The London Times reports that Tony Wright of Cornwall recently stayed awake for 266 hours. He was attempting to break the world record of 264 hours awake set by Randy Gardner of San Diego in 1964. Wright was also attempting to demonstrate that, thanks to his "caveman diet" of raw food, he was able to "train his mind in such a way as to stay awake for 11 days and remain coherent and aware of what was going on around him."
The Times then goes on to report the bad news. Gardner didn't actually hold the world record for staying awake. Gardner's record had long since been surpassed by others. So Wright didn't set a new record.
The Times reports that: "The Guinness previous record was for 11½ days, or 276 hours, and was set by Toimi Soini in Hamina, Finland, between February 5 to 15, 1964." However, Soini's record was removed from the Guinness Book of Records in 1989. "It was deleted on the grounds that it could encourage records harmful to health and was unverifiable because of the claims of insomnia sufferers."
Actually, the question of who holds the world record for staying awake is a little more complicated than that, which I know because Gardner's sleep deprivation experiment is one of the experiments I discuss in
Elephants On Acid: and Other Bizarre Experiments. I even interviewed Randy Gardner, who still lives in San Diego.
Gardner set his record on January 8, 1964. Two weeks later newspapers reported that Jim Thomas, a student at Fresno State College, beat Gardner's record by staying awake for 266.5 hours. And a month later Soini set the new record. 1964 was a banner year for sleep-deprivation trials.
However, subsequent issues of the Guinness Book of Records report far longer periods of sleep deprivation. The 1978 edition, for instance, states that:
The longest recorded period for which a person has voluntarily gone without sleep is 449 hr (14 days 13 hours) by Mrs. Maureen Weston of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire in a rocking chair marathon on 14 Apr.-2 May 1977. Though she tended to hallucinate toward the end of this surely ill-advised test, she surprisingly suffered no lasting ill effects.
Ironically, I don't believe Randy Gardner's record ever did make it into Guinness. Gardner reports that "I did not get listed in Guiness as I missed the publication date." However, Gardner's record is the most frequently cited because it was (and probably still is) the most scientifically rigorous long-term human sleep-deprivation study, since Gardner was monitored by Dr. William Dement of Stanford University.
The overall problem with determining the record for the longest a person has stayed awake is that people take "microsleeps" without being aware of it. To really determine if a person has been constantly awake you'd need to record their brainwaves throughout the experiment. As far as I know, such a study has never been done.
Comments
I'm only 16, I suffer from ADHD+Insomnia.
Shoop da whoop my comrades.
I used to be a full-time college student with two jobs, one of which was a security guard working many overnight shifts. I think after 4 years of that, and just generally having issues sleeping my entire life, my body is just used to staying awake for such long periods. Right now I'm at about 73 hours awake and don't foresee a nap this afternoon...have to work a closing shift tonight, so I'm thinking I'll be awake more than my previous record of 84 hours.
For me, it's my eyes. They get rather swollen and dry after 3 days up and I've tried tons of things to treat them, but in the end, that's why I end up finally going to sleep. My brain doesn't want to go to sleep, but in the end my body always wins out.I can't imagine being awake for much longer than 3-4 days, though...can't that sort of thing give a person a heart attack? That's my biggest fear because after awhile my anxiety starts to really get to me and I think my heart is going to explode. Only had a few panic attacks, but they are not fun.
But to your last comment on micro sleeps I'd like to refer to Peter Trip who was obsereved by Dement in 1972 and I was wondering if you knew if he was under any more scientific methords?
39 hours. which is what led me to this article...
i am unsure if i have a type of insomnia or not which is why i am studying a wiki article about insomnia in the back ground... i'm not sure why i can stay up for extended periods of time without sleep, but it is probably not healthy and i should sleep as soon as possible. i was never able to do this before, and i don't know why i have a talent for it now.
i don't want to be awake and i want to go to sleep. the last time i slept was for 2 to 3 hours which was off and on through the time, for i had an appointment that i had to fulfill in the morning. before those two hours mentioned. i can easily speculate that i had stayed awake for over 20 hours before gaining the 2 hours. which puts me at 2 hours of sleep out of 60 hours. i'm about to watch Inception, and i just got finished watching Mary and Max
P.S. im 15 and love not sleeping.
..........
2 years
.............I've been infected with a rare case of insomnia!?during my stay at a local hospital, I woke up feeling like the best I could......later that night.....
When everyone was getting ready for bed
I then found myself NONE drowsy :/
........... ...... At my usual internal clock around midnight....everyone gets heavy eyes, coffe, sugar and DayQuil effects from a none drowsy substance....
I wasn't ...
.............................2 years..........I'm awake
I just remember that night like the rest.....and the morning, as well as seeing my family trying to get up like I used to feeling helpless.....forgetting....un-willingly..sleepy?!
Anyways it's funny watching people now.....mornings are my favorite......
I couldn't lose my people... I'd be scared alone.
I would like to do a brain wave study, in a test form.
Maybe I'm some sort of cure or inhansment......who knows, who knows.
Ok we'll 3 years...unfortunately , I wouldn't take it back now.....and here I come
....maybe we'll meet in the future......at some other phacility.
............ I'm j, and I'm awake