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[Indigonocturna]

So, I joined this forum because one, I discovered it's existence tonight and love the comic, and two, because I am on that exact 40 + hours of being awake that Hannelore is in the most recent update, and I found that really amusing, because my fiance (also a QC fan) compares me to Hannelore a -lot-.

So, the question is, how long have you ever stayed up? Are there any other severe insomniacs that can relate to Hannelore?

For me, it was a week and half a day at the most.

[Dliessmgg]

Some years ago, I stayed up for about 36 hours. Without caffeine, but with a new game. I started playing in the evening and didn't stop for 24 hours. Everything else was less than a day.

[snubnose]

I once did a programming race. I think it was 32 hours straight, maybe more. Anyway, I was in a really funny mood in the end.

[bhtooefr]

I think about 32 is the most I've done. Without caffeine, too, though.

[plethora]

I did 32 last Thursday/Friday. I'm pretty sure that's my record.
No caffeine, but I did nearly doze off on various buses and at the dinner table.

[Carl-E]

I passed the 40 hour mark a couple of times in college, but usually with the help of recreational pharmaceuticals... and I can't be sure I didn't pass out for a few minutes here and there!  I frequently skipped nights in high school, but that'sonly 36 or so hours. 

The most recent marathon (and I'm inmy 40's now, it's a lot harder) was going through the Yu+Me dream archive.  Just one skipped night, so about 36 hours, and it really took it's toll.  I'm gettin' too old for that sort of thing! 

[workingrobbie]

Around the 40-48 hour mark was my limit (with the aid of caffine). Then I crashed hard and slept for 16 hours.

[MrMonk]

About 60 hours on a well discharge study.  The "sweet spot" is an illusion.

[alienatedduck]

One of my guesses would be about 36 hours. I think I had gone out the night before, got in late (or early...) and then remembered I was going to the cinema. Hurrah!

[Near Lurker]

Sixty-some, a couple times, when the "sweet spot" keeps me up too much to go back to bed.

[snubnose]

The "sweet spot" is an illusion.

We would never have guessed that one ! The comic states the complete opposite.

[charybdis]

I don't remember the actual hour count, but it was approximately 4 1/2 days, no caffiene except for a cup of tea on day two. Finals week and a jerk of a boss that scheduled me 40hrs. Results? Shot my immune system so badly I caught walking pnuemonia two days later and basically did nothing but sleep for two weeks

[harniq]

My record was a 48hours lanparty. Started at 6pm, got up that day at 7am (school). Me and a friend betted to sit it out without sleeping. It should have ended sunday 6pm but got extended until 8pm. At 8.30 I was sleeping like Cinderella.

Liberal use of golden power does help as does "getting over your sleep". When you're awake for 20+ hours there's some time where sleeping is nigh impossible. Then come the microsleeps at around 30-40 hours. At first a split second. At 50 hours just closing your eyes and opening them again can take up to ten seconds and alot of effort to not just fall asleep on the spot.

I usually skip a night every couple of weeks. It's just a waste of time anyways and once every month or so won't hurt. When you've been DJ'ing until 10am including disassembling there no real point to sleeping anymore, just messes up biorythym. I know that one night's rest of eight hours is enough to fix a night without sleep.

And then there's the nights where a girl just won't let you sleep. Those are the most exhausting.

I know there's probably health concerns, but not sleeping and getting work done is preferable over alcohol, smoking or drugs all of which I rarely if at all do. So I got some wiggle room.

[maddness]

Recently? I'd say 44 hours. Last night I only slept 3 hours and, if my kids are to be believed, I've been microsleeping this morning.

When I was a kid I had chronic insomnia and would stay awake for days on end. My mother tells me that I stayed awake for over a week when I was 6 and that there were hallucinations and delirium. I don't remember it. I've had recurring episodes of depression all my life and I don't know whether the insomnia caused the depression or the depression caused the insomnia. All's I know is that I haven't had a major episode of depression or insomnia in years and for that I am truly grateful.

[t3hsteph]

I hit up 36 hours, it was a combination of working backshifts and my inability to sleep during daylight!

[Last Dinosaur]

My sleeping patterns have been pretty dang bizarre ever since I started working nights three months ago. Last week I was up for almost forty-eight hours; I woke up at six in the evening on Monday and finally crashed at around five-thirty on Wednesday for a good fourteen or so hours. According to my roomies, I began laughing uncontrollably shortly before I finally hit the sack! I... honestly don't have much of a recollection, truth be told.

[Quixoticelixer]

Something like 41 or 42 hours. Woke up at 8 in the morning in NYC the day before I was to leave, and couldn't sleep that night because of being scared I'd miss my noon flight the next day haha. Didn't nap on the planes, and went to bed at one or two in the morning the next day (or the day after, I suppose)

I'm not an insomniac or anything close.. I'm one of those people that can fall asleep anywhere at any time in 5 minutes and basically command myself to sleep. I'm also a super heavy sleeper, and never wake up in the middle of the night. I guess traveling just doesn't agree with me  

[pwhodges]

I once did a programming race. I think it was 32 hours straight, maybe more. Anyway, I was in a really funny mood in the end.

