Talk:Randy Gardner sleep deprivation experiment

Clarification

According to the National Sleep Research Project [1] the record for sleep deprivation is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes. So Randy Gardner is not the record holder, right?

Well once you have a name, especially an easy to say and remember kind of name - like 'Randy Gardner' & in a media-rich country like the U.S. - you'll never shift it. Never mind, it's a good focus for the topic. I'm sure there are many occasions people have felt themselves to stay awake for longer, but the real answer is surely there is no record except as monitored in a lab (subject wired to detect micro-naps). Unless you call it a separate category - a human-observed event. In which case someone broke that record this morning. The rocking chair story looks like an internet factoid to me. I guess it wins the third category - neither medically monitored nor human-observed, but effectively unwitnessed. Hakluyt bean 12:51, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Amazing. According to this today in the London Times, the last Guinness record was actually held by Toimi Soini (11 1/2 hours in 1964). Course they don't speak much English in Finland. Hakluyt bean 16:58, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

That rocking chair marathon case was a Guinness record; it's in none of my books (1982–83 and 1991 onward), but I've seen it in some of the 1980's editions. Of course there are several claims of not sleeping for decades, but they must be virtually impossible to verify. --Anshelm '77 01:34, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

33 years

some dude has been awake 33 years. He just doesn't sleep.

Been wondering what the source for that is for ages... well now I've found it [2] Mathmo 14:07, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Ridiculous. Wikipedia itself says that lab rats die after 28 days without sleep, and people with fatal familial insomnia live between 7 and 24 months. But 33 years? Come on. Wikipedia article on sleep deprivation

Personal information

The article lacks any detailed information about the person, including such essentials such as his Date of Birth and whether he's still alive or not.

meth

I know people who smoke meth that stay awake that long all the time and even longer.

It is often claimed that Gardner's experiment demonstrated that extreme sleep deprivation has little effect.

Pure urban legend. Here is a log by Lt. Cmdr. John J. Ross of the U.S. Navy Medical Neuropsychiatric Research Unit in San Diego, about Gardener during his period without sleep:

• Day 2: Difficulty focusing eyes and signs of astereognosis (difficulty recognizing objects only by touch).
• Day 3: Moodiness, some signs of ataxia (inability to repeat simple tongue twisters).
• Day 4: Irritability and uncooperative attitude, memory lapses and difficulty concentrating. Gardner's first hallucination was that a street sign was a person, followed by a delusional episode in which he imagined that he was a famous black football player.
• Day 5: More hallucinations (e.g., seeing a path extending from the room in front of him down through a quiet forest). These were sometimes described as "hypnagogic reveries" since Gardner recognized, at least after a short while, that the visions were illusionary in nature.
• Day 6: Speech slowing and difficulty naming common objects.
• Day 7 and 8: Irritability, speech slurring and increased memory lapses.
• Day 9: Episodes of fragmented thinking; frequently beginning, but not finishing, his sentences.
• Day 10: Paranoia focused on a radio show host who Gardner felt was trying to make him appear foolish because he ws having difficulty remembering some details about his vigil.
• Day 11: Expressionless appearance, speech slurred and without intonation; had to be encouraged to talk to get him to respond at all. His attention span was very short and his mental abilities were diminished. In a serial sevens test, where the respondent starts with the number 100 and proceeds downward by subtracting seven each time, Gardner got back to 65 (only five subtractions) and then stopped. When asked why he had stopped he claimed that he couldn't remember what he was supposed to be doing.

Does this sound like "little effect"? http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p980301b.html Madzyzome 08:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Photograph request

Snesfm 05:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I noted in one of my sources, Digital Journal, that a good picture exists. MaxEnt (talk) 14:41, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

New Record (possibly)?

Man claims new sleepless record

A Cornish man claims to have beaten the world record for sleep deprivation. Apparently, since record keepers don't back sleep-deprivation attempts any more, it's unclear whether this will ever be confirmed.

