A group of Australian medical students claims to have smashed the world record for the number of people spooning simultaneously.

Spooning is a show of affection, usually between couples, where people lie down together chest to back.

1,108 people have reportedly spooned in a row for five minutes, as part of the 2013 Australian Medical Students Association (AMSA) conference on the Gold Coast last week.

The Guinness World Records site shows that the current record of 529 people spooning at once was set by students of Carleton College in Minnesota, USA, on June 4, 2010.

Record attempt organiser and fourth year University of Queensland medical student Matthew Daley says they decided to take on the title as something fun and different to do for the conference.

"The only criteria that I was looking at was that it was going to involve the most number of people, that it needed to be relatively inexpensive to run and that it needed no special skills in order to achieve," he says.

Spooning to the rules

Official guidelines were read thoroughly and followed, with 20 invigilators on hand trying to ensure the attempt would be recognised.

However Matthew says it did have a few hiccups.

"When we tried to put that many people on the ground we realised they didn't know which way to lie; whether it was on their left shoulder or their right," he says.

"We probably had everyone lying on the ground for maybe 35 to 40 minutes trying to set this record whereby we only needed five."

They have submitted their evidence and are expecting a response from Guinness in the coming weeks.

"All I'd like is just to be able to go out on the street and tell everyone I am the world's greatest spooner," Matthew says.

"I think it would be a nice little conversation starter."

If they are successful, it's uncertain whether the current record holders will take the defeat lying down.