Science Fair Experiment Turned World Record: Randy Gardner

You pull a few all nighters trying to get in that last assignment. Cramming for your test tomorrow, you take yet another practice test before your vision begins to blur. Nonetheless, you power through until you see…what is that thing in the corner of your room? Letting out a yelp, you stumble out of your chair, making it into bed just in time when everything goes dark.

These are just one of the symptoms 17 year old Randy Gardner may have experienced when he went a whopping 11 days with zero hours of sleep to make a splash at a science fair, according to NPR. Now this may not seem very long, but he held the world record. However short this may seem to you, the effects it had will never be forgotten.

On the first day, Gardner had no major problems with his physical well-being. According to a BBC article, the teenager and his friends went bowling and played basketball to stay awake. His mental state experienced minor issues such as irritability, forgetfulness, and other mental lapses.

The second day saw similar results, aside from feeling as if he was in a “dream-like state,” says the National Institute of Health. The third day brought on nausea and even more forgetfulness. An NPR article states that the barrage of reporters was a welcome distraction, as they prevented him from falling asleep.

Between the third and fourth day, Gardner had more severe cognitive impairments. Simple math was nearly impossible, and remembering things was a chore. Minor hallucinations started with things such as mistaking one object for another.

During the fifth to seventh days, Gardner’s speech was slurred. According to Doc Parsley’s article, hallucinations began with him seeing things that weren’t there, and paranoia clawed at his mind. Disorientation was prominent, and that “dream-like” feeling intensified.

Finally, he made it to the eighth to eleventh days, the final stretch. The teenager’s motor skills took a hit, and he found it difficult to grasp even a pencil. His regular attention span and speaking skills were practically a distant memory. According to NPR, microsleeps, periods of sleep lasting about 30 seconds, are caused by your brain forcing a “shut down.” These occurred frequently in the last days of Gardner’s sleeplessness.

All in all, from what we know, the only issues brought on by the experiment were insomnia later on. Gardner slept for 14 hours after the experiment, says an NPR article, and didn’t seem to be excessively tired after. However reckless people may say he was to attempt that experiment, Randy Gardner contributed and confirmed multiple things in the field of sleep study. A teenage boy and his friends’ determination to win a science fair brought on so many advances, so who knows? Maybe not in the form of staying awake for 11 days, but we can surely learn to persevere like Randy Gardner.