How many days of missed sleep do you think you could hide from people?
0 I burned all my capacity for that by the end of college.
Back in high school and early in college I’d have at least one night a month where I was to anxious to sleep. Then engineering school got hard and I got sleepless nights to do schoolwork.
These days I’m visibly off if my wife has nightmares or I snored too much (she kicks me when I snore)
Less than a full day
One, like most people.
But the more interesting question is: how long can you go with too little sleep? Like, with 3-4h naps? Or a few 30 min naps?
Obviously much longer, as anyone with little children or a tight thesis deadline can tell you. But I catch myself making mistakes and generally saying and doing things I shouldn’t, quite similarly to mild alcohol intoxication. I would describe 2-3 days with too little sleep as maybe 3-4 beers, you can still force yourself to focus, but you really shouldn’t drive or write that important letter any more.
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I stayed awake for 8 days but there was no hiding it.
i’m sorry
what was it like?
It was a manic episode and much of it took place in a hospital. But it was pretty magical, despite the adverse conditions. The most difficult thing was memory, especially around 24-48 hours. After that it was easier. But the worst thing was wanting to sleep but not being able to turn down the intensity of the experience.
I mean, “days” is vague
48 hours without sleep and it’s obvious, you can’t hide it
By 72 hrs microsleeps start happening, your brain will have a 2-3 minute dream in under five seconds of zoning out, this is where methheads are when they randomly accuse people of saying/doing something.
They had a micro sleep and in their dream you did something.
Close to 100 hrs I had visual hallucinations that were obvious hallucinations, and I tapped out around 105ish.
It’s insanely dangerous and you really shouldn’t try it. Even if it sounds “cool” it’s not an enjoyable experience, but it is an experience. Definitely under no circumstances use stimulates to stay awake that long. If you try to do it naturally and can’t, just accept that you couldn’t and move on.
And if you do try it, don’t have anything planned for during or a day or two after. Don’t expect yourself to handle anything competently after the first night missed sleep, although during that time you will likely think you’re killing it, that’s just because you’re not thinking straight. You’re really fucking up almost everything you do and just not noticing.
Been there done that. First time when I was 13.
I too, recommend avoiding it.
You’re very right in how methheads behave. But I think you’re sort of making a false dichotomy a bit there as well.
It’s more like almost a waking dream at that point. The reality mixes in with the dreams, instead of just you being in one or the other.
See this here jailcell. They denied me my meds and I was awake for three days straight. I ate my pinky bloody so I could use it as a red magic marker. Anyway. What starts out as rather complex philosophical quotes (see top left of the image) goes through simpler ones into basically ACAB with large stick letters… and then by the 78h mark or so… I could no longer read any of the text I had written on the walls. It was fucking weird, but I couldn’t read. All of the marks, letters, just looked like dancing ballerina figurines, and I could not make any of them up for what they meant.
So like, yeah, you’re right in that the methheads have been awake for too long and dream things, but the dreaming happens while they’re awake. The dreams mix with the waking world.
One night missed sleep is like nothing tho. I used to pull 20+ hour shifts while driving a taxi. (Despite what you might think, there’s absolutely no drivetime regulations like with HGV’s, even here in Finland. Also no minimum wage, I drove on commission)
Well written though, well described.
That is quite the experience. Thank you for sharing. Hope you’re doing better.
Thanks for empathy. Honestly it’s just like, I don’t expect more. It was quite the experience, and I’d just like a little empathy from family and friend’s but ugh.
Anyway, its good to know there is some out there at least. Thank you again. Have a nice day.
People feel uncomfortable when faced with situations like these. It sucks that none of your friends or family are able to push past the feeling of discomfort to tell you that you’re ok. But, people are people 🤷🏽♂️
This is incredibly reaffirming, thank you. The problem is either in Finland, or Finnish, or SW Finland or Finnish (we’ve lots of dialects and I think ours is probably one of the most rudest sounding one) or just me. But like, I’m really good at customer service, and can be very nice to people. But… I can also be really fucking nasty, I know that. And a lot of the times even too nasty for my own taste, but sometimes just hunger and loneliness really grinds ones gears and I can’t help it.
Usually I don’t do it completely without reason, so I’m just “overreacting”, but like in general I feel the threshold for Finns to consider something an “overreaction” is waaaayyy smaller than with any international friends I’ve hung with. I mean especially Anglos. Or especially Aussies, actually.
