How Long Can a Human Stay Awake?

Well let me first say that that woman is a complete liar and so is nicknak156.

Record for the longest period without sleep is 264 hours (about 11 days)

Average is between 7-10 days depending on your physical/mental heath. After that your in a coma or your dead.

I'm currently at 72 hours heading for 96.

Day one you feel mildly tired.
Day two you feel very tired.
Day three you hate life. In the middle of the night you can have auditory hallucinations, and I experienced one visual hallucination.
Day four (which I'm currently starting) judgment and focus go away. Hallucinations expected to rise, as well as paranoia, anger, and the chance to go bat# insane. Mircosleeps start to occur. (this is really fun because you can blink and realize that about 20 seconds have past. I always enjoy putting your elbow on a desk and having the rest of your arm straight up. you can see how you body forces you to go to sleep by your arm unwillingly falling.)
Day five (which I'm not going to go to) insanity increase, as well as Hallucination. Memory fades and Mircosleeps occur.
Day six: bad.
Day seven: this is where you can start to go into a coma, or die. I would recommend staying away from this level of stupidity
Day eight though ten: start counting down to your death... that is if you can remember why you are counting... or why you see visions of giggling dancing pixies and elves.
Day twelve: congrats. you beat the record. your so undeniably stupid that you should die... if you haven't already.

Year eight: your spouting BS. Get a life. Anyone who believes these people are just stupid. If it was true it would be in Guinness.

isn't sleep deprivation fun?

im about to do a 7 day run during this summers break without drugs,caffine got any tips sugestens.I am going to get friends to help/video tape this

I stayed awake for three days straight, and not only did things seem louder and brighter, I was hallucinating.

I could have gone on longer physically, but I was worried that some neurological damage would occur, so I went to sleep.

I'm not sure if anybody has mentioned it already...but if you want to see a great example of sleep deprived humans, take a trip to your nearest architecture school near the end of term...it is common for architecture students to stay up for 24 hours in the studio on a "normal" occasion...when it comes to the end of a project, that has been know to extend to 3 to 5 days with little or no sleep!

As someone who can’t make it more than a couple days (not that I’ve ever really tried) I find the idea fascinating. Personally, I’d kill for the ability to stay up for long periods of time.

There is an unusual group of people out there who practice something called polyphasic sleep – where you take a short nap at even intervals throughout the day – and that is it. As far as I can tell, most of these people only get around 2 hours sleep per 24. The ones who can stick with it past the adjustment period seem to do it without the sleep deprivation symptoms also!

I wouldn't necessarily consider myself an insomnic, but I do have trouble sleeping early...I mean I guess I could sleep if I forced my mind to shut down but why bother (currently 5:41AM 36 hrs. awake and feeling a little euphoric, but not really tired). My Taiwanese girlfriend says I should get to sleep by 11 pm my time zone, because within certain time-frames of your schedule your organs need to rest and clean themselves for optimum health. So while staying awake is great I should def get some sleep lol.

feel free to disbelieve this i just thought i should post it as its relevent

i stayed awake for 2 months plus an unknown quantity of days (not many) once due to personal reasons..
using caffine pills at the final day i went to the kitchen my brain had slowed to an unbelieveably slow speed (from my perspective) and i managed the thought smell the coffee i attempted to pick up a large jar of coffee and open it failed walked to the livingroom (about 7 steps) and fell flat on my face (no feeling) by conincidence i landed by my coat pocket containing caffine pills which i took appoximately 30 in succession a moderately high does considering i had been takeing 60 a day (approx) and rolled on to my back my eyes opened wide and i became paralysed able to see the clock which is how i know i stayed awake at which point i had a panic attack (the mental effects dr`s warn you about if you dont sleep) the panic attack was based on the fear of something i can only descirbe as "nothing" or "zero" after the panic attack finished i slept for a long period i dont know how long..

i often slept small amounts of time like 4 hour days some times
3 days with out sleep so i was acustomed to this kind of thing
i dont suffer from insomnia to my knowledge

my username here is scatterp

reply to post by lilblam


i dont believe it

You'll die from sleep deprivation before you die from starvation .....

but each person has a diffrent tolerance level.....so try to stay awake as long as possible and video tape it so when you die we can chronicle it....

a major college (don't remember which) did a study on this very question. they did not do any drug therapy, all natural locked in a room just stay awake stuff. after 7 days there was some serious weirdness with the group, i believe at 14 or so days sombody in the group up and died.

