Real or Hoax? Photographer Spends 40 Days Without Sleep

Tyler Shields did something this October that most medical experts would consider highly dangerous, irresponsible and most likely impossible. The 28-year-old Los Angeles photographer claims he went 40 days without a wink of sleep. Friends tasked with monitoring Shields insist he was awake the entire time, and never felt the urge to close his eyes and drift away.

If you have your doubts, you’re not alone.

“In all likelihood he has slept, even if he does not think he has,” AASM member Dr. Michael Breus told AOL News. “Many people have what we call ‘microsleeps’ where our brain will go into sleep for even a few seconds.”

Shields claims he’s different than most people. He keeps a busy 24-hour work and social schedule and only needs to sleep a couple nights per week.

It all sounds either an early case of the devastating and impossibly-rare fatal familial insomnia or, in all likelihood, a sham for publicity. After all, Shields makes a living by taking suggestive photos of Lindsay Lohan and other young actresses.

Hoax or not, going long periods without sleep is still extremely unhealthy, which is why the Guinness Book of World Records refuses to recognize records for sleep-deprivation. Extreme sleep deprivation can lead to psychiatric problems such as irritability, depression and even hallucinations. Physical problems can range from elevated blood pressure, to obesity, stroke and heart failure.

Shields says most of the first month was no problem. The symptoms began after day 25 when he began having a bad fever, which he initially fought by eating “like 50 popsicles.“ When the fever came back he sat in a bathtub filled with ice. Then he lost feeling in his legs and then his entire right side. Then the numbness went away and he had to pee every 10 minutes.

He went the entire time without caffeine or stimulants. And he kept productive, taking dozens of photos inspired by sleeplessness.

The photographer says it took more than eight hours to fall asleep after the 40th day was complete. After only six hours of sleep he woke up starving and ate a half loaf of bread sitting on the kitchen floor.

“My head felt like it was going to explode almost as if a tank was driving through a wall and the only think stopping it was my head,” Shields blogged. “I still feel a bit like a balloon floating in space my feet dont feel like they are on the ground”

If this sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is. The entire story must be a hoax. It has to be.

Photo by Tyler Shields

Bowler Scores Another Sleep-Deprived Guinness World Record

One famous Guiness World Record holder feared for his life and sanity while trapped in a block of ice. It wasn’t the stunt itself that spooked self-professed street magician David Blaine, it was the sleep deprivation. He described five days without so much as a nap as the most horrific thing humans can experience, in a recent interview for the book “Wide Awake: A Memoire of Insomnia.”

The Guiness World Records banned the sleep-deprivation category of stunts because of the potential health hazard, yet many officially sanctioned feats still require staying awake for days.

This baffling policy sends mixed messages about sleep deprivation. Staying up for a week straight isn't okay unless the time is spent playing trading card games?

A bowler who recently disregarded his own health to chase a world record shared Blaine’s sentiments about sleep-deprivation. He called the mental anguish from sleeplessness the hardest part the world’s longest tenpin bowling marathon.

ESPN Dallas reports Stephen Shanabrook, 24, rolled for five days straight at a 24 hour bowling alley in Plano, Texas.

Unlike Blaine he allowed himself to take a few extremely brief naps. The longest lasted only two hours. Shanabrook aimed for five games an hour or a game every 12 minutes because the official Guiness rules state the record-holder must bowl within the “spirit of the game.” Any time that was left over could be accumulated and used for whatever he wanted. Naturally he chose bathroom breaks, eating and occasionally napping.

The stunt began last Monday and ended five days and five hours later, easily shattering the current record.