How long can a person go without sleep, on average, before collapsing from exhaustion or dropping dead?

its so weird I saw your question, I was googling for ages yesterday about this! apparently the record is 11 days!!! but most people say that after 5 days they will have hallucinations and keep hearing noises...apparently its really horrible.. but its so difficult to not have any sleep and be completely awake for that amount of time.

With the record of 11 days, that wasn't before that person died..it was just before they fell asleep! Just thought I'd make that clear!

Apparently you would die of exhaustion before dying of starvation. Starvation is after 3 weeks long. So Exhaustion would probably be 2 and a half weeks roughly?

Hope that helps :)

That depends upon a person but for me, I can remain awake only 24 hours max. Insomnia can be caused for number of reasons and the main and common reason is Stress. So it is very important for you to find out the exact reasons for insomnia. You might want to check this WebMed Article - http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/insomni...

And also check your sleeping position - Is it good or bad? - You can read this useful blog as well

http://www.drsnooze.com/blog/sleep-you-just-might-...

Hope this helps.

Someone once stayed awake for nine days then he collapsed so fast he broke his nose. Another person once stayed awake for days and she eventually collapsed so fast that she broke a cheekbone. There are people who are unable to collapse from insomnia, they have a rare disease called Fatal Familial Insomnia. Since they can't collapse at all they just die eventually from insomnia.

Around 72 hours and the person have illusions.