Hell the moment I found one in Turku I spent like two days drinking and smoking with the feller. Good times. His tobacco was fucking strong, no idea where he got it. In a leathery pouch and smelled of like old tar and medieval times. Funny guy. Smoked me under the table, but I didn’t have much tolerance back then.
You’re really fucking up almost everything you do and just not noticing.
So, it’s just like a regular day for me.
Pretty sure I am having microsleeps by Monday afternoon
If you’re serious, and you might be because it’s possible, talk to a doctor.
Honestly one all-nighter sounds like most I’d do. I don’t think its worth it, I can just look up how others experienced it without feeling awful in the end
0.3.
If I miss 2 hours of sleep I’ll be a zombie a couple off hours after lunch.
The most I’ve gone is 36 hours, basically a day-night-day missing 1 night of sleep, I don’t recommend it. The second day I was limited enough in functionality that I didn’t do anything I’d planned to that day but I was able to function on a basic level, though in terms of “hiding” it I think I succeeded since I still had normal interactions with people and nobody seemed to suspect anything. I was a lot younger then.
My misspent youth included methamphetamines. I spelled it out because “meth” seems worse somehow.
Anyway, about 3 days without sleep comes with debilitating brain fog, hallucinations, and wild mood problems. You could probably pass for the fist day, because meth intoxication isn’t as obvious as others, but people will notice that you lost your mind.
Similar story here, and I have a lot of regrets centering around the crazy stuff I did while out of my mind.
In retrospect, I’ve come to believe that long periods of little or poor quality sleep led to much more insanity than any specific substance.
It didn’t necessarily have to be stimulants. Anything that kept me up all night getting high or prevented “real” sleep, even computers or video games to a lesser degree, could lead to this state.
Sleep is important.
My youth was like yours. Stayed up for 7 days once and ever since, I need a full night of sleep or I can’t function at all. I think I broke my brain.
One now. As a teenager no one noticed until 4. Damn shadow people will make you look paranoid flicking your eyes or whole head at nothing
Oh god, the shadow people! I thankfully have not seen them in some time, but damn.
Saw them again trying to break my record(failed, i’ll never break 5) and they were almost friendly feeling. Always found it interesting how common they are to see for people who had never heard of them
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One. If I have access to drugs and I don’t have to go to work, two.
I’m the opposite, with drugs I get between 5 and 10 hours of sleep, without drugs I stay awake for days (10 days is my record).Though we may be on different drugs, mine are mood stabilizers and seditives.
I start getting loopy at about 36 hours awake
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I get massive screaming headaches that usually start mid-late afternoon and don’t go away until I sleep, but sometimes start up again first thing the next morning if I sleep poorly. If the person knows me well enough to know that, and knows what it looks like when I have such a headache, maybe 2 days? Only because theres a lot you can hide behind the fog of pain and saying “yep, this is the same headache I’ve had for two days, I’m very tired of it”
Everyone else thinks I’m in dire need of sleep basically always, because I’ve become fairly low-energy (other than my stims, which are often not obvious anyway), have very thin skin around my eyes, plus often foggy and slow from headaches. And nod off whenever I’m slightly bored. But they aren’t wrong, as such, I could seriously sleep 15+ hours a day if I didn’t have shit to do.
I have had a handful of “status migraines” in my life and that is by far the worst pain. I am so sorry, and hope you can figure out a way to end them. Mine always came while I was sleeping - would wake up with them, but once started even a drop of water would make me puke, and no real sleep just sort of hallucinations. 5 days is the longest, I used to be able to go get them broken with injections of some opiate mixed with an anti nausea drug, it didn’t make it stop just put me so far away from the pain I could really sleep and I would wake up without the headache. Alas, that is disallowed now. Last (and hopefully the last ever) time that happened it was $1500 in the emergency room and a cold IV of some hopped up advil (doesn’t work AND doesn’t get you high enough not to care) with an antihistamine. The IV liquid does help so not dehydrated but it did nothing for the pain.
Sorry long rant but I feel you - those long severe headaches are the worst pain. Worse than childbirth, worse than broken bone.
Depends on the amount of stimulants used.
Without any, 2.5 at the most.
