When I first heard about this, I was sure it was 11 hours. And even then I was like, “oof, best of luck with that!”
But no, 11 days. This man went 11 days without sleep and then complained about the awful effects sleep deprivation had on his mind and body. Which is like holding your hand in a fire and complaining about the burns.
Tony Wright claims to have broken the previous record of 264 hours with a new time of 266 hours. Only to have that shattered a month later by Finnish man Toimi Soni, who beat Wright by another 12 hours.
Wright said, “Basically, you're starving the rational mind, the egotistical mind of sleep, and its batteries running down. And of course, it doesn't feel very good, it feels tired.”
Does it? Does it feel tired? Does staying away for the best part of two weeks not feel that good? Who’d have thought it?
"I've spoken to a lot of people about this. Most people have recollections where they've been partying, or they've been working hard, and sure they get tired, but within that they get glimpses of something else.
"That kind of softness, or a more relaxed state - often more emotional, because again, there's more access to that emotional side of the brain.
"Even feeling quite good, quite an altered state for brief windows, or getting a second wind even. You know, be really, really tired, no sleep, and then suddenly feeling fine for half an hour or an hour.
"So all I really did, or what I was interested in, is making sense of that. And is it possible to exploit that and bring in combining techniques to tie the left side of the brain up, which initially doesn't feel great, but the reward on the other side of that makes it worth the effort."
Also I’d like to just point out that if someone is attempting to set a record by being awake for 11 days, doesn’t someone else have to stay up and witness it? Otherwise as soon the person verifying the attempt nods off, Wright can catch a few z’s on the sly.
Due to the detrimental health effects from sleep deprivation, Guinness World Records has not done another since 1997.
"Firstly, during the 1960-70s, sleep researchers discovered the existence of 'microsleeps'; momentary lapses into sleep that last for just a few seconds,” they state on their website."These are impossible to accurately monitor without continuous physiological recording equipment.”
"Another reason we no longer monitor this record is due to the existence of people who suffer fatal familial insomnia, an extremely rare genetic disorder.
"Victims initially experience trouble sleeping, and over time this evolves into total insomnia (agrypnia excitata), causing speech problems, hallucinations, dementia, and eventually death.”
Anyway, this is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard and I’m begging you all to not even attempt 48 hours. Sleep is important. Far more important than world record attempts that cannot be verified and that nobody asked for.
