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In December 1963, a military family named the Gardners had just moved to San Diego, California.
The eldest son, Randy Gardner, 17, was a self-proclaimed “science geek.” The family moved every two years, and Gardner made sure to attend his science fair in every town he lived in.
He was determined to turn heads at the 10th Annual Greater San Diego Science Fair.
While researching potential topics, Gardner heard about a radio deejay in Honolulu, Hawaii who avoided sleep for 260 hours.
So Gardner and his two friends, Bruce McAllister and Joe Marciano, set out to break this record.
Randy Gardner spoke with NPR's Hidden Brain host Shankar Vedantam in 2017.
Asked about his interest in breaking sleep deprivation records, Gardner said: “I'm a very determined person, and when I'm in trouble, I don't let it go until I find a solution.” Told.
Of his science trio, Randy lost the coin toss. He will be a subject who will be deprived of sleep. His two friends took turns monitoring his mental and physical reaction times and checking to see if Mr. Gardner was asleep.
The experiment began on December 28, 1963, during the school winter break.
Gardner said that three days after she started having trouble sleeping, she started feeling nauseous and had trouble remembering things.
Gardner told NPR in 2017.
“I felt really nauseous. And this lasted for pretty much the rest of the experiment. And then it just kept going downhill. I mean, it was crazy, not being able to remember things. Almost like what early Alzheimer's disease brings. It was because of lack of sleep. ”
But Gardner remained awake.
The experiment attracted attention from local reporters, which, in Gardner's opinion, was a good thing for the experiment. “You're dealing with these people, their cameras, and their questions.”
The news reached Stanford, California, and a young Stanford sleep researcher named William C. Dement was so intrigued that he drove to San Diego to meet Mr. Gardner.
Also with him was a medic named Lt. Cmdr. John J. Ross, Dement, helped monitor Gardner's health during the experiment. Mr. Dement also helped Gardner wake up by playing games of basketball and pinball with him.
When asked about his winning percentage in pinball, Gardner said, “I did well. I think I beat him most of the time.”
In fact, Gardner always won.
“Physically, there was nothing wrong with me,” Gardner said. “But the mental part was going downhill. The longer I was awake, the more frustrated I became.”
On January 8, 1964, Gardner reached the final day of his experiment. He was awake for 11 days straight – 264 hours – a new Guinness World Record.
“On the 11th day, my fuse was very short,” Gardner said. “I remember getting into an argument with the reporters. They asked me the same questions over and over again. He was just a kid,” he said.
After speaking with reporters, Gardner was taken to a nearby naval hospital. There, doctors monitored his brain waves through an electroencephalograph to which he was connected. Medically, Gardner was perfectly healthy.
So, in the belly button hospital, Gardner slept for 14 hours. After he woke up, he said, “His head was groggy, but no more groggy than a normal person.”
Gardner, McAllister and Marciano won first place at the San Diego Science Fair.
Although Gardner's record was broken within the same year, his experiment remains one of the best-documented cases of sleep deprivation. It supported subsequent research on “microsleep.” According to Guinness World Records, microsleep is “instantaneous sleep that lasts just a few seconds.”
Decades later, the field of sleep research has grown exponentially, including the negative effects of sleep deprivation.
The last Guinness World Record for sleep deprivation was given to Robert McDonald in 1986 after going without sleep for almost 19 days. In 1996, GWR stopped tracking sleep deprivation, citing the “detrimental” effects of insomnia.
In making this decision, Guinness World Records Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday wrote:
“Sleep is just one of the important, absolute, fundamental parts of human nature. We need it, and I think that's why this is a particularly fascinating record. Because pushing the extremes of the very absolute is the key to understanding who we are as a species. ”
Gardner said in a 2017 interview with NPR that he developed insomnia as an adult. “About 10 years ago, I stopped sleeping. I couldn't sleep. I would lie in bed for five or six hours, sleep for about 15 minutes, and wake up again. I was a basket case.”
It's unclear what caused his symptoms. But Randy Gardner said he sees this as some kind of “retribution” for a scientific experiment 60 years ago.
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