I've read all of the stories you've people have been writing. Because i'm a 14 year old dude that just got bored. And it was about 2 or 3 am when i just got bored and searched google "How long can a Human Stay awake?" and well this popped up...point and click! But long story short i've been awake for about 18 almost 19 hours ever since yesterday at 2pm.
it's not so hard. I mean yeah there was one or to times where everything i did was like adrenaline pumping through my head but i was a little scared lol. i did not realize that me staying up for this long would actually make me feel better. I usually wake up around 2-3 in the afternoon. Because i stay up all night on myspace World of Warcraft...a big time nerd lol. But i'm just aiming for 40 hours which will be tommorrow sometime late.
well i mean the day after tommorrow hopefully i can find something to do.
Anyone got a suggestion that i can do? Please e-mail me:

[email protected]
www.Myspace.com/Austinman195

Peace out.
A-MAN(AUSTIN-MAN)

I think you'd fry after like 9 or 10 days. Information overload. But that's just stuff I've heard, haven't done research on it to back it up. But personally I have stayed up for about 84 hours before. I work as a firefighter for Cal-Fire (CDF) and there was a time that we woke up at 6 sunday morning to leave for a fire down south, well we didn't get off the fire and to a hotel till Wed. about 11 AM and didn't get to go to sleep till like 8 that night. Then we had to go back to the fire the following morning at like 5. The two and a half weeks I was down there I averaged about 4 hours of sleep every 24 after the first 84.

I was part of an Army exersise years ago I had to remain on 'STAND TO' for four days
.. in fear of what would happen if I failed.... I neither slept nor "snipped" for all four.

What a relief for both at the end of the exersise.




Mungo

[edit on 5/1/2009 by mungodave]

Originally posted by prototism
I stayed awake for three days straight, and not only did things seem louder and brighter, I was hallucinating.

I could have gone on longer physically, but I was worried that some neurological damage would occur, so I went to sleep.

Hallucinate....... yeah after two days.... but ya get over that.

Strange I found.

But ya do if your mind is set.

Mungo

reply to post by HumptyDumpty


hahaha, yea, i did the same thing and lasted from friday til sunday, must have drank about a 30 case a day. haha.

You can stay awake forever, but without sleep, insanity sets in. You start seeing things that aren't there, hear things that aren't there, and your senses go wacky, you will even start to taste things in your mouth that aren't there. Basically, temporary schizophrenia. And with all that happening, you will probably end up dying one way or another any way, it's not a good idea to drive a car while you are seeing and hearing things, and it's probably not a good idea to run at that purple monster you see with a butcher knife.

A test was actually done, and they kept a man awake for months. Every time he started to fall asleep they would sound bells and whistles and flicker lights to keep him from falling asleep, and do other things. And the above is exactly what happened to him. After he was allowed to sleep, he returned to normal and stopped seeing and hearing things.

The lady that claims she has been awake for years, yes entirely possible, but she must be a fun person to be around. No, lack of sleep cannot kill you directly, but again when you are seeing and hearing things, to such an extreme extent, you probably won't end up living much longer any way, something is going to happen to you.



Any way, that's the answer, close the thread. No more speculation needed, all doctors and psychologists will concur with this.



[edit on 8-1-2009 by DrSWesson]

im doin sum random research bout this now cuz ive been awke for...i guess around 76 hours now...i hvnt slept since tuesday night and i woke up around 5pm...its now 5am on saterday morning...haha i know now the math doesnt add up ut ive taken a 2 hour nap or so each day...i went parting on thursday and friday frm 10pm till 3am but i havnt had a single drop of any liquid besides water.....i dont even know exactly why im doin it but i guess because i would sleep late at night thn i hav friends who call me at 8am & ask me to go eat breakfast or somthing with them....i live in the middle east(but im italian) so thers plently on 24 hour cafes wer you ca go eat n smoke shisha at any time....the only problems i hav had so far is it can take me up to 2 hours to WAKE up from these 2 hour naps....and i act stupidly...make stupid jokes and laugh at dumb things...my body is ok except my back hurts and my eyes are very dry and itchy, i can still drive with our problems and i dont doze off randomly...the only problem now is my rain wont shut up and let me sleep...you know when you cant stop thinking....and im a high skool student and am goin to college in 9 months so i have alot to think about...especialy because i will be so far from family...i think the major side effect of this is ur brain on/off switch breaks and u keep thinking non stop, even if its about stupid random things...it still is on....

im seeing how long i can stay awake for and still function, im 18 and i get about 4 hours sleep average a day and have been having that amount since i was around 11. currently i just passed the 73 hours mark n i feel a bit odd.
day one,
i wake up at 7am, had 4 hours sleep as usual, went to work and college, the average day, i was fine until about 3am when i started o get tired, i felt like this till the next morning.
day two,
7am comes, it gets light and i feel wide awake again, i have a slight headache bu i look OK i suppose, go to college, went out skateboarding, saw my friends, everything was fine apart from my concentration was not that good, wen home, played games all night to not fall asleep,
day three, today, only been a hour but my neck is killing me from where i havent layed down, everything is funny, my concenraition is sort of back though some freaky stuff is going on, i feel as if im being watched n its not nice, i had to close the landing door cuz my paranoia was bugging me more than usual. if any freaky shiz happen i will let you know if i dont fall asleep

chris.

reply to post by IMMORTAL
Thats seems a little impossible, i mean, maybe, but i highly doubt that.

Originally posted by TekNo88
Someone told me that you will go insane if you stay up for 7 days straight...

Seven days was max for me. After four days I started feeling drunk (though I hadn't had a drink before back then), After five days I was having lapses in memory, confusion, disorientation, and was told I had wild mood swings. It was a horrible experience and would never wish anyone to have to go through it. Fear is what kept me awake that long.

[edit on 27-1-2009 by saint4God]