Ta. Nielsen et al., A 20-H RECOVERY SLEEP AFTER PROLONGED SLEEP RESTRICTION - SOME EFFECTS OF COMPETING IN A WORLD RECORD-SETTING CINEMARATHON, Journal of sleep research, 4(2), 1995, pp. 78-85
The recovery sleep of a 21-year-old normal woman was assessed after sh
e had endured 11 1/2 days of sleep restriction in a world record-setti
ng film-viewing marathon. An exceptional sleep debt was observed as in
dicated by an instanteous sleep onset, a high sleep efficiency, and a
total sleep duration of over 20 hours. Other striking features of this
recovery sleep were very short latencies to stages 3 and 4 sleep, ret
urn of Stage 4 sleep after 14.5 h, REM and SWS sleep rebound, and a li
near increase in REM sleep efficiency across 14 consecutive REM-NREM e
pisodes. Seven of nine home dreams reported after this recording conta
ined competition themes, but none relating to the marathon films. Comp
arisons of the present results with those from subjects in previous re
cord-setting events suggest possible explanations for the extremely lo
ng recovery sleep. Results also suggest that analyses of multiple cons
ecutive sleep cycles may provide novel ways of assessing hypotheses ab
out regulation of the REM-NREM cycle.