This video Author: EyeOpener

If you search for “sleep experiment” on video sites, you will most likely see this appalling “Soviet (Russian) sleep deprivation experiment”. It is said that in the last century, humans conducted a live experiment: forcing war criminals to stay for 30 days. Sleeping drives them into insanity and feeds on people. However, this urban legend, dressed in an “experimental” cloak, has almost been refuted by major bloggers.

However, there are indeed cases of extreme sleep deprivation in human history. In 1959, the radio host Peter Tripp (Peter Tripp), in order to raise money for UNICEF (“March Of Dimes”), Tripp decided to sit in a glass shed in Times Square. Sleeping and continuing to broadcast his radio program, this move has attracted the attention of scientists, doctors and the curious public.

At first, Peter seemed very energetic, but on the third day, he began to curse people around him for no reason, and even had hallucinations. He thought that there were spiders in his shoes, and kept taking off his shoes to check. Although tormented by strange hallucinations during this period, Tripp managed to persist for 201 hours (including medication). After the broadcast ended, he fell asleep for 13 hours. Soon after, he announced that he was “recovered” without any problems. However, his family and friends said that he looked like a different person, still suffering from the effects of being deprived of sleep. A year after the experiment, he fell into scandal, experienced divorce and unemployment.

Five years later, the high school student who was determined to break the record-Randy Gardner (Randy Gardner) stayed awake from December 28, 1963 until January 8, 1964, for 11 days 24 (5 minutes. This experiment was observed and recorded in detail by professionals including Stanford University. They found that during the experiment, Randy’s cognitive function was significantly reduced, memory decline, inability to concentrate, low mood, and fantasy, etc. A series of questions. But the truthAfter the examination, under the careful care of the medical staff and classmates, Randy resumed his normal life, and also announced to the public that he had fully recovered after two long sleeps.

In 2004 of this century, in a British reality show (Shattered). In order to win a prize of £100,000, 10 contestants must stay awake under the camera for 8 days and 7 nights, and for every 10 seconds of sleep, the prize will be deducted 1,000, and the person who persists the longest will win. In addition, the program group is also set up from 2 am to 4 am every day, including a series of challenges such as listening to bedtime stories, hugging dolls, and counting sheep. By the last day, the three people who persisted were even directly affected. Arrange to lie on the bed and fight who will fall asleep at the latest.

The final winner “Claire” experienced 178 hours of sleep deprivation and won 97,000 pounds. Although the program group claimed that the health of the players was not affected in any way, the academic circles and the public at the time had many criticisms about the morality of this reality show.

Although in these three human sleep deprivation “experiments”, the subjects survived relatively healthy in the end, but the animals were not so “lucky”. In the 1890s, Maria Manaseina, a famous Russian neurologist, conducted sleep deprivation experiments on 10 puppies. Before the experiment, these (2-4 months old) puppies were healthy in their mental and physical conditions. On the fourth day of sleep deprivation, the puppies died. By the fifth day, all the puppies died. . On the other side, another group of puppies (10) were not deprived of sleep, but they were always hungry. Although they were hungry for 20-25 days, they were all rescued and recovered.

In that era when “sleep” was not valued by scientific research, Maria’s research aimed to point out the importance of “sleep”. She did, and the results of the experiment had a huge impact in the scientific world, but maybe because the first puppy died within 96 hours. A few years later, when American scientists first replaced the experimental object with “human”, time Limited to 90 hours. Of course, the research on sleep is not limited to “deprivation.” This is the “father of modern sleep”-Nathaniel Kleitman (Nathaniel Kleitman), his “sleep experiment” to determine “human circadian rhythm” (circadian rhythm) has taken an important step.

It’s dark, do we have to sleep? What factors in the environment remind us, ‘It’s time to sleep? Can a person’s work and rest be changed to 28 hours a day, or 48 hours? With curiosity about “sleep”, Klettman founded the world’s first “sleep laboratory” in the early twentieth century (University of Chicago), and often used himself as a mouse to conduct “sleep experiments”, such as sleep 9. Hours, wake up 39om/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/04/shattered-legacy-of-a-reality-tv-experiment-in-extreme-sleep-deprivation> [Accessed 19 February 2021].

  • the Guardian. 2021. The history of sleep science. [online] Available at: [Accessed 19 February 2021].

  • The Scientist Magazine®. 2021. Cave Dwellers, 1938. [online] Available at: [Accessed 19 February 2021].