Randy Gardner went down in history as the man who managed to stay awake for 11 days and 25 minutes. It became the third issue in the US after Kennedy’s assassination and the Beatles’ visit.
It is well known that man needs eight hours of sleep a night. Yet 35% of adults in the US say they sleep less than seven hours a night.
However, there is a man who managed to stay awake for 11 days and 25 hours. Randy Gardner managed to stay in history for the record, with the longest time a person can sleep without sleep.
It all started in December 1963 , when two high school students, Randy Gardner and Bruce McAllister, had an idea for a science report project. They thought it would be interesting to see how long they could stay awake and record any side effects that might occur along the way.
The “unlucky” of the case was Randy Gardner after the coin fell on him after the weight of the experiment fell. So he had no choice but to test his skills.
McAllister later told the BBC: “We were idiots, you know young idiots. So I stayed awake with him to watch him. “After three nights of insomnia, I woke up leaning against the wall, writing notes on the wall itself.”
hey quickly realized that they needed a third friend to get involved in the experiment to watch the two young people alternately. So they suggested to their friend Joe Marciano to help them. Professor William William Dement of Stanford University was also involved in the experiment.
After five days of insomnia, Gardner began to complain about some odors that would not normally bother him at all. “Do not force me to smell this. I can not stand this smell “, he said many times about various foods and objects. The strange thing was that as the nights went by Gardner became better at basketball as though this may be due to the fact that he played more often.
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As the days went by his fatigue became more and more evident, however the others kept him awake in every way . In fact, he was given Coca Cola several times in order not to fall asleep.
On the eleventh day he was asked to make repeated subtractions. He had to, starting at 100, subtract 7. Each time he stopped when he reached 65, while when asked why he stopped, he replied that he had forgotten what to do.
As the experiment continued, the mainstream media showed great interest. In fact, it became the third hottest topic in the American press after Kennedy’s assassination and the Beatles’ visit to the country.
After 264 hours of sleep, Gardner decided to go to bed. However, the 17-year-old student was taken to a Navy hospital for doctors to monitor his brain activity.
On the first day he slept for 14 consecutive hours, until he woke up to go to the toilet. On the first night, the REM sleep rate lasted much longer than the average of 90 to 120 minutes. It took many days for it to return to normal levels . In the months that followed, Gardner had no complications, although he later admitted to suffering from insomnia for years.
