How long can the human body go without sleep?

In certain rare human medical disorders, the question of how long people can remain awake raises other surprising answers, and more questions. Morvans fibrillary chorea or Morvans syndrome is characterized by muscle twitching, pain, excessive sweating, weight loss, periodic hallucinations, and severe loss of sleep (agrypnia). read more

When you go without sleep for 20 to 25 hours, your performance impairment is similar to that of someone with a blood alcohol level of 0. 10 percent. At 36, 48, and 72 hours without sleep, your body and your mind begin operating in altered states that put your health, and your life, at risk. read more

The question of how long a human can go without sleep remains unanswered by research. We are aware however, of cases outside scientific study where people have died after periods of no sleep at all. Fatal familial insomnia Fatal familial insomnia (FFI) is a rare, and ultimately terminal, genetically inherited prion disease. read more

But about sixty years later we began experimenting on how long a human body could go without sleeping. Randy Gardner, a 17-year-old high-school student from San Diego, stayed awake for eleven complete days. read more