longest i've gone was... Approximately two days.. all because of my thesis defense >.> First night had me rewriting a bunch of errors, checking grammar/spelling... and lying about fixing some arguments. I was fine since I was used to all nighters. The next night though, I was a wreck.. I was making my slideshows, writing on my index cards, practicing my presentation, thinking of everything they can ask me and how I can answer it... Theses defenses are a b--.. :lol: I had to drink two cups of coffee so I didn't seem like a zombie the next day during the actual defense.. But everything turned out okay! woop!
Four days is my tops, at certain times throughout I'll get really tired but once it passes I become awake again. You have to be careful, once you've reached about 42 hours or so of no sleep, sleep deprivation can set it causing you to hallucinate. I've had it happen before, I was driving home and had been up for 56 hours and everything around me was a different world and their were buildings, objects and creatures all around me that were not there, I remember all that I saw but it wasn't weird to me at the time. You can almost say it was like a dream and even though I knew it wasn't real, I thought it was all real enough at the time, it didn't even seem odd.
Don't ever take ambien and try to stay up on it... most realistic vivid hallucinations you'll ever get, children running at you will disappear just before touching you, hands will come from the walls and mirrors and disappear just before grabbing you. You'll look outside and see a bunch of woodland critters frolicking in your front yards one second, and the next they're all climbing mountains
But that feeling you get after being awake for 50+ hours and exhausted and you just lay down in a bed, best feeling ever. Like everything just goes away
I've managed to stay up a day and a half before but I'm very poor at it. If I feel sleepy I'm out almost seconds later. Much to the irritation of my boyfriend. =P