How Long Can a Human Stay Awake?

And may i add also to my example of 144 hours and a bit more of no sleep, this should be noted that this was not of my free will!

Had i not been in the final stages of a pharmaceutical free and illicit drug free withdrawal from a certain drug misuse this would I'm sure not of been possible to achieve,Hence it was not a goal as such to set, nor did i enjoy any part of the deprivation itself.

But i did get a very clear insight into the possibilities of what could be gained as far as say torture techniques or the study of psychosis could be gained, as i can recall all of the events that i perceived to be true in my own insane mind at the time.But you would need to see both sides of the coin,my perception and a second "witness" perception.

i would of been very susceptible to human manipulation as i would of been very easily convinced that any number of possibilities presented to me would of been perceived as real although they could be false and vice verse.

in other words in a state of sleep deprivation you will become susceptible to human interference,you will be easily controlled in my opinion with little need for "specialist techniques"

adderall at night. caffeine during the day.
adderall is for add (to help me with my work) but it also keeps you up and
focussed but kills your appetite. so make sure you eat. i made that my mistake
before and passed out during the day. lost too much weight and pretty much did not eat anything for two to three days. (plus!)
not like energy drinks. too much one time.
those penguins caffeinated peppermints are good during the day.
three are about as much as in a cola as it says on the tin.
But i am on my 4th day and not really tired but still experiencing the effects.
physical fatigue and hallucinations are bad. (hat to just turn the light on)/

let me know what you guys think!
gotta get back to studying : )

After one particular New Year's Eve, I decided I wanted to see how long I could stay up. With the help of an insatiable appetite for Counter-Strike, a computer game, I was able to stay up for three days. The end of the first 24 hours was tough. The next 24 hours, I was surprisingly energetic, and not sleepy, fatigued, or tired at all. The third day however, I started to see things, and become extremely sensitive to all sources of sound and light. An interesting experience, one I would like to do again.

www.neatorama.com...

this site says someone stayed up 266.5 hours which is slightly moer than 11 days

It has been suggested that if sleep deprivation can actually wake up certain parts of your mind that normally lay dormant. I do not know if this is true, but i think it might make sense. Possibly the reasoning for this is that when your brain begins to shut down, other parts take over. More or less back up systems if you will. Which could be an explanation of why people tend to hallucinate while sleep deprived.
My own personal record, by the way is 96 hrs.

I was not very coherent for much of that time and slept for 2 days after the fact, besides the bathroom breaks and snacks.

Since then I rarely get more than 5 hrs sleep a night and that was some 14 yrs ago, but I do often crash once a week on my day off for about 6-8 hrs.

reply to post by reticledc


96 hours, very impressive if it was achieved with no reason but to cheat sleep! you must of been verging on the psychotic? did you hallucinate?

i posted something a few months back u will find on page 3 i think and with the 70 cans of red bull and £30 pound worth or crap i stayed up for 97 hours.



im quite proud of that actually beat my old record by 25 hours.


i usually get about 11 hours sleep per day and deprevation dosent effect me in the slightest, heavy eyes urge to sleep but apart from that im fine.

ill go for a week next time :O

I have had Insomnia my entire life

Yet the longest I have stayed awake with consecutive hours is exactly 48. Holy hell that was not easy.

By far the best part about 'willing' sleep-deprivation is the REM rebound. Great way to intensify your dreams

[edit on 10-11-2008 by Lucid Lunacy]

When I was a youngin I watched something on sleep depravation (spelling). A guy tried to stay awake for a week and ended up passing out on the steps of the building he was going into. I think the longest I stayed awake was four days (I was put on Aderall when I was 16) and I remember seeing things in the shadows. My buddy joined the military and told me about 'hell week'. They were given a limited (I think it was two hours) of sleep every night. By the end, quite a few were suffering halucinations and acting very weird, Mt remedy for insomnia is this; go out and work in the yard, drink heavily until dear girlfriend comes home, make passionate love, then take a Benadryl. Works every time.

Originally posted by Raustin
My remedy for insomnia is this; go out and work in the yard, drink heavily until dear girlfriend comes home, make passionate love, then take a Benadryl. Works every time.

Sounds like a solid theory to me!

Oddly enough if I don't let myself fall asleep during the initial onset of drowsiness caused by Benadryl, it actually becomes a stimulant to me shortly thereafter. My brain are be broked.

last week, i was up for 53 hours and just flipping out. I must have went throu most of the site. then ot a weird email from an address tat was .gov from the fbi. I jumped up and flipped out and ran and woke my girl friend up , turns out just a random spam. i was very incoherent. After she ot up, I drove to town and thought i saw a truck flyin at ,me and almost wrecked my car. not a fun experience.

The longest I was without REM sleep was 3months but I was in a twighlight zone and my brain could still calculate logic but I dream on and off while doing my daily activaties I did sleep for less than 10 minutes per day but that was max I just could not sleep or get out of that dilution but for me to stay awake for a week is nothing, I personally think you can stay without REM for very long but I did not record my exact time

Originally posted by LetsPlayFeedTheGater
last week, i was up for 53 hours and just flipping out. I must have went throu most of the site. then ot a weird email from an address tat was .gov from the fbi. I jumped up and flipped out and ran and woke my girl friend up , turns out just a random spam. i was very incoherent. After she ot up, I drove to town and thought i saw a truck flyin at ,me and almost wrecked my car. not a fun experience.

