Randy Gardner (record holder)

Randy Gardner holds the scientifically documented record for the longest period of time a human being has intentionally gone without sleep not using stimulants of any kind. In 1964—as a 17-year-old high school student in San Diego, California—Gardner stayed awake for 264 hours (eleven days even), breaking the previous record of 260 hours held by Tom Rounds of Honolulu.^[1]

Gardner's record attempt was attended by Stanford sleep researcher Dr William C. Dement. His health was monitored by Lt. Cmdr. John J. Ross. Accounts of Gardner's sleep-deprivation experience and medical response became widely known among the sleep research community.^[2][3][4]

Gardner's achievement did not appear in any Guinness publication.

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Breaking the record

He broke the record with the help of friends, TV reporters, and playing basketball.

Health effects

It is often claimed that Gardner's experiment demonstrated that extreme sleep deprivation has little effect, other than the mood changes associated with tiredness (mood swings, short temper, loss of concentration).^[5] This is primarily due to a report by researcher William Dement, who stated that on the tenth day of the experiment, Gardner had been, among other things, able to beat Dement at pinball.

However, Lt. Cmdr. John J. Ross who monitored his health reported serious cognitive and behavioral changes. These included moodiness, problems with concentration and short term memory, paranoia, and hallucinations. On the fourth day he had a delusion that he was Paul Lowe winning the Rose Bowl, and that a street sign was a person. On the eleventh day, when he was asked to subtract seven repeatedly, starting with 100, he stopped at 65. When asked why he had stopped, he replied that he had forgotten what he was doing.^[6]

On his final day without sleep, Gardner presided over a press conference where he spoke without slurring or stumbling his words and in general appeared to be in excellent health. "I wanted to prove that bad things didn't happen if you went without sleep," said Gardner. "I thought, 'I can break that (Peter Tripp's 1959) record and I don't think it would be a negative experience.'"^[7][8]

Recovery

Gardner's sleep recovery was instrumented by sleep researchers who noted changes in sleep structure during postdeprivation recovery.^[9][10] After completing his record, Gardner slept 14 hours and 40 minutes, awoke naturally around 10:00 p.m., stayed awake 24 hours, then slept a normal eight hours.^[11]

Subsequent record information

Tony Wright on May 25, 2007 exceeded Randy Gardner's feat^[12] in the apparent belief that the last Guinness record had been beaten.

Other sources claims his record was broken two weeks later by another student, Jim Thomas, Fresno State College, who stayed awake for 266.5 hours, and states that the 1981 Guinness record is 449 hours (18 days, 17 hours) by Maureen Weston, of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire in April, 1977, as a rocking-chair marathon.^[13]

According to the Australian National Sleep Research Project,^[14] the record for sleep deprivation is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes. However, few details are available for this claim.

It is difficult to determine the accuracy of a sleep deprivation period unless the participant is carefully observed to detect short microsleeps, which the participant might not even notice.

References

• Sigrid Veasey, Raymond Rosen, Barbara Barzansky, Ilene Rosen, and Judith Owens (2002). "Sleep Loss and Fatigue in Residency Training". JAMA 288 (9): 1116–1124.

See also

• Sleep deprivation

Further reading

• The Sleepwatchers, William C. Dement, Nychthemeron Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0964933804