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Randy Gardner records how long he hasn't slept (Photo: San Diego History Society) Don't try, don't try, don't try.

How long have you tried not sleeping in a row?

At the end of 1963, two high school students in San Diego, USA, wanted to do a scientific inquiry project. One of them had to stay awake for a long time, while the other had to record the other person's physical and cognitive status during that period to see how lack of sleep affected people.

As for who is responsible for not sleeping and who is responsible for recording those who do not sleep, the two 17-year-olds decided by flipping a coin. As a result, the losing Randy Gardner became the sleepless challenger, struggling to achieve their shared goal of surpassing the world record set by a radio station, DJ, in Honolulu, Hawaii, who had been awake for 260 hours.

In the end, Randy held out for 264 hours and became the new Guinness record holder. So what did the high school student go through during the 11 days of trying to stay awake?

Think of road signs as a person. In Randy's words, many people in the 1960s thought it was unnecessary to sleep, and so did he himself at that time.

At first, he and Bruce Bruce McAllister wanted to find an interesting topic for the school's science assignment. The two were curious about how not sleeping would affect a person's "paranormal ability" (superpower), but found that the superpower could not be studied at all, so they decided to observe some visible and tangible parts, such as physical function and cognitive ability.

But even if the content of the inquiry changes, the loopholes in the plan are still obvious. When the result of the coin toss announced that Bruce was in charge of keeping a diary, he breathed a sigh of naive relief: that is to say, he didn't even realize that one person didn't sleep while the other watched the record, and the recorder couldn't sleep either. in addition to keeping a journal, make sure your partner is not asleep.

Photo Source: no matter how many links Pixabay has not carefully deliberated, the project of the two teenagers was launched on December 28, 1963. At this time, the school was on winter vacation, and the two chose an empty bedroom in Bruce's house as the experimental base. That morning, Randy, who was in charge of staying awake, got up at 6: 00. he was not sleepy at all and confident that he did not think there would be any bad experience next. In this way, Randy and his buddy Bruce walked into that unimaginable period of time.

On the first day, Bruce gave Randy a rich test. For example, giving a string of eight-digit numbers and asking Randy to repeat them 20 seconds later is not a difficult task, but it is also no problem for Randy to pronounce the tongue twister "Peter piper picked a peck" quickly. In addition, identify 10 items (such as cinnamon, sugar, baking soda, etc.) by tasting them, hold ice cream cubes between your teeth for 25 seconds (until a toothache), and answer questions by memory (such as name, age, who is the president of the United States, etc.). Randy performed easily in every test.

However, the situation was obviously different the next day. In a test conducted at 1: 00 a. M. on December 29, Randy also tried to pronounce the tongue twister quickly, but glossed several times. During the taste test, he referred to baking soda as cinnamon. That night, he made a mistake of three digits in repeating the task of eight digits. Not only that, after Randy just touched the object with his hand, it was not easy to recognize what it was, and his eyes became difficult to focus. At this point, the progress bar is less than 1/5.

After about three days of the experiment, Randy's mood began to fluctuate strongly and moody. At the same time, Bruce, who is in charge of recording, also experienced three sleepless nights. Bruce said that when he woke up, he found himself leaning against the wall to take notes. It made him understand that it was time to find another companion to help. Soon, Joe Marciano joined the small team. In this way, Bruce and Joe can take turns to test and record about every six hours.

Although the two recorded students only slept for about two hours a day, they at least got the chance to fall asleep. By contrast, Randy's trial continues, and no one can work shifts with him. Randy is often dragged to play basketball to prevent him from falling asleep. Even when he goes to the bathroom, his friends will talk to him outside, fearing that he will pass out every minute.

The fourth day was the day when Randy began to hallucinate, seeing the road sign as a person for the first time. Randy later recalled that he also fantasized about himself as a San Diego Lightning player Paul Paul Lowe.

Photo Source: Unsplash hallucinations are not the whole problem on day 4. Randy has become irritable and uncooperative, his memory is declining and it is becoming more difficult to concentrate. On the same day, a doctor from a nearby naval hospital volunteered to join a small team of three high school students and began to monitor Randy's physical indicators as a form of supervision of the project. The frightened Randy's parents finally had a little reason to relax.

Of course, this doesn't change Randy's continued hallucinations on the fifth day. On this day, Randy also said, "who is the President of the United States?" The question was answered incorrectly, and he could also misspell clock, a word with only five letters. On the sixth day, Randy's speech began to slow down, and he couldn't remember the names of some common objects. On the seventh day, Randy became inarticulate, and memory loss and emotional problems continued to haunt him.

Randy's parents are very worried that their child's life will be in danger if it goes on like this. But the challenge did not stop, and the team even welcomed a new member.

Basketball skills have improved. Dr. William Demont, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, is also a sleep researcher. He saw reports in the local media in San Diego and joined the team on the seventh day when Randy didn't sleep. The emergence of Demont will turn an amateur inquiry activity of high school students into a "scientifically proven" case study.