I like to get my sleep but sometimes I need to drive to a different city (4.5 hour drive) at night on the motorway.

Sometimes I get really sleepy and I start to hullicinate, vividly. FOr example, I might see flock of chickens on the road, and truck flying across me (and yes, I duck!), monsters, reindeers, dragons etc. All on the road.

It's amazing how the mind starts to dream but integrate the dream into what the person is actually seeing so the perception of reality vs. dream becomes extremely dangerous.

Mind control possibilities here? I hope not.

And yes, I do stop and take a break when this happens.

I also notice that after 24 hours of no sleep I am literally drunk. In terms of what I say, think and do. It's great when you have company but on your own it's amusing and exhusting!

The brain\soul is sooo amazing!

I've only stayed awake for 60 hours just once. It wasn't voluntary, I'd fractured my skull and was in extraordinary pain and feared that if I fell asleep it would be the end of me. Near the end of the 60 hours, I was reportedly awake but I was experiencing myself in some kind of alternate version of reality. There was someone extra there with me, who I couldn't see quite clearly, who I thought might be there to take me to the afterlife. Afterwards, there wasn't a rem sleep rebound. It took me days to catch up.

I have recently read of a system, which when practiced rigorously, almost eliminates the need for sleep, permanently. The difficulty is that it requires an extremely stable schedule and minimal deviation from the prescribed plan in order to work.

Basically, you sleep for 20 - 30 minutes every four hours, exactly. For the first week or so you suffer symptoms of fatigue and sleep deprivation since you cannot achieve REM sleep in 20 minutes. However, after about a week, your brain learns to go almost immediately into REM sleep when you lay down for your nap, and you will start spending the entire 20 minutes in REM sleep. All symptoms of fatigue supposedly disappear once this transition occurs. There are no known side effects. The result is that you sleep roughly 2 hours a day, nearly 100% REM sleep, so you get your REM quota. And you gain 6 hours to get things done! The problem is, you have to stay up all night, taking sacrosanct and uninterrupted naps every four hours on the dot, and this doesn't usually work with families, roommates, jobs, etc.

When my kids leave home I might give this a try. On the other hand, when my kids leave home, I will not need the extra six hours in my day any more, will I? *Sigh*

Well I've known truck drivers who have gone over a week without sleep, artificially enhanced of course.

They end up highly irritable, even violent, and years down the track usually end up suffering strokes of heart attacks. I saw one nearly rip of anothers head because he dropped a pen and made "so much bloody noise". Truly scary stuff...

I've gone almost 2 days myself. Usually when daylight comes round after the first 24 hours, I get a "second wind" and can usually make it to the evening. But then it's lights out.

Originally posted by NuclearPaul
They end up highly irritable, even violent, and years down the track usually end up suffering strokes of heart attacks. I saw one nearly rip of anothers head because he dropped a pen and made "so much bloody noise". Truly scary stuff...

Makes sense. When you sleep external sounds are highly amplified (you hear them much louder than they really are). I've noticed during sleep deprivation that is effect occurs. Also, you start to lose touch with reliaty so things you might do in a dream you start to do in real life.

Quite scary how sleep deprivation can cause drastic changes in behaviour. The have been US Mil studies on this phenomenon. I wonder if someone can find the results.



[edit on 17-11-2008 by Jinni]

About 4 days , I was in to full blown hallucinations and thought I nolonger needed to sleep. The problem was the voices in my head thought I was going to die, heard a noise in bed room above me like something fell thru floor. This was bedroom my father died in and he told me he would come back if he could, he did he was standing in front of me with a very long beard, holding his heart and laughing at me. I was ok after that and went to sleep.
To become a South African elite solider they make you stay awake for 4 days on the move with big back pack.

I work as field service for oilfield equipment. Long periods of no sleep are normal because when a rig is down big money is swirling down the toilet.
For the last 11 months I've worked a 15 hour night shift every other week and with travel time I end up getting 4 hours or less every day of the on duty week. I average 3.5.
My health has declined and my IQ has as well. Quite literally- about 15 points over 11 months. I can function normally physically but cannot work normally mentally and am aware of it. By the 5th day of the week I am noticeably absent minded and get slightly dyslexic. The job is extremely stressful and bad things become humorous by day 6. I get slap happy over nearly everything that should be extremely serious. Extra carb intake helps but is short lived. By day 7 I am 28-32 hours behind on sleep and it is a long haul to get finished.
On my first off day I usually sleep 36 hours with a few bathroom breaks and maybe a meal 24 hours in. The rest of the week I'm just wrung out.
There are very few in my specialty who can do this job well and almost nobody who will stick with it for an extended period of time. I will complete a year come January and will return to the field where I will spend more 24-36 hour periods sleepless but will actually be better off.
Extended periods of deprivation are definitely bad for your health. I encourage everybody to get that 8 hours and enjoy it.
You will be much happier and healthier.

There is a ilness where the person becomes unable sleep and they die. This one old guy said he never sleeps, only problem was now one could say awake with him long enough to see if he was lying.