Radio DJ who stayed awake for more than 200 hours started to hallucinate and see spiders
Ben Thompson
Featured Image Credit: Wikimedia
A radio DJ who decided to stay awake for 200 hours as part of a bizarre experiment suffered horrifically as a result.
Peter Tripp undertook the challenge in 1959, continuing to broadcast his show at its regular time.
It was all in the name of a good cause, as part of the March Of Dimes, a US non-profit looking to improve the health of mothers and newborns.
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Tripp sat out in a booth in Time Square where members of the public would pledge money to the cause.
Knowing that the experiment provided some insight for science, the station brought in some sleep researchers to monitor Tripp whilst he stayed awake.
Surprisingly, Tripp held it together for an inexplicably long time and kept up his usual persona.
However, he began deteriorating eventually.
After around 120 hours, he began having hallucinations.
Whilst in a hotel, he opened up a chest of drawer and saw flames burst out. In his paranoid state, he suspected that the scientists had put the fire there to make him give up his challenge.
When one of the researchers approached him, the delirious DJ mistook him for an undertaker sent to take him away.
Eventually, Tripp was having unusual dreams - but whilst he still was awake.
He would stare at a clock believing he could see his friend's face, began questioning whether he was himself and even admitting to scientists that he was not Peter Tripp.
In the end, he did manage to stay awake for 200 hours - although he was drugged regularly for the last 66.
200 hours is roughly ten days.
After 24 hours of monitored sleep, Tripp emerged from bed appearing no worse for wear.
However, it's alleged that the experiment had a permanent effect on him.
Shortly afterwards, his life began a downward spiral as he lost his gig at the radio station and was divorced from his wife.
To make matters worse, he was implicated in a huge celebrity scandal in 1960, which centered around the illegal practice of payola.
This is where a radio station accepts money to play a song without disclosing this fee.
Some have speculated that Tripp's involvement in this illegal activity might go some well to explain his paranoid state whilst staying awake.
That's a possible theory but it'd be hard to find a person on the face of this Earth who wouldn't go a little loopy after having no sleep for a week.