry way with school as if nothing had happened, then afterward I went and chilled at a friends house where we watched him play WoW (which, in this guys case, was actually really funny) until around 5 when we went to McDonalds for that 50 nuggets for 10$ deal (We bought 250 nuggets...) and went back to school. On the way back, I was almost late because I dropped a friend off at his house and hit a submerged snow bank I didnt know was there. (these sneaky little things are when an elevated surface has just as much snow as a submerged surface and you can tell which is which) Had to push the car out. Made it back in time to perform two different one act plays. Wrapped it up at around 11, couldnt sleep all night. "Woke up" at 5 the next day to go to school. Repeated the same process,except before we performed two plays we had to help move all the stuff for an entirely different play we were performing for one acts and get it ready to be transported. That night, I went to a friends house and played star wars battlefront 2 all night. Still couldnt sleep. Got up at 2 to pick up a friend on the way to school on a saturday. With Chocolate milk and zebra cakes, I pulled into the school parking lot and started to help them pack everything up. A three hour drive later,we arrived at the school hosting the competition. We had 45 minutes to set up, perform a cut down version of Shakespear`s "Much Ado About Nothing." and tear down the set. (which we did, amazingly)

Still later on that night, we got back in time to make it to the Snowcoming dance. Me and my friends tend to get crazy at these things so you can imagine by now my feet where filing a domestic abuse case. Went to friends later that night and played left 4 dead all night. Then I managed to drag myself out of the house, go home, get ready for church and stay awak for the entire service.

An estimated 82 hours awake.

And a fun fact: Scientist believe that the longest a person can actually go without a wink of sleep is around two weeks and a day. (note: this is just an estimation by these guys) and after that, you will either die from exhaustion (which is still rare), or (and this is the more likely to occur) the body will experience one of those rare situations where it forces itself to shut down and make you sleep. Ironically a full 9 to ten hours of sleep will leave a person fully rested after that.

 

[Hussmann54]

4-5 days.

i can deal with it pretty good.
a friend of mine had a bad period of not sleeping 3 YEARS.
(his body repelled melatonine, and he does not suffer trauma. i never thought it was possible though)

Sir, anything you order is free of charge, sir ;-)

 

[reg42]

I think it was about 36-40 hours. I was at a LAN, and I didn't want to sleep on the floor, so I just stayed awake. I was really spaced though.

I'm calling bullshit on the people saying they stayed awake for more than 100 hours.

 

[Skooterz]

I've done 72 hours a couple of times. Once because of a case of mild insomnia, the others were because I was too busy with school and work to sleep. I quite literally passed out last time. Thankfully I was already at home, and sitting on the couch. My girlfriend just put a blanket over me instead of trying to wake me up to go to bed. I don't think she could have if she tried, to be honest.

 

[Iznat]

About 36 hours, and then I fell asleep for about half an hour, then I woke up again, for another 24 hours, and slept for an hour, and that kinda kept happening..

Yeah anxiety.