J. Slup Rn. (1995) 4, 78-85 A 20-h recovery sleep after prolonged sleep restriction: some effectsof competing in a world record-settingcinemarathon TOR EA. N I E L S EN, MAR lED U M 0 N T and JACQUES MONTPLAISIR Departement de psychiatrie. Universite de Monlreal and Cenlre d'elude du sommeil, HOpilal du Sacre-Cocur de Monlreal Accepted in revised form 29 November 1994: received 10 August 1994 SUMMARY The recovery sleep of a 21-year-old normal woman was assessed after she had endured II! days of sleep restriction in a world record-setting film-viewing marathon.An exceptional sleepdebt was observed as indicatedby an instanteous sleep onset, a high sleep efficiency, and a total sleep duration of over 20 hours. Other striking features of this recovery sleepwere very short latencies to stages 3 and 4 sleep, return of Stage 4 sleep after 14.5 h, REM and SWS sleep rebound, and a lin~ar increasein REM sleep efficiency across 14 consecutive REM-NREM episodes. Seven of nine home dreams reported after this recording contained competition themes, but none relating to the marathonfilms. Comparisons of the present results with those from subjects in previousrecord-setting eventssuggest possible explanations for the extremely long recovery sleep. Results alsosuggest that analyses of multiple consecutive sleepcycles may provide novel waysof assessing hypotheses about regulation of the REM-NREM cycle. KEYWORDS dreaming, extended sleep, recovery sleep, REM cycle, REM sleep, REM-NREM sleep cycle, sleep deprivation, sleep stages. INTRODUCTION Publicity stunts and world record-~tting events have contributed to our understanding of the effects of extreme sleep restriction. Early scientific studies (Gulevich et at. 1966; Dement 1972) of the wakefulness ordeals of Peter Tripp and Randy Gardner have documented the mental and physical sequelaeof humans attempting to prevail over sleep and, indeed, remain classic citations to the debate over whether sleep deprivation produces psychotic hallucinations. More recent studies of extended wakefulness during a 147-h record-setting tennis competition (Tafti et at. 1990) and duing a 65-h Trivial Pursuits marathon (Kamphuisen et at. 1992) have furthered research in this idiosyncratic tradition. In the present report, the polysomnographic features of a Cor~spondmce: Tore A. Nielsen. sommeil. Hapital du Sacre-Coeur, Montreal (Quebec). Canada H4J e-mail: nielsen@ere.umontreal.ca. 78 «J t 995Europo:an Sleep Rcsearch Sociely single 20-h recovery sleep are described: it was recorded immediately after a marathon which was designed to establish a world record for film-viewing. This sleep was recorded from a normal female subject who endured 11 ~ days of sleep restriction and who consequently placed first in the 1992Montreal Cinema Parallele Cinemarathon. She was awarded $2500 and a World Record certificate from the Gu;nness Book of World Records as the World's Most Enduring Film Spectator. This subject also unwittingly produced a recovery sleep which is longer than any which has been reported in the literature for a normal, sleep-deprived subject. Subject The subject. LD. was 21 y and right-handed, a non-smoking female student in political sciences.Clinical interviews and questionnaires revealed that her birth and developmental history were uneventful apart from a tonsillectomy at age 4. She was in very good physical and psychological health. had Centre d'~tude du boul. Gouin Ouest. + 1/514-338-2531: PhD. S4OO lCS. Fax: