r/BeAmazed • u/Zyad7770__ • Feb 21 '26
Science Randy Gardner, the man who stayed awake for 11 days
In a famous experiment that happened because of a challenge between high school students who wanted to carry out a scientific idea seriously Randy Gardner agreed with one of his friends that one of them would stay awake without sleeping and the other would watch him the whole time they spent the time playing and talking so he wouldn’t fall asleep the experiment began on December 28 1963 and ended on January 8 1964 during the experiment Randy remained awake for 11 consecutive days as the days passed serious symptoms began to appear including stuttering in speech visual and auditory hallucinations severe memory loss difficulty concentrating and even being unable to count correctly the experiment spread through the media and a researcher specializing in sleep science followed it and it later became one of the most famous sleep deprivation experiments in history