Subsequent Record Information
According to news reports, Gardner's record has been broken a number of times. Some of these cases are described below for comparison. Gardner's case still stands out, however, because it is so extensively documented. It is difficult to determine the accuracy of a sleep deprivation period unless the participant is carefully observed to detect short microsleeps, which the participant might not even notice. Also, records for voluntary sleep deprivation are no longer kept by Guinness World Records for fear that participants will suffer ill effects.
Some sources report that Gardner's record was broken two weeks later by another student, Jim Thomas of California State University Fresno, who stayed awake for 266.5 hours; and state that the Guinness World Records record is 449 hours (18 days, 17 hours) by Maureen Weston, of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire in April, 1977, in a rocking-chair marathon. Presumably because of their policy against maintaining this record, recent editions of Guinness do not provide confirmation of this.
More recently, Tony Wright on May 25, 2007 was reported to have exceeded Randy Gardner's feat in the apparent belief that Gardner's record had not been beaten. He used 24-hour video for documentation.
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.
Read more about this topic: Randy Gardner (record Holder)
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