21 hours ago
Man reveals the horrifying - and potentially deadly - impact of going 264 hours without sleeping
A man who stayed awake for a shocking 264 hours has detailed the horrifying toll it took on his body and mind.
In 1963, 17-year-old Randy Gardner made a pact to stay up for a record length of time with two friends, in a bid to win first prize at their local annual greater San Diego science fair.
The teenagers were aiming to go 260 hours, or just under 11 days, without sleep in order to break the world record—as well as discover what the experiment would do to the human brain.
But within just a few days, the endeavour began to yield some concerning results.
Now, one of the teens involved in the schoolboy experiment has revealed what really happened during the record-breaking stunt, deemed so dangerous that the Guinness World Records will no longer monitor it.
'For years and years I've just hibernated,' admitted Mr Gardner, now 67, in a video posted to the Guinness World Records YouTube account. 'I don't know why I agreed to talk.'
Shortly after Christmas in 1963, Mr Gardner recruited Bruce McAllister, and Joe Marciano Jr. to help keep him awake.
After flipping a coin, it was decided that Mr Gardner would be the guinea pig.
Following 72 hours of no sleep, Mr Gardner experienced concentration issues and short-term memory loss, as well as bouts of moodiness, paranoia and hallucinations.
'About the forth or fifth day, I was like-are you kidding me, this is hard,' Mr Gardner said.
'By then it had gotten out to the newspapers and the wire services picked it up and it was too late, I couldn't back out.
'So there I was, stuck in this thing. So I thought, let's do it, let's do the 11 days.'
In the meantime, a sleep researcher at Stanford University, William Dement, had read about the experiment in the news, and decided to join the boys for the last three days.
Later dubbed Dr Sleep and named the father of sleep science, Dr Dement studied Mr Gardner's physical and mental wellbeing, keeping close records of his state.
He drove the sleep-deprived 17-year-old around in a convertible, with the radio on full-blast, and challenged him to games of pinball.
Miraculously, Mr Gardner actually managed to win the match-despite at that point having gone ten days without rest.
'We did everything. We walked the beaches at all hours. We visited the county jail at three in the morning,' Mr Gardner said. 'You name it, we did it.'
His only stimulants during the challenge were Coca Cola, loud music and hot and cold showers.
His classmates Mr McCallister and Mr Marciano also administered a set of 20 tests every six hours, to assess his mental state.
By the end of the experiment, Mr Gardner was experiencing memory loss, slurred speech and hallucinations.
He was also having trouble with his coordination.
But the teen prevailed—finally surpassing the 260 hours of sleeplessness previously claimed in 1959 by Honolulu DJ Tom Rounds.
Mr Gardner had been awake for 11 days and 25 minutes.
Afterwards, he slept for 14 hours and 45 minutes at the Naval Hospital in San Diego, under observation by Dr Dement and his team, who monitored his brain waves, heartrate, temperature, muscle activity and blood pressure.
But despite the stunning length of time spent without sleep, the teen was deemed fine—quickly returning to a normal sleep schedule.
The record was since broken multiple times until 1997, when Guinness World Records stopped accepting new attempts for safety reasons.
At that point, it was held by Robert McDonald, who spent 18 days and 21 hours (453 hours and 40 minutes) awake.
Years since the experiment, Mr Gardner has reported suffering from decades of unbearable insomnia—which he blames on his long bout without sleep as a teen.
Poor sleep has been linked to a number of health problems, including cancer, stroke and infertility.
Experts have long advised that waking up during the night does not necessarily mean you have insomnia, which figures suggest affects up to 14million Brits.
Still, sleep deprivation takes its own toll, from irritability and reduced focus in the short term, to an increased risk of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
According to the American Sleep Association, nearly 70 million Americans also have a sleep disorder.
