World Record: The Boy Who Went On 11 Days Without Sleep
BY: BHARAT EXPRESS
In 1964, 17 year old Randy Gardner became the subject of his own experiment to see how long a human can survive without sleep and break the world record.
Meet The Teenager
Randy played basketball to kill time. He wasn't on coffee or any medication to suppress sleep. Aside from eye blurring, the time went smooth.
Day 1-2
By day 3, he experienced mood swings & had problems with simple tongue-twisters. And on day 4, he began hallucinating, mistaking a street sign for a real person.
Day 3-4
Randy had a Psychosis and believed he was a famous Football player. His speech became slurred & his memory became that of a fish. He failed to name objects by touch and partly lost his sense of taste.
Day 5-7
He struggled to finish sentences & suffered from 'fragmented thinking'. He was experiencing 'micro-sleeps', phenomenae when brain compensates for lack of sleep.
Days 8-10
Randy was asked to subtract 7 from 100 in a series, he stopped in midst of it because he forgot what he was upto. The experiment was ceased after 264.4 hours of wakefulness.
Day 11: The End
60 Year old Randy Gardner reported to have been suffering from severe insomnia for decades. Guinnees banned this record in 1997 due to its risk.
Aftermath
Randy's Sleepless Ordeal became a well known case study for sleep researchers as it led to the discovery of 'microsleeps', Brain 'Catnapping', etc.