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How much can you sleep?

From:  "KJ"

Lets say the average person sleeps 8 hours a day, and is awake for 16. And we know that if you are awake for an extended period of time, you will sleep in a little longer than usual. Say if I stayed awake for 32 hours, (twice as much as normal), would I then sleep for 16 hours straight? Could I hypothetically stay awake for a couple weeks then sleep for a week or two? Is there a world record or something for the longest sleep, not including comas and the like?

TB attempted with this: 

The longest time someone has gone without sleep is eleven (11) days or if you believe: 54 Years 4 Months 24 Days and counting... by Ahmmad Mohannan. An adult needs 6 to 8 hours sleep a night. If someone is awake for several days then usually a good night's sleep will do to make it up. Studies with rats has shown that rats who normally live 2 to 3 years only live 5 weeks on average, and rats deprived of all sleep stages live only about 3 weeks.. We need sleep to recharge our batteries. All sorts of benefits come from sleep, both psychologically and physically.

Todd thought up this: 

It is said everyone should get 8 hours of sleep every night. That would make you awake 16 hours a day. The only problem is if you miss sleep it just adds up. That doesn't mean if you get 6 one night you will get 10 the next. You would most likely end up taking a few midday naps later in the week. Personally the longest I have said awake without sleeping is about 27 hours. I ended up getting less than 8 hours when I did get to sleep. All week I was tired and by the weekend I had a 101 fever. So I ended up sleeping/napping the weekend. So basically missing lots of sleep will make you very tired and very susceptible to sickness. I think it is impossible to remain awake for a week (without any drugs or the works). After 24 hours without sleep the body becomes very weak and attempts to sleep every chance it gets. I don't know of any records for sleep but the one for a coma is almost 44 years.

kat mumbled something to this effect: 

No, the longest time somebody have actually stayed awake without going to sleep or nodding off is 10 whole days

Bill responded with this: 

Theoretically, I think that you could sleep that long, if that's how long you were to hypothetically stay up. I think that the average person sleeps 33.3% of his/her life away, not counting comas.

Andrew pointed this out: 

Yes Rupulstillskin did it in grims fairy tales. And if you try to stay up two week you will beat his record. Who is to say that death is not a state of sleep. If that is the case then I guess the first human to die holds the record.

Dave proposed this answer: 

Sleep and how much, I think the answer to this question could go every which way as different people have different sleep needs.
Take me for instance, I've got to many things to do sleep gets in my way. 5 or six hours is ok. Now my brother and his family on the other hand are the sleep family. I've never seen one group of people sleep for such extended periods of time. By the time they get up its time to go to bed and they do! I think they hold the world record for sleep.

Mr Obvious finished up with: 

Your theory would only be correct if the amount of time awake were directly proportional to the time awake. This is a given with machines, but human functions are rarely permanently proportional.

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