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 24 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.

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 didn't happen if you went without sleep," said Gardner. "I thought, 'I can break that record and I don't think it would be a negative experience.'"

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