I was once told at 5pm that some visitors were coming the next morning (with a view to buying the company), and that I was to attach this dual-tractor three-head dot-matrix printer made by the visitors to my computer, and have a driver for my operating system (this was in the 1970s, and I'd written it myself in proper assembly language) and a demo program working for them to see when they arrived at 9am.  I did, and they ignored it.  I simply didn't go home that night, so I suppose I went 40 hours in all.

[H0b0K!n9]

I used to suffer from horrible insomnia, so I'd stay up for 60+ hours. But in the last year, it's only 48.

[NeverQuiteGoth]

I get insomina, but that's nothing compared to the time I drove from the east coast to the west coast of the US without stopping to sleep.

[LeeC]

52 hours.... not fun

[Zingoleb]

73 hours. At the time I was literally staying up two days straight and sleeping an entire day at a time (my schedule was fucked). I was pretty incoherent by the third day, though. I was 15 at the time.

[nichidani]

I've really only made it about 30 or so hours. I'm a sleep fiend though. I seriously can sleep for 16 hours without it giving me insomnia the next night. If I had the time, I would do that all the time. College says no, though.

[JD]

I was returning from a flight from in australia, when i got home i didn't feel like sleeping. Probably somewhere above 30.

[Leon7386]

I was volunteering for a community hay ride and staying with some friends to do so. One of my friends has insomnia and I decided to stay up with him, after 30 hours we hit our second wind and were having a lot of fun but once we hit forty it wasn't as good.

Useful tip: Performing for a wagon full of people doesn't work well when low on sleep.

[Jeff7]

Probably not more than about 30 hours. Once I hit ~20hrs awake, I start getting a bit weird. Stupid little things become quite funny. Then the paranoia and mild hallucinations set in....you know, hearing things, seeing things move out of the corner of my eye, the constant feeling that there's something right behind me, and so on.

[Aurjay]

We have to pull duty about once every other week and it is 24 hours straight guarding a desk in a warehouse. No electronics to keep you awake just sheer willpower. After guard duty your suppose to get the next day off but ive been called into briefings over BS and have to stay up another 12hrs or so. So i think my max is prolly 36hrs of mind numbing boredom and no sleep.

[Leeksoup]

Most I've ever done was 38 hours- woke up at 5 am, stayed up until 7 the following day. I was out with some friends...

What's funny is I was actually driving most of the night on no sleep. My three friends in the car were all on 5-hour energies (interesting how it made them act- they became Gassy, Nervous and Funny), whereas I know drinking that crap makes me sleep, oddly enough. So no caffeine.

Although we did hit a donut shop at 4am. Best donuts ever.

[LizziL]

Probably about thirty eight hours or so? It was during finals. It SUCKED. I'm sure I'll do it again this year

[All_¥our_Bass]

55 hours.
I did it a few years ago in the summer, just to see what it was like. I drank a lot of coffee.
It was kinda like being high n weed, but being to exhausted to really enjoy it.

[jonarus_drakus]

At least 64 hours. Got up 8am Saturday, didn't go to sleep untill about 2/3am tuesday morning, at which point i stayed asleep untill about 10am Wednesday when i got up showered had breakfast and the promptly went back to sleep for the rest of the day... I was stuck in 'nocturnal mode' for about a month after that...

[Random832]

I hit an even 48 once reading books when I was in middle school

[jonarus_drakus]

I feel compeled to point out how signifigant my 64+ stint is. You see, I read a story about a guy in Korea who DIED after 62 hours awake.

The point being that anyone who can stay awake for longer and NOT DIE is hardcore!...


...yes, like me...

[evilbobthebob]

The shivering bunny that is your avatar undermines that statement in a very amusing way 

[Blyss]

73 hours. At the time I was literally staying up two days straight and sleeping an entire day at a time (my schedule was fucked). I was pretty incoherent by the third day, though. I was 15 at the time.

I know what you mean about being incoherent - I went to just past 70 hours, and started seeing neon trails off of everything that moved.  It was very strange.

[Surgoshan]

The shivering bunny that is your avatar undermines that statement in a very amusing way  

That bunny isn't shivering.  It's plotting stabs.

This is from the following day of the comic that avatar is from.

[evilbobthebob]

  Killer bunny

[Dliessmgg]

Never trust bunnies. They're always on the dark side. And cookies. Kill da wabbit!

[FourNineFoxtrot]

Yeah man, you don't fuck with Bun-bun.  The mini-lop knows his way around a shiv.



I don't know what my personal up-time record is.  Back when I was working security on the night shift, 30-36 hours was not uncommon.  Probably about 38-40 is my record, and my limit.  I don't like driving when I'm up past 24 hours, sometimes I nod off at stop lights, or even just microsleep for a half second and snap to just before I'm about to jump the curb.  Used to do that a lot working nights, driving home in the morning, 50 mile commute.  Had an AWD Subaru that probably saved my life about once a week.  Anything past thirty hours and I get weird, mercurial, and really, really wordy.  Also, things get fuzzy, visually, like the outlines of things blur a little bit.

