A photo from open sources
It is believed that a person can not live without sleep for more than 10-11 days. However, in the world there are several dozen people who Do not sleep for years and even decades. This rare affliction that struck them, refuting all the laws of medicine, is called life insomnia, or chronic colestitis.
WAY TO PERFECTION
Sleep plays a significant role in human life: the body in a dream gaining strength, and the brain is resting. However, at all times existed people who deliberately sought to shorten their periods stay in the kingdom of Morpheus. As a rule, this was due to some lofty goal. For example, the hero of an ancient epic Gilgamesh, in order to receive immortality, had to hold out without sleep six days, but, as you know, he did not succeed.
Chronic colestitis or chronic colestitis is considered a pseudoscientific term that official medicine doesn’t recognizes
The monks of the Middle East used long wakefulness, to achieve deep self-contemplation. Some philosophers preaching asceticism, counted the time used for sleep, lost and, in order not to fall asleep, put under the head instead pillows stones. It is known that Peter I, Faraday, Napoleon, Bekhterev and many other great and famous people slept only for 4-5 hours in day, maintaining tremendous performance.
These days, a student during the session decided to put on himself an experiment to find out what happens to a person who is not sleeps 11 days. The first two days everything went fine, but then problems began: slurred speech, hallucinations. However the doctors examined the young man, did not find anything threatening him physical and mental health, and the experiment continued.
The student managed to endure 11 days without sleep, but then he I slept for 14 hours and completely regained my strength. As you can see, quite a normal person may not sleep for more than 10 days and not die, contrary to the claim of scientists that without sleep people can spend 11-12 days, after which imminent death ensues.
As for chronic colestitis, its existence serves a vivid example of what the reserves of the human body are still studied far from completely. According to statistics, more 100 million Americans suffer from insomnia and over 30 million – from chronic insomnia. But sometimes this disease reaches its extreme – a person generally stops sleeping.
NON-CONNECTING EYES
No matter how skeptics relate to the issue of colestitis, people who never sleep at all, exist. Researcher of this phenomenon, F. Edwards, has collected a collection of similar phenomena – real stories sleeping people.
In the 40s of the XIX century in the state of New Jersey lived 90-year-old Al Herpin. His dwelling was a shack built of roofing sheets, almost no different from other shacks standing next to her. Only in Herpin’s hut there was no bed, no trestle bed, no hammock – nothing one that you could sleep on. And there was a reason for this – man I’ve never slept in my entire long life.
Dozens of doctors examined him, replacing each other on sleepless on duty, but the man really did not sleep and, surprisingly, when This remained alive and well. Al worked hard and, of course, tired after day work. He rested in his beloved rocking chair, read books until he felt rested, after which he again set to work. This phenomenon never found a scientific explanation. The old man himself innocently believed that the cause of his insomnia is a prenatal injury to the mother.
One of the American newspapers of the late 19th century published note about another sleeping person:
“David Jones aroused particular interest among local doctors, as several years ago spent 90 days without sleep, a year later – 131 days. Now he begins a new bout of insomnia, which, as David Jones himself believes it will be even longer. Three weeks ago he was constantly monitored: counting today, he has been awake for 20 days. He eats and He speaks as usual, is very active and busy with business. He is not feels no unpleasant consequences, as did not feel them and after a 131-day vigil last year. At that time he was intensely engaged in farm affairs. David says he has a feeling as if he would never sleep. It seems that such a prospect doesn’t worries. Mr. Jones doesn’t know the reason for this abnormality, the only thing he suggests is smoking abuse in youth. ”
Not all colestitis is so painless. For forty Joanna Moore she became a real curse. In 1962, she returning from work, she felt tired and drowsy. Subsequently, she recalled the strange sensation that arose in her that moment: it seemed to her that she saw her deceased mother. After this Joanna could never sleep again.
A woman constantly feels weak and tired, but she does not fall asleep succeeds even after taking potent sleeping pills. The results of the examination showed that she was affected brain responsible for sleep, everything else her health in normal. However, Joanna perceives psychologically insomnia hard: “In silence and emptiness I feel the only living by man throughout the earth. ”
Or is this the case with Rachel Sagi, a housewife from Hungary. Once she woke up with a severe headache, which did not pass for a long time. The doctor advised her to sleep less, and since then Rachel did not sleep a wink, having lived without sleep for more than 25 years. By the way about she completely forgot the headache.
Vietnamese Tai Ngok has not been sleeping for 39 years. Colestite overtook him after a fever. For a long time insomnia did not interfere with him full life, and only in 2006 did he feel some the discomfort. His 50-year-old compatriot Wang Kha does not sleep more half of his life – 28 years old – and also feels great. Closing his eyes, he sees such a distinct image of flame that experiencing a burning sensation. And it repeats whenever he is napping more than a couple of seconds.
A resident of Minsk, Yakov Tsiperovich, at the age of 26 survived a clinical death and since then forgot about the dream. Once from the drunk wine to him it became so bad that I had to call an ambulance. Doctors returned the man from the other world, but a completely different person. Jacob I stopped sleeping at all, but at the same time I felt a huge surge of strength and … began to write poetry.
“I have a condition as if there is no time at all,” says Tsiperovich. – I do not feel the past years. It feels like lasting the same day without breaks and gaps. It seems to me that my life will go on forever. “The doctors observing Jacob are not found no abnormalities or pathologies in him. In 1998, he 43 years old, but outwardly he has not changed at all, as if time stood still for him.
A photo from open sources
LIVING ONE DAY
Somewhere in the wilds of the Amazon there is a small tribe pyraha (about 400 people) whose people never sleep: neither adults, no children. They differ in a number of interesting features and my own philosophy of sleep. In fact they of course snoozing in fits of 20-30 minutes, the rest of the time they communicate, work, dance by the fire, raise children, etc. Those who are going to take a nap, they instead of the usual phrase: “Good night!” – they say something like: “No need to sleep, there are snakes everywhere.”
Pirakh is generally sure that sleeping is harmful. Firstly, because sleep makes a person weak. Secondly, a dream is a kind of death, after which a person is reborn (wakes up), but it is already becoming a little different. That is, if you sleep for a long time and often, then you will cease to be yourself. Thirdly, in fact snakes in those plenty of places.
Everyone remembers that the dream is gradually changing the people of the tribe. of them, like what it used to be: “Those were much smaller, not knew how to have sex and even ate milk from breasts. And then those people have gone somewhere, and now instead of them I am. And if I will not to sleep for a long time, then, perhaps, I will not disappear. And if I again changed, then I take a different name for myself. ” name once every 6-7 years.
A photo from open sources
In addition, it is interesting that the pyrah perceives dreams as part of their real life and talk about them as if everyone dream events actually happened. Due to the fact that their short sleep is not tied to night and day, people of the tribe do not distinguish time. In their language there are no concepts: “today”, “tomorrow”, “past”, “future”.
They live one day, they do not know how to think about what will happen tomorrow. And perhaps because the past and their not afraid of the future, these never-sleeping people are distinguished by increased cheerfulness.
Galina BELYSHEVA
Time Life Health
