In 1964, 17-year-old Randy Gardner decided he would never go to sleep. What started as a high school science fair project became one of the most famous sleep deprivation experiments in history: 264 hours (11 days and 25 minutes) awake, with no coffee and no pills.

By day 4 he believed he was a pro football player. By day 5 he saw a forest in a plain wall. By day 11 he couldn't count backwards from 100 by sevens. Stanford sleep scientist William Dement drove to San Diego just to watch it happen.

So what really happens to your brain when you don't sleep? This animated true story follows Randy day by day, from the first all-nighter to the world record and the strange twist that followed him for decades.

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 The boy who decided never to sleep
0:23 Randy Gardner's science fair experiment
1:17 Day 1: Easy
1:34 Day 2: The first cracks
2:00 Day 3: Sick, moody and clumsy
2:24 Day 4: He thought he was a football star
2:48 A Stanford sleep scientist shows up
3:30 Day 5: Seeing a forest that wasn't there
3:59 Day 7: His brain started to cheat (micro-sleeps)
4:44 Day 11: The final test
5:08 264 hours: a new world record
6:00 Sleep had the last laugh

📚 Sources
• Randy Gardner sleep deprivation experiment (Wikipedia)
• NPR Hidden Brain, "The Haunting Effects of Going Days Without Sleep" (2017)
• NPR, "Lessons from sleeplessness: The 60th anniversary of Randy Gardner's world record" (2024)
• BBC Future, "The boy who stayed awake for 11 days" (2018)

⚠️ Don't try this. Going without sleep is dangerous, and Guinness World Records no longer accepts attempts at this record.

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