^ I think all philosophy university students have gone through that, I know I did, worked out in the end but I do not recommend it, but red bull combined with caffeine tablets helps.
I've had many all nighters. Some of them are with friends. We would usually go outside and play round up. Round up is a bit like hide and seek, but more mature, I guess. All the people go around hiding throughout the neighborhood, then one of them has to find them. We are able to hide where ever we want, and you have to catch the person, not just see them. There is no base. It takes about an hour or two to play one game of round up.
Other all nighters would be me and my friends playing games, or something else. Then some of my all nighters are usually by myself. I don't get much sleep at night, it's difficult for me to get on a schedule. So I'll usually be on the Internet watching videos/listening to music on YouTube and go onto other tabs such as Facebook, AG, Kongregate, etc..
I hit submit too soon. Well, I don't have to do much to stay up all night. If I'm having fun, then that's what it takes for me to stay up. Most of the time I don't have to drink any caffeine or energy drinks to pull an all nighter. But other times when I do have to, then I'll drink some red bull, some times I'll mix it with Gatorade.
Not really any pain, besides your eyes getting heavier.
I still take a cold shower to wake myself up though.
I usually take cold showers in the morning to wake up, but it depends on the weather. For all nighters if I don't have something to drink that'll give me an energy boost, then I'll take a hot shower, a very hot shower. Those wake me up more than cold showers at night.
My longest was 72 hours, it was during Summer of last year. I had a few of my friends stay over my house for a few days, and we did a lot of things throughout that time. We played round up, played video games, played sports at the park, went to the mall, went to the pool... that had to be one of the funnest times in my life. When I finally fell asleep, it was just about the best sleep that I ever had.
The longest I have stayed awake? 168 hours or so. Woo.
All nighters are easy, really. I don't sleep much anyways, so staying awake till it is time for school is no biggie. I don't really do anything for it to happen, I guess, but when I do stay up even though I'm tired, in order to finish school work, every 30 minutes to an hour I splash cold water on my face.