Ok, so this is probably the stupidest question ever, but I’m wondering, how long has everyone here been able to go without sleeping?
I very rarely have a sleepless night, and when I do, I usually end up falling asleep by early morning. This week, however, I have really struggled with sleep. Being autistic and also a college student, this is common for me, but this week my sleeping has been especially bad.
It started when I first came home for winter break last month. I have been sleeping in until about 11 am, and not going to sleep until 2-3 am the next day. My schedule is never like this when I’m in school. I had planned to get back on schedule this week so I am ready to go back to school, however, my sister was admitted to a mental hospital on Monday and since coming home yesterday, has been quite depressed again. This keeps me up at night due to previous experiences with her when we were younger, along with me going back to school and starting new classes next week. On top of it, I was stupid enough to take my steroid inhaler before going to bed, which of course means I’m going to be wide awake for a while.
I cannot sleep, I worry that whenever I do fall asleep, that I won’t be awake again until 11-12 the next day, as this is what has been happening the last several nights. I go back to college tomorrow and need to get back into my schedule, for I have an early morning class on Monday, and need to be ready. Melatonin doesn’t work for me, it either keeps me up all night or only helps me to sleep for a few hours. My sleep is usually good when I’m in school but at home it is not always the best. Plus my alarm rarely goes off for some reason, despite setting it the same way every night, although I always end up snoozing it anyway.
For whatever reason, I’m worried about staying up all night and going the next day without sleeping. It sounds awful but it seems like the only way to get me back on track (napping and sleeping in often leads me to be awake for hours past my bedtime). My dad wants to get me back to school as early as possible, for he is super anxious about time lol. I plan to get everything done early and spend the rest of the day relaxing.
Has anyone here gone over 24 hours without sleeping, and is it as bad as everyone makes it seem? The longest I’ve gone without sleeping is 18-20 hours.
I was in the army for a couple years, but I dont actually have any particularly impressive numbers from then. They had me doing sleepless night bullshit from day one, and I hate losing sleep with a passion, so I made sure to grab back every hour I could manage.
The longest I ever stayed up was from 6am to 6pm, the next day, so about 36 hours or a single overnight stay. I hated it everytime it had to happen for work. The morning after staying up all night felt like I was drunk, and my ability to handle people and doing things was completely shot. The only time I ever got in trouble with my boss was when I was tired (up since 2am, actual event happened around 8pm that same day). I’m also quite sure I would’ve got into at least one fight with my commanding officer while sleep deprived if I actually had any inclination towards that sort of thing.
Sleep deprivation completely kills my long term planning, my sensory management skills, my reflexes, and also deadens my ability to care, about anything.
Despite all of this, I also hate taking naps. It fucks with my sense of time, and I’m always too worried about ‘missing out’ while trying to ever get any good rest from it. So have to fight for a good sleep schedule to stay sane instead.
Did an experiment once, lasted almost two days, concluded that there’s no point.
I went without sleeping for about 9 days once.
Before anyone jumps in to correct me, I was having an extreme insomnia attack, and I wasn’t completely sleepless, I would have micronaps where I would be in the middle of a conversation and pause for 30 seconds to a minute and a half while I just zonked the fuck out and then woke immediately right back up again.
I was losing my fucking shit because I really wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t get that little tingle in my head to go off and say, hey, you’re gonna go to sleep now.
Finally, the spell broke, and I knew that as soon as I got to a pillow, I was going to go to sleep.
However, to my dismay, we had to stop by the grocery store before I could get home and go to bed.
I have vague, sporadic memories of only stepping on the black tiles in the grocery store, walking behind the other patrons, lifting my foot up, and putting it down exactly where theirs had just been, and fondling chicken breasts in an inappropriate manner.
Most of this happened while I was also walking around with a bottle of “Berry Bear” brand syrup telling the other customers to not worry because “Berry Bear would protect us”.
