> Randy Gardner was "awake" but basically cognitively dysfunctional at the end of his ordeal.

Reading this bit about a 17 yo HS student at a 1965 science fair was something else! Wow.

I tried some different experiments of my own during times when sleep was difficult, and one thing I discovered was that sleep-related subjective experimenting is one of the best uses of that time. Well, for me it was anyway...

"Sleep" has a loose definition and going by the least restrictive one, I cannot go without sleep for more than 18 hours. My brain just stops working.

I've been "awake" for 42 hours before, but the the second day was probably the least productive one out of my entire life, and I don't even remember it at all, it's like it never happened.