Randy Gardner ( record holder ) - wikipedia Randy Gardner ( record holder ) Randy Gardner ( born 1949 ) is the holder of the scientifically documented record for the longest a human has intentionally gone without sleep not using stimulants of any kind. In 1964, Gardner, a high school student in San Diego, California, stayed awake for 264.4 hours ( 11 days 25 minutes ). This period of sleeplessness broke the previous record of 260 hours held by disk jockey Tom Rounds of Honolulu. Gardner 's record attempt was attended by Stanford sleep researcher Dr. William C. Dement. Gardner 's health was monitored by Lt. Cmdr. John J. Ross. A log was kept by two classmates from Point Loma High School, Bruce McAllister and Joe Marciano Jr. Accounts of Gardner 's sleep - deprivation experience and medical response became widely known among the sleep research community. Contents 1 Health effects 2 Recovery 3 Subsequent record information 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links 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. 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 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. On his final day, 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 did n't happen if you went without sleep, '' said Gardner. `` I thought, ' I can break that record and I do n't think it would be a negative experience. ' '' Recovery Gardner 's sleep recovery was instrumented by sleep researchers who noted changes in sleep structure during postdeprivation recovery. After completing his record, Gardner slept 14 hours and 40 minutes, awoke naturally around 8 : 40 p.m., and stayed awake until about 7 : 30 p.m. the next day, when he slept an additional ten and a half hours. Gardner appeared to have fully recovered from his loss of sleep, with follow up sleep recordings taken one, six, and ten weeks after the fact showing no significant differences. No long term psychological or physical effects have been observed. Subsequent record information According to news reports, Gardner 's record has been broken a number of times. Some of these cases are described below for comparison. Gardner 's case still stands out, however, because it is so extensively documented. 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. Also, records for voluntary sleep deprivation are no longer kept by Guinness World Records for fear that participants will suffer ill effects. Some sources report that Gardner 's record was broken two weeks later by another student, Jim Thomas of California State University Fresno, who stayed awake for 266.5 hours, and state that the Guinness World Records record is 449 hours by Maureen Weston, of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire in April, 1977, in a rocking - chair marathon. Presumably because of their policy against maintaining this record, recent editions of Guinness do not provide confirmation of this. More recently, Tony Wright on May 25, 2007, was reported to have exceeded Randy Gardner 's feat in the apparent belief that Gardner 's record had not been beaten. He used 24 - hour video for documentation. The Australian National Sleep Research Project states the record for sleep deprivation is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes. See also Sleep deprivation References ^ Jump up to : Coren, Stanley ( 1 March 2000 ). `` Sleep Deprivation, Psychosis and Mental Efficiency ''. Psychiatric Times. 15 ( 3 ). Retrieved 2013 - 11 - 28. Jump up ^ Phil McHahan with George P. Hunt, Managing Editor ( 1964 ). `` No Sleep for 11 Days ''. LIFE. 56 ( 7 ) : 71 -- 72. CS1 maint : Extra text : authors list ( link ) Jump up ^ Eleven days awake, Extract from `` Elephants on Acid : And Other Bizarre Experiments, '' by Alex Boese. Archived November 29, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. Jump up ^ Elephants on Acid : And Other Bizarre Experiments, Alex Boese, ISBN 0 - 15 - 603135 - 3, Harvest Books, 5 Nov 2007 Jump up ^ Neurological Findings After Prolonged Sleep Deprivation, Ross J. ( 1965 ), Archives of Neurology 12 : 399 - 403. ^ Jump up to : The Nature of Sleep and its Impact on Health, Ben Best, life - extensionist homepage, undated article Jump up ^ Sleeping In, David Goldenberg, Gelf Magazine, 31 May 2006 Jump up ^ Psychiatric and EEG observations on a case of prolonged ( 264 hours ) wakefulness, G. Gulevich et al., Arch Gen Psychiatry, Vol. 15, Issue 1, 29 - 35, 1 July 1966 Jump up ^ Sleep Patterns Following 205 Hours of Sleep Deprivation, Anthony Kales et al., Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol 32, No. 2, March -- April 1970 Jump up ^ Dement, William C. The Promise of Sleep. ( New York : Dell Publishing, 1999 ) ^ Jump up to : Man claims new sleepless record, BBC, unattributed author, 25 May 2007 Jump up ^ What happens when you stay awake for eleven days ?, pseudonymous contributor, Digital Journal, October 2007 Jump up ^ Guinness World Records 2004, Guinness World Records Ltd, 2003 ; no reference to sleep deprivation or wakefulness is found in the index. Jump up ^ 40 Facts About Sleep You Probably Did n't Know, The National Sleep Research Project, undated, site © Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2000 Further reading Sigrid Veasey ; Raymond Rosen ; Barbara Barzansky ; Ilene Rosen & Judith Owens ( 2002 ). `` Sleep Loss and Fatigue in Residency Training ''. JAMA. 288 ( 9 ) : 1116 -- 1124. doi : 10.1001 / jama. 288.9. 1116. McGrann, S ; et al. ( 2008 ). `` Sleep deprivation effects within a non zeitgeiber environment : A Grounded theory Analysis ''. British Journal of Psychology. 14 ( 3 ). The Sleepwatchers, William C. Dement, Nychthemeron Press, 1996, ISBN 978 - 0 - 9649338 - 0 - 4 `` How long can humans stay awake ? '', Scientific American, 25 Mar 2002. External links This article 's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia 's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. ( February 2016 ) What is Sleep, from BBC Sleep Deprivation, Psychosis and Mental Efficiency - article from Psychiatric Times noting Gardner and Tripp cases Is Sleep Essential ?, An examination of available evidence of whether sleep is a biological necessity. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Randy_Gardner_(record_holder)&oldid=807275829 '' Categories : Sleeplessness and sleep deprivation 1946 births Living people Hidden categories : CS1 maint : Extra text : authors list Webarchive template wayback links Wikipedia external links cleanup from February 2016 Wikipedia spam cleanup from February 2016 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Español فارسی Lietuvių Русский Suomi Edit links This page was last edited on 27 October 2017, at 00 : 13. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: what is the longest time to stay awake
Answer: 264.4 hours (11 days 25 minutes)