In addition, Demont brings a different perspective. In his eyes, although cognitive and sensory abilities were affected, Randy, who did not sleep during the challenge, was always very healthy (physically very fit). Demont believes that it is under this premise that Randy can rely on the way he plays basketball to stay awake. Bruce, who is in charge of recording, was surprised that Randy's skills had improved after many days of sleeplessness (probably due to the increase in the number of exercises).

Photo: Unsplash, but in the remaining days, Randy's cognitive function is still declining. Sometimes, other members have to suspend mental tests on Randy because he often forgets what he is doing and says many words only at the beginning of the sentence rather than at the end. On the eleventh and last day, Randy was given a task: to start at 100, minus 7 at a time, and keep going, that is, 93, 86, 86, 79, 72. As a result, Randy stopped at 65 and didn't go on, asking him why, and he said he didn't remember what to do.

On this day, Randy was expressionless, vague and without tone, needed encouragement to respond to others, and his attention lasted only for a short time. If there's one thing he seems to do well, it's that he can still beat Dr. Demont in the pinball game. The team took him around San Diego, saw the police station, the weather bureau, and went to the beach. At 6 a. M. on January 8, 1964, the challenge was finally over.

Randy's continuous awake time reached 264 hours and 25 minutes, more than 11 days, also surpassing the previous Guinness World record (260 hours). He finally fell asleep after that, but not at home, but at the Naval Hospital, while doctors monitored his brainwaves.

After 14 hours of sound sleep, Randy woke up again and was monitored for a few more days. On the day after the challenge, he had an unusually high proportion of rapid eye movement sleep (REM), which is the main stage of dream occurrence (the proportion of REM in normal sleep is about 20%). But over the next few days, the proportion of REM sleep gradually dropped to normal.

Randy's cognitive function soon returned to normal. Soon after, he went back to school.

The brain that secretly "sleeps" and Dr Demont and other scientists continue to study this precious case.

Although Randy did not appear to have fallen asleep for 11 days, the researchers analyzed some monitoring data during Randy's challenge and EEG during convalescent sleep and concluded that there was a brief "microsleep" in his brain. In the absence of sleep, a person's state of consciousness may change: he appears to be awake and his eyes are open, but parts of the brain have stopped.

In 2011, in a study published in the journal Nature, scientists found a similar phenomenon in the minds of rats. When the researchers kept the rats awake for a long time, but the mice were tired, a subset of cortical neurons was turned off. Judging from the overall brain electrical activity, the mice were not asleep.

For humans, each microsleep lasts about 1-30 seconds, during which some neurons are working while others are resting. Perhaps the existence of this mechanism may also explain why Randy's 11-day absence of sleep has not led to more painful consequences. But that doesn't mean we can safely imitate such challenges.

In the 1980s, scientists used rats to carry out sleep deprivation experiments. They let some rats live in turntable cages, and when they are about to fall asleep, the turntable rotates to wake them up, sometimes pushing them into the water. The researchers found that the rats with the most sleep deprivation ate more but lost weight, struggled to regulate their core body temperature, damaged the skin of their claws and tails and died after an average of about two weeks. On the other hand, most of the rats with mild sleep deprivation suffered less damage to their health.

Although the cause of death of these rats has not been fully determined, and there is no evidence in humans that sleep deprivation itself leads directly to death, lack of sleep is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease. The serious behavioral, cognitive and emotional problems shown by Randy in the no-sleep challenge are equally noteworthy, even if reversible.

Randy took part in a TV show that asked guests to guess which of the three broke the world record (photo: rrgomes via Youtube). Randy didn't show any disturbing changes physically or mentally during the period after the challenge ended, and he later became a day trader (day trader) and is still alive today. However, about a decade ago, Randy, who was in his sixties, found it difficult to fall asleep, which he suspected might be a problem left by that year's experiment.

But like it or not, the challenges of his youth left him with something else. Since Randy Gardner held the Guinness Book of World Records, no challenger has been certified as a new record for the project. In fact, it is not that no one continues to try, nor is it that the later challengers hold on for too short a time, but Guinness World Records officials no longer keep the record. so as not to encourage more people to damage their health by challenging the project.

Reference:

Https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=RVQEAAAAMBAJ

Https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/sleep-deprivation-psychosis-and-mental-efficiency

Https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giulio-Perrotta/publication/344425939_Sleep-Wake_Disorders_Definition_Contexts_and_Neural_Correlations/links/5f741aba92851c14bca04415/Sleep-Wake-Disorders-Definition-Contexts-and-Neural-Correlations.pdf

Https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/09/archives/high-school-boy-goes-11-days-without-sleep.html

Https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21525926/

Https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/sleep-deprived-neurons-caught-nodding

Https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a2527/esq0804-aug-awake/

Https://www.npr.org/2017/12/27/573739653/the-haunting-effects-of-going-days-without-sleep

Https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6857280/

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: global Science (ID:huanqiukexue), written by: chestnut, revision: clefable

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