OT Poll: Longest all Nighter Ever ?

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Close to 90 hours during finals week my first year of college (with assistance from copious amounts of Black Beauties). The ensuing crash was really something to see.

[Will Collier]

I did almost all of my senior design project (aerospace engineering) in about 50 hours. The paper version was still warm from the printer when I handed it in. I drew the very last presentation of the day, and I was having hallucinations in the back of the classroom waiting for my turn to present.

I got an A, surprisingly enough...

[bruceko]

Went 74 hours rebuilding the main power generator for a youth camp I worked at in college.
It was about 115 degrees in the power shack and the backup generator was running. Very loud.
When we were done I went to bed for a hour couldn't sleep so i went and played fgym hockey for a couple of hours.

[volcs0]

When I was a peds resident in the ICU, I used to go 48 hours straight (taking care of patients) with no sleep at all. That doesn't happen any more, (well, not supposed to) with the new resident "work hours".

The surgeons had it much worse, though. They would do 48 hours every other day.

[Carnos Jax]

[quote M A V I C][quote davester][quote M A V I C]cbelt3, you're lucky you didn't die. It's not uncommon for people to die after 72hrs of no sleep, especially with what you were taking in.
That sounds like BS to me. Link please.
There was an article a few months back about a gamer at an internet cafe who died after ~72hrs of playing video games and taking in a lot of caffein and sugar. I googled to try and find it, but noticed there's a ton of other stuff on it.
Davester, Mavic is right. I can't pull all the relevant links right now, but, it's general medical opinion that you will die if you get absolutly no sleep (that includes no naps or 'conscious sleep'/meditation).

[quote Will Collier]I did almost all of my senior design project (aerospace engineering) in about 50 hours. The paper version was still warm from the printer when I handed it in. I drew the very last presentation of the day, and I was having hallucinations in the back of the classroom waiting for my turn to present.

I got an A, surprisingly enough...
Funny Will, I did it in college to, working one of my senior design projects in aerospace engineering as well. I stayed up somewhere between 4.5 to 5 days. I had a couple of catnaps of up to 30 minutes a day.

[ztirffritz]

College. I don't know exactly how long I was awake, but I did about 48 hours in Erie working on my senior project. Then went to the airport and flew Erie-Pittsburgh-Chicago-Seattle-Yakima for a job interview. I studied on the plane for my finals. Got back on a plane flew Yakima-Seattle-Atlanta for the presentation of my project at the Society of Plastics Engineers Annual Technical Conference (aka ANTEC). Then spent a night out with buddies from school on a strip in Atlanta called "Buckhead" or something like that. I don't remember much. I remember lots of beer and a stripper picked us up in a bus and took us to a strip club. After that things got hazy. I woke up on a plane that landed in Pittsburgh and crashed at my parents house. My paper was published by SPE, I graduated college with a "B" average, and got the job in Yakima. I'm guessing it was about 4-5 days total, but it was hell.

[cbelt3]

I can well imagine that people could suffer fatal heart attacks etc if they were in poor health from the stress brought on by lack of sleep (and the crap one takes to stay awake). But there's no magical 'sleep timer' that will cause you to drop over dead, IMHO.

And ztt- I think you win (lose ?). Of course, you may have z'ed out while resting on the stripper *cough* "pillows", so maybe it doesn't count.


elm0- We didn't get the contract (thank god). You may not be aware but back in the bad old days the military would (and I think still does) expect a complete approved design for things that had never been done before as part of the 'sales pitch'. In our case it was a manpack radar that never got contracted to anyone. That company has been out of the defense biz for years now. Sadly enough, after that experience, I went to another company that was smaller and better run.

Two years later that same a$$hat VP came in to run the company I had moved to. And run it he did- right into the ground at Mach 5. Lost my savings, my house, everything 'cause nobody wanted you if you had a defense background after the Rooskies took their marbles and went home.

[BigGuynRusty]

[quote cbelt3]'cause nobody wanted you if you had a defense background after the Rooskies took their marbles and went home.
Sorry to hear about that part.
But being military, military aerospace, military surface/subsurface, then transitioned to commercial industry without a hiccup.
Maybe it was location.

BGnR

[davester]

[quote Carnos Jax][quote M A V I C][quote davester][quote M A V I C]cbelt3, you're lucky you didn't die. It's not uncommon for people to die after 72hrs of no sleep, especially with what you were taking in.
That sounds like BS to me. Link please.
There was an article a few months back about a gamer at an internet cafe who died after ~72hrs of playing video games and taking in a lot of caffein and sugar. I googled to try and find it, but noticed there's a ton of other stuff on it.
Davester, Mavic is right. I can't pull all the relevant links right now, but, it's general medical opinion that you will die if you get absolutly no sleep (that includes no naps or 'conscious sleep'/meditation).
There's plenty of info that forced or drug-induced sleep deprivation (as was done in experiments by the Nazis) will kill you (duh!), but I saw nothing that indicated that self-induced sleep deprivation could, and I sincerely doubt that it's possible.

[Lew Zealand]

I did about 85 hours straight in college once for 2 projects and first day of finals. I had an extended hallucination on the 3rd night — no drugs or anything other than caffeine but I suppose I know what LSD is supposed to do to your brain. If it does that stuff, it's pretty damn cool. Slept for 18 hours the next night and 12 hours the following one.

I also did another ~70 hours straight in grad school for a project and then 2 nights of a conference (w/associated boozing & whatnot). No hallucination — I was actually disappointed and was considering staying up longer but that in itself shows the lack of brain power I was running on.