Longest You've Ever Gone Without Sleeping

[jp the roadgeek]

Just pulled a 39 hour stretch in July.  Woke up in New Orleans at 6 AM CT.  Checked out of the hotel at 9. Drove over to Gulfport and Biloxi, MI. Stayed there till about 11 PM.  Drove back toward New Orleans, stopped for about 40 minutes at the LA Welcome Center on I-10 to rest my eyes but never slept.  Drove to NO airport, waited about 5 hours for my 7:55 flight to Baltimore, never fell asleep, had a 2 hour layover at BWI, flew to Providence.  By this time, I was really starting to feel it where I could have never driven.  So I stayed awake in the back seat of my friend's wife's SporTrac from Providence to the CT shoreline, then in my friend's convertible back to Central CT.  By this time, it was 6:30 ET Saturday evening.  I managed to unpack, start some laundry, and finally conked out around 10 PM ET.

[Laura]

Almost 72 hours. One doctor thought my issues with school had to do with ADD, so I was casually prescribed Vyvanse (more or less Adderall) to fix it. Clearly I did not have ADD because the medicine gave me so much energy. It was the weirdest feeling in the world after not sleeping the second night. I thought that I had somehow lost my ability to sleep. When I finally crashed, I slept for 18 hours straight.

[Zeffy]

Almost 72 hours. One doctor thought my issues with school had to do with ADD, so I was casually prescribed Vyvanse (more or less Adderall) to fix it. Clearly I did not have ADD because the medicine gave me so much energy. It was the weirdest feeling in the world after not sleeping the second night. I thought that I had somehow lost my ability to sleep. When I finally crashed, I slept for 18 hours straight.

I am very cautious to take my adderall (15 mg dose) before a certain period in the day. The biggest problems I have is dehydration, complete loss of appetite and if I take it too late, insomnia. However, I recently switched from the extended release (XR) version to the standard pill. It works much better, and the effects linger for a good 5 hours or so before they wear off. The burst happens fast too, so about 20 minutes after taking it, I feel much more alert.

Also, my insomnia has been getting better since I established a sleeping routine. I think the book reading before I try to sleep helps immensely as well. The biggest problems I seem to have though is staying asleep. I seem to always wake at 5 AM or earlier, and then struggle for a bit before falling asleep until 8 or so, where I just act lazy and not get out of bed until about 9.

[DAL764]

Probably around 30 hours or so, upon returning to Germany from the US. Got up in St Augustine around 8 am, drove to JAX, flew to ATL, spent many an hour waiting there for the delayed flight to CDG, and I just couldn't sleep for a single damn minute on the flight. Had to find some help at CDG to get me on a new flight to HAM since thanks to the previous delay the flight was, and delaying with Air France staff is bad enough when you are awake, tired out of your head makes it even worse. Regardless, finally got a new flight, managed to be back in Hamburg at around 3 pm (9 am US time) and didn't manage to fall asleep until around 10 pm.

As far as simply driving goes, I once did a day-trip to visit two technical museums in southern Germany lasted around 22 hours and included 950 miles driven.

[Thing 342]

My inability to sleep in moving vehicles leads to a lot of 36-hour days when dealing with red-eyes. My record is about 43 hours on a trip to the FRC Championships in St. Louis, which involved a full day of classes, a 16-hour red-eye bus trip to St. Louis (no sleep), and then another full day of working at the Championships.

[apjung]

The longest I recall was 36 hours in 1994 after casino hopping between New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, MS.

When I drove from New Orleans to Pueblo, CO in 2008, I didn't sleep for 32 hours after sleeping for just 90 minutes the night (actually morning) before. I tried a 45 minute power nap at a rest area in between but just couldn't get comfortable enough to fall asleep.

[bugo]

I was up 3 or 4 days back when I was 18 or so. I didn't even use any drugs other than caffeine to stay up. I just decided to stay up as long as I could and that's how far I made it. No roadtrips, just a walk down the railroad tracks to see a bridge and a lot of video game playing.