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Man Tries to Stay Awake 40 Days
28-year-old photographer Tyler Shields is trying to break a record that Guinness wants no part of. He's trying to stay awake for 40 days straight without the help of a newborn baby or really bad neighbors. From the article: "If staying awake for 40 days is half as difficult -- or half as painful -- as Shields makes it sound, he could hold the record forever. 'This is the worst thing you could ever possibly do to yourself, and I would recommend no one do this,' he said. Though Shields is accustomed to functioning on less sleep than many people, he still trained his body to stay awake for days on end before the record attempt. Thanks to the training, he said the first few weeks were easy."
In college especially, I went through some (what seemed to me) very long periods without sleep. Not sleeping one or two nights made me a little punch drunk, to say the least. As my awake time prolonged past the 24-hour mark, I would start having waking dreams and seeing strange stuff. Maybe you get over a hump after the first few days, but I suspect that soon thereafter you start getting into some serious delirium. Maybe we should hand the guy a paint brush and see what he comes up with. Or, perhaps we should keep any conceivably pointy object well away from him - you never know when he might start stabbing his arm to make the spiders go away!
giving up sleep for Lent??
I wonder what level of chemical help he is allowed for this. Caffeine is one thing, but are coke or meth in the mix? There are probably some tweekers out there that could actually give the record a run for its money if Guinness isn't that picky.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
I have a vague recollection of a DJ that stayed on the air for 40 days continuously. Clearly there is a special class of people out there who have no problems whatsoever staying up heroic lengths of time.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
That's really hard to believe. I stayed awake for about 5 days once, but I was eating coffee sandwiches near the end of that just to keep going. In case your wondering, a coffee sandwich is 2 buttered slices of bread with a generous sprinkling of instant coffee granules in the middle. Of course I washed them down with mugs of coffee.
He has friends that will vouch for him. That's reliable.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
It hasn't been tested on humans, but rats who were kept awake for something like a month *died*
If there's any consolation in this, he probably won't be able to stay awake that long without chemicals, but not sleeping for long enough leaves you as impaired as you would be if you were drunk, so it's a pretty terrible idea.
My personal record: 17 days. I certainly don't remember, but based on my average at that time, I think it took me at least 50 grams, probably a lot more.
The hallucinations after the first 5 days are just awful.
Believe this guy, you don't want to go through that.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
That could very well kill him... very stupid way to gain fame!
Very creative way of self torturing and suicide :) You know it's used as a torture method in some countries.