Well he beats Mr Gardner but not Mr Soini who it turns out was the real last Guinness record-holder (Times).Hakluyt bean 22:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Interesting

So it looks like, from many sources, Gardner isn't really the record holder. Also, some stuff here maybe shedding light on the "rocking-chair marathon" story mentioned in the article. Museum of hoaxes Hakluyt bean 01:33, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Fixed up citations, change to start-class

IMO there's not much scope here for further expansion, and the main content is adequately covered and well cited, so if the article belongs in Wikipedia at all, it can't remain in stub class. My improvements to the citation formatting, formerly the worst transgression, also contribute to this upgrade. MaxEnt (talk) 09:34, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice to establish whether he held the record in the eyes of Guinness or not, however briefly. My take would be that he did hold the record, but his record was broken without reaching a printed edition, supposing the oversight of this record attempt met the Guinness standards at the time. This article is not about the current or all-time record. One must also distinguish this as a record attempt by an otherwise healthy person, rather than some nutter with a wonky or offbeat metabolim (among whom I number myself, for different reasons). MaxEnt (talk) 09:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Major restructure of lede

Attempt to put more emphasis on notability. Complete accident I stumbled upon the recent book (just weeks old) which recounts this event as a major episode. I didn't end up with exactly the right cites at the ends of the right sentences in the lede. I don't like duplicating the same cite several times, and this isn't my favorite style. On the whole, however, I believe the cites in the lede section justify the claims in the lede section. Someone with with access to this new book would be best placed to review my changes. MaxEnt (talk) 10:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Soini

There was a lot more research about this event than I suspected. By the end, I have no idea whether Soini's record ever appeared in any copy of Guinness, but I was more interested in the impact on the sleep research community than the peregrinations of pop notoriety. If anyone has a copy of Guinness from the 1970s or 1980s, it would be worth looking up what they actually printed during those years. MaxEnt (talk) 14:37, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Removed disclaimer

I have removed the warning sign and disclaimer from the article, as per Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles. I also felt the text of the disclaimer added nothing to the article; if people wanted to know whether sleep deprivation is dangerous or not they would read sleep deprivation.

-Frazzydee|✍ 22:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Sleep Deprivation due to pain -vs- World Record Holder (((I believe it is inaccurate)))

My name is Michael L. Fraley and I live in El Paso. I am 54 years old and suffered a severe back injury in a car wreck in 2000. I underwent corrective surgery within a year or year and a half after the incident. I was on the road to recovery; then forced to return to work before I was thoroughly healed. During that time, I started having problems sleeping and suffered short-term memory loss and an inability to concentrate. Shortly after that I caught a large person from falling down a flight of stairs, resulting in breaking the screws in my spinal fusion. within days I gegan to suffer severe back pain that didn't allow a moments peace. I was returned to the original surgeon for corrective surgery, but was unable to have the surgery due to the discovery of a blood cancer.

Basically to make a long story short, I take medication to fight pain and also a medication to allow me to sleep (if that is what you wish to call it!).. I personally call it a self-induced coma on a regular nightly ritual. I take one (1) pill of Lunesta, One (1) pill of Diazepam, and one (1) or two (2) Percocet; exactly one half-hour prior to bedtime. This allows me to go into a sleep like state for approximately four (4) hours and than I wake up in severe pain. This is a ritual that has been going on now for four and one-half years (4-1/2); still counting..

I don't know if one can call this sleep deprivation, however, my wife who shares my bed can attest to the fact that I do not sleep and suffer pain during this coma state of mind. I wake up in pain and now after several years, I have forgotten what a restful and full nights sleep even feels like.

I don't know the circumstances of Mr. Gardner's situation and why anyone would intentionally deprive themselves of sleep. Over a period of time the human body can no longer function in an ordinary manner. On eloses themself and never fully recovers. If he induced this behaviour as part of an experiment to either hoold a record or for some kind of research, then he has truly failed in my opinion of acheiving anything or any record. I am forced into a situation that has deprived me of a restful nights sleep over several years and no relief in sight other than the eventual demise of my person. Even my orthopedic surgeon has told me that an operation may not resolve the pain issue and I would come out of it in the same condition or worse. So if you folks at Stanford are looking for a record holder; than you should look at people who actually have no choice for sleep deprivation and still try to find a way to fuction in society, instead of helping or monitoring someonee who intentionally stays awake to base your research, because I believe your research os flawed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.149.206.57 (talk) 19:31, 29 July 2008 (UTC)