As we were checking out, I have a strong memory of seeing the very first cross-dresser in public that I had ever encountered, which appeared to be a very old person, I would say probably in their late 60s, wearing a black dress and thigh-high boots and a wig.
In the other lane was a woman with incredibly long armpit hair that had been braided into dreadlocks, which had thick white clumps of deodorant stuck to it, and the dreadlocks were so long that they were sticking two to three inches out from her armpits.
My friends managed to corral me and took me home and I fell asleep and I slept for just shy of three full days.
48hrs awake, doing a CS 3D graphics assignment.
Got a bit spacey and emotionally overloaded, after it was submitted, when I got back home.
The longest I’ve been awake has been 3 days/72 hours. Generally I struggle staying awake except for some cases where I get especially hyperfixated, and in those cases tiredness doesn’t usually hit me hard until after. Staying up for 2-3 days will usually knock me out for a long time after tho
Thank you, I am similar sometimes lol
96 hours for my arts thesis. Partly due to procrastination, but also my department kept ignoring my request for a particular material, so it wasn’t entirely my fault. I legitimately liked the project and it ended up being one of the better final products of my year. For other reasons I was not allowed to pursue an honors thesis, which would have let me keep refining the piece for another semester.
Wow. I stayed up because of homelessness once for 36 hours. I was hallucinating. I couldn’t imagine 96. Did you feel any side effects?
Some mild hallucinations at the end. Mostly like tunnel vision though, not so much actual fully imagined visuals. It helped I genuinely liked the project and felt motivated to do a good job with it. I’m not a smoker, but I was kind of just operating cigarette to cigarette for those 4 days. Well that, weed and caffeine. There was a couple of us all working on our projects at the same time, so we all helped keep each other stay awake and getting stuff done.
Went to a job interview after my night shift with no sleep the day before, so awake from about 4pm to the interview two days later at 11am. So at 43 hours awake I had a technical interview and almost got the job. You can seem to function at a fairly good level tired, but depending on various factors it can be really bad for your performance. It is similar to being tipsy with regards to driving, so definitely don’t drive tired. Stimulants like coffee don’t make you better at thinking, they just make you less aware of how tired you are so you can keep going. Your performance is still shot but you are less able to judge. Other stimulants like Ritalin can help more for people who work well with them, but that is people with ADHD or some people who are autistic.
That said, longest would be post open heart surgery. Lots of pain, multiple days of missed sleep, lots of pain killers which don’t really work well for me, but eventually I figured out I could sleep slumped forward over a desk rather than in a hospital bed. You can go without sleep for a while without dying but you become less functional and it is bad for long term health.
Back in my teenage years, we used to do all night LAN parties, and anytime we did one of those I would be awake for ~35 hours before crashing and sleeping for 12-14 hours. I do not recommend this to anyone. It feels awful.
You are thinking about staying up all night and then doing a full day before going to bed at a reasonable time to get your schedule on track. This is the devil talking, do not do this, it does not work.
The best action is to just go to bed at a reasonable time tonight, even if you’re not tired. Lie down, close your eyes and relax. Even if you are awake for longer than normal, you will fall asleep eventually.
You will be tired tomorrow, but I guarantee you will feel way better than if you did not sleep at all. Then when it comes time to sleep again, repeat the process. After about 2 days or so, you’ll be on the correct schedule.
As far as general habits go, avoid caffeine during the afternoon or the evening, and try to avoid screentime an hour or so before bed.
This is good advice
The best action is to just go to bed at a reasonable time tonight, even if you’re not tired. Lie down, close your eyes and relax. Even if you are awake for longer than normal, you will fall asleep eventually.>
Quite a while ago I was listening to a pod about sleep (Ologies: Somnology. Highly recommend Ologies in general!) and they were saying that even if you don’t sleep at all simply lying down and resting is beneficial. It’s not as good as proper sleep but it’s a lot better than staying up.
