Ask Lemmy

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.

I stayed awake for 8 days but there was no hiding it.

I start getting loopy at about 36 hours awake

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

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.

Less than a full day

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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.

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.

One. If I have access to drugs and I don't have to go to work, two.

Depends on the amount of stimulants used.

Without any, 2.5 at the most.

Depends on who's observing. I dose off regularly when bored regardless of how rested i am, some will already assume it's from tiredness.

Cognitive effects start to appear after 24h, but with short power naps i can remain functional up to 5 days.

I usually don't sleep during the days :)

But seriously: Not even one night. It was easier when I was younger ofc.

My brain starts breaking about 4 hours after I was supposed to go to bed.

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