Randy Gardner (record holder)

Randy Gardner holds a Guinness world record for the longest period of time a human being has intentionally gone without sleep not using stimulants of any kind. In 1964, as a 17-year-old high school student in San Diego, California, Gardner stayed awake for 264 hours (11 days),, with the help of friends, TV reporters, and shooting hoops. On his final day without sleep, 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 (Peter Tripp's 1959) record and I don't think it would be a negative experience.'" Sleep experts now believe that such sleep deprivation stunts are dangerous (Veasey et al., 2002).

It is often claimed that Gardner's experiment demonstrated that extreme sleep deprivation has little effect, other than the mood changes associated with tiredness (mood swings, short temper, loss of concentration). 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 of the US Navy Medical Neuropsychiatric Research Unit, who monitored Gardner's condition at the request of his parents, reported serious cognitive and behavioral changes. These included moodiness, problems with concentration and short term memory, paranoia, and hallucinations. On the fourth day he had a delusion that he was Paul Lowe winning the Rose Bowl, and that a street sign was a person. 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.

Conflicting Record Information
The last Guinness record holder was not Randy Gardner but Soini of Finland (11 1/2 days in 1964) Times.

Randy Gardner's achievement never appeared in any Guinness publication as his record was exceeded by Toimi Soini just one month later (Museum of hoaxes)

Tony Wright on May 25, 2007 exceeded Randy Gardner's feat (BBC) in the apparent belief that the last Guinness record had been beaten. The record of Toimi Soini was not exceeded however.

In any event, the Guinness book of records no longer accepts or publishes records related to sleep deprivation due to the possible health risks.

According to the Australian National Sleep Research Project, the record for sleep deprivation is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes. However, few details are available for this claim.