Thank you, and I definitely don’t plan on doing this often lol, I always do my best to stick to a good sleep schedule
I’m ADHD (no autism afaik), very late diagnosis (47). The very longest I’ve stayed, pre-diagnosis, was about 42 hours. I wasn’t studying at the time so not terrible but not great either lol I fairly regularly go over 24 hours because I do on-call shifts once or twice a fortnight. It’s not a great experience and not the healthiest thing to do really.
Thank you! This makes me feel a lot better. I do try to stick with a regular sleep schedule.
I get very grumpy and useless when I don’t sleep. Tried a few times, things like a birthday party in my teens where we would play poker all night long, and a hackathon where we wanted to make the deadline. I try not to do it anymore, because nothing good comes out of my hands/mouth at some point.
Regarding the issue of being afraid you won’t be back in schedule before school starts: i totally recognize this. I try to make an effort to plan enough time to wind down on Sunday evening (if i have to get up early again). No social media, no news, no action packed movies or tv shows, some herbal tea around 8pm, only a few lights on in the house, meditation a bit earlier in the day to clear the mind, start brushing my teeth on time (around 9-ish) and actually go to bed at or a bit before normal weekday bed time.
I don’t always manage, but I do find i cannot sleep when I totally disregard these steps. I then just lay in bed being afraid i dont sleep wel enough and that makes it even harder to sleep.
Some thoughts that help me reduce stress:
“My body knows what to do and will make sure it sleeps when it really needs to. Worst case we can just try again tomorrow”
“It’s ok to wake up in the middle of the night, that’s just how sleep cycles work. Just go to the toilet for a bit and try to have another go. If it’s thoughts keeping me awake, write them down so they can be handled later on”
Sleeping is important, but your body can handle quite a lot, so try not to worry too much.
I don’t have an exact figure but it’s above 40 hours. Might be closer to 50 but I don’t really stick to a consistent schedule in any case so I can only confidently say I pretty frequently go day-night-day and well into another night without being able to sleep.
My natural sleep cycle is about 16-18 hrs awake, then in bed for 11-12, not all of that is sleep but still its a long time. I dont know why my days are 30+ hours. ( must’ve been born on the wrong planet lol) the longest I can go is about 36 hours awake
56 hours due to a move is my longest on record, but that wasn’t my most tired. Greentext form, just for shits and gigs
Idk how long i had stayed up, but in high school i had a day where it had been too long.
Had stayed up to write an essay.
Usual procrastination had occurred but Hyper Focus had set in.
Smash through essay, hit print as sun is rising
I walked to school in those days, and I must have dozed walking because it is just a patchwork of memory fragments by the time I arrived.
By the time I’m waiting for my first class, I’m pretty sure I’m microdosing naps between thoughts
Time keeps jumping around, definitely not fully present.
First period rolls around, English.
Go to hand in essay on Romeo and Juliet.
Glance at text
Has nothing to with the play
What
Read more
Essay is on track for first paragraph and start of the second. Then it just breaks down.
Citing sources that don’t exist.
Characters stop being ones from the play.
Not relating my “points” to the thesis anymore.
Not even talking about the play by the end.
Mention the mickey mouse clock being a driving plot device of the Shakespeare play in question
Mention my own personal fear of the clock and its ominous sound.
Essay ends with final paragraph: “Okay im going to bed now. Bye.”
Stomach turns to ice, drops 500ft.
Sheepishly hand in essay, frantically explain to my teacher what happened.
She laughs, tells me to re-do it by Friday.It may not have been the longest I went without sleep, but it was my most sleep-deprived experience. Now it takes a couple days before sleep deprivation symptoms really set in, so I usually have time to keep it from happening. Miserable when it does, though.
One summer in my teens, it was far too hot to sleep. We didnt have air conditioning so it was fans all the time. Couldn’t sleep, then had to go to school the next days.
Went almost a week. Was seeing hallucinations like album covers moving their lips and talking to me. Crazy.
Then there was when Skyrim was first launched. Stayed up a few days.