Right now I'm on my 24th hour, going for 30 or 32 to settle back into a day shift type rhythm. 

Sometimes, though, you hit that sweet spot, or second wind, or whatever you want to call it.  It's not so much the "how long" for me, as the "what time"; my best, most alert, most active and capable time of day is between 2000 and 0200.  So even if I'm up on a long stretch, sometimes I hit that window and get a second wind lasting anywhere from a couple to maybe six hours or so, depending on how much caffeine/vitamins/nicotine I've had.

Mainly, though, I've just had my fill of 30+ hour consciousness stretches.  After I left my night job, my sleep pattern was wildly irregular for years.  Only recently, mainly thanks to melatonin supplements, have I been able to correct that (imperfectly, as today proves).  I'm sure it hasn't been good for my health.  It probably hasn't been real good for my sanity either.  Couple times, felt like I was close to cracking up.  You spend enough nights, awake, alone, staring at the ceiling, knowing the utter solitude of inhabiting that empty time, feeling like you're the only person in the world dumb enough or fucked enough to be seeing sunrise from the wrong side day after day after day... it gets to you.  It got to me.

[Zingoleb]

73 hours. At the time I was literally staying up two days straight and sleeping an entire day at a time (my schedule was fucked). I was pretty incoherent by the third day, though. I was 15 at the time.

I know what you mean about being incoherent - I went to just past 70 hours, and started seeing neon trails off of everything that moved.  It was very strange.

Man, people are describing their sleep deprivation times in terms like these and that shit never happened to me. I was just really hyper.

[Gammagooey]

The longest I've stayed awake was last year (freshman in college then) when I was up for around 36-38 hours straight, if i remember correctly I had insomnia until about the 20th hour awake, then had to finish an English paper with no sleep, and then went to a friend's party and fell asleep on his bed about 3 hours in.

[Stupid Human]

I don't normally sleep that much (typical night is about 5 hours (usually 7am-12).  When I worked nights and had morning classes I would routinely go for 2-3 days at a time without sleep (although I would nap midday sometimes).  I'm not sure if it's just me or if you can get used to it but 50 hours of no sleep doesn't affect me too much.  Although past your limit you can start having some strange things happen like, as someone before, mini-sleeps.  I've had dream/hallucinations of my room mates coming and talking to me and then when I talk to them later they say that never happened.  : /

[Alex C]

I went about 4 days once, but amphetamines took the edge off of at one point.

[Kilonum]

I did ~66 once.

I was a teenage runaway and my options were either A) sleep in the Logan Airport terminal C bathrooms or B) not sleep

I went with B first


A happened at the 66 hour mark.


I was soon found by the fine officers of the Massachusetts State Police.

[Exar_Kun]

I've only stayed up about 30 hours without the aid of caffine. I feel compelled to inform everyone that the record for staying awake without the use of drugs is somewhere around 11 days (264 hours). The guy who did it was being studied by doctors the whole time. On the fourth day, he started having hallucenations. On the last day, the guy had to give a speech on his ordeal and he did it with no slurring of his words or slowing of his speech.  Apparently, this dude hit his sweet spot around the 8th day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder)

makes for an interesting read.

[SigPig]

I think the most I've stayed awake without any stimulants was 72 hours.  Mind you at the 60 hour mark I thought our position was being infiltrated and I opened fire.  Lets just say my Sergent wasn't too impressed.

[maddness]

I had med induced mania once and that shit was not funny. I could not turn off. I could not shut up and I talked so fast people had trouble understanding me. I gave myself shin splint just from walking fast forever. For two days I could not sleep and I could not be still.

[JD]

I did ~66 once.

I was a teenage runaway and my options were either A) sleep in the Logan Airport terminal C bathrooms or B) not sleep

I went with B first


A happened at the 66 hour mark.


I was soon found by the fine officers of the Massachusetts State Police.

I bet your parents loved you.

[jonarus_drakus]

I had med induced mania once and that shit was not funny. I could not turn off. I could not shut up and I talked so fast people had trouble understanding me. I gave myself shin splint just from walking fast forever. For two days I could not sleep and I could not be still.

Dude, that sounds kinda like me normaly...

[thret]

The longest I've been awake is 70-80 hours I can't remember exactly what time it started. I was playing live poker and there was this really crazy guy playing (he was clearly on meth or coke or something). Like 5 of us regs stayed with him for 3 days because he was rebuying every 20 hands or so... it was pretty fun. Average stack was over 10 buyins most of the time and even though we were all 1000BB+ deep this guy would still open shove bluffs and stuff. Then he'd rebuy until he got a big stack again and give it all to someone else.

I passed out in the park on the way home, which was not so great.