Wow ... sleeplessness record broken

[PeterB]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/6689999.stm

... just featured on ABC News' Nightline. (They're having a series on sleep.) Pretty unbelievable.

Time for me to review the theories on why we need sleep...

[GGD]

Did ABC have more detail about how long he actually stayed awake? The article says that the old record was 264 hours (exactly 11 days), and says that he stayed up for 11 days which just matches the record. I also wonder how long he slept after that.

[spearmint]

The experiences I have with prolonged periods of no sleep (mere 48 hours?) made me experience tortuous insanity. I need my sleep. This is unbelievable although there is a pseudo god in Thailand? who supposedly never sleeps.

[mikebw]

I go for about 30 hours without sleep on a once weekly basis, for more than the last 18 months. Seems to not be a problem so far, I just do it to reverse my weekday-overnight schedule so I can be socially normal on the weekends. As long as I keep myself occupied I can stay awake. Driving after 30 hours without sleep is NOT advisable however. Nothing like sitting still staring at a blank road to put you to sleep.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

I always found it hard to sleep after staying up for around 36 hours. It was like I was too tired to sleep well. Even two or three days of less than 5 hours would mess up my regular sleep cycles.

[PeterB]

[quote GGD]Did ABC have more detail about how long he actually stayed awake? The article says that the old record was 264 hours (exactly 11 days), and says that he stayed up for 11 days which just matches the record. I also wonder how long he slept after that.
I believe it was 11 days, two hours -- which would beat the record. One record was apparently removed from the Guinness Book because it was feared that people would kill themselves trying to beat it...

Don't know how much he slept after that... it is known that after sleep deprivation, you tend to "re-accumulate" the hours in the following nights -- for example getting an extra hour or two on the next night, the night after that, etc.

[microchip13]

Wow, and he's not in high school....

[sscutchen]

The original "famous" record was set by Peter Tripp. A DJ and happy-go-lucky guy did it to raise money for march of dimes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Tripp

[Dennis S]

I think I heard the guy on ABC tonight got just a regular night's sleep after he finally went to sleep.

[mikebw]

[quote microchip13]Wow, and he's not in high school....
If you think that's bad, just wait until you get to college.