Angina

A man who hasn't slept for 40 years. The man who doesn't sleep

Today Yakov is 62 years old, but he looks no older than 45 years old. His wife Karina has long ago gotten used to his unique abilities, and his son Alexander strives to become just like his father. It seems like an ordinary family from Minsk. Everything was actually the same as everyone else’s, if not for the existence of such an unusual phenomenon, which is quite rare throughout the world.

Everything happened as usual in 1979. At the time when Yakov turned 26 years old, the first wife, jealous, attempted to poison her husband. It ended for Yakov with clinical death, intensive care, and almost a week-long coma.

After he came to his senses, he ceased to recognize the world around him. Yakov said that he felt changes in his thoughts, and there was information in his head that he had never known. Yakov could not understand a lot and indifferently let it pass through his consciousness.

He discovered a completely different world around him and began to perceive absolutely everything clearly. Jacob began to see the circumstances and consequences of various situations. He understood that this was not a figment of imagination, all this came from somewhere in his head. Yakov felt like a completely different person.

Yakov became the toy Vanka-Vstanka

However, that's not all. Sometimes it happens that after some extreme events a person completely changes. But something different happened to Yakov - he stopped recognizing his body. Sometimes he felt himself: arms, legs, head. Everything seems to be in its place, however, it is unfamiliar to him. It was amazing to feel how an arm or leg reacted to commands in a completely different way.

The strange moments didn't end there. After returning to normal life, Yakov suddenly realized that he could not sleep. He really wanted to sleep, but couldn’t sleep. This was not ordinary insomnia, when sleep does not come. Yakov simply could not even lie down.

He began to feel like a toy Vanka-Vstanka, which no matter how much he wanted to lay it down, it would still take a vertical position. He went to bed, but some invisible force lifted him back. As soon as Yakov began to doze off, something clicked in his head, and he immediately returned to the waking phase. It was terrible. Yakov struggled to sleep. However, this dragged on first for a week, then for a month and even for a year. He experienced insane fear, because he did not hope that his body could withstand such a load.

Incredible physical abilities

But soon there was a revolution. Jacob's forces, on the contrary, began to arrive. Muscle mass increased on its own, and weight increased. There was a feeling of great physical strength that arose from somewhere within. The feeling of fatigue has disappeared.

One day Yakov decided to establish the measure of his physical capabilities. In 9 hours, with several breaks, he was able to do 10 thousand push-ups, but he never felt the fatigue that would help him sleep.

Yakov no longer perceives the disappearance of sleep as physiological torment. He just became psychologically dependent. This dependence implies that a person must sleep. He began to tolerate insomnia quite easily. This can be compared to the completion of the painful process of formation of a new human body, and the beginning of its growth.

His life is one long day

And, in the end, Yakov learned about another extraordinary feature many years later during a personal meeting with classmates who had developed gray hair and wrinkles over the years. What a surprise Yakov was when he realized that he had not changed at all. His body seemed to stop in place.

For Jacob, time ceased to exist. Day and night have become indivisible. Life for Tsiperovich is one long day. He lives outside of time and believes that life is eternal.

There is objective evidence of the existence of a process of preservation of the human body. For a long time, Yakov’s body temperature was no more than 34 degrees and only literally a year ago it rose to 35 degrees. The aging and metabolic processes in his body slowed down. However, Jacob cannot yet be considered immortal.

The path to immortality

How does medicine relate to this? After all, most likely, this phenomenon will help develop a method by which it will be possible to live forever. Plus, physical strength and a lot of time for self-development, work and creation. Science knows nothing in such cases.

Yakov speaks with sadness about medical workers and doctors of science. No one seriously explored his abilities. On his own initiative, Yakov was examined more than once. At the hospital he was given an electroencephalogram and tests were taken. No pathologies were found in his body, since the tests were perfect. Yakov was even almost accused of pretending.

Medicine couldn't help him

At first he visited clinics in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Yakov was examined by such professors as Wayne and Ilyin. However, at the Bekhterev Brain Institute they even refused to allow him to be examined. The doctors justified this by the fact that many people do not sleep, and there is nothing special about it.

Since traditional medicine did not help him recover, Yakov turned to the psychic Juna in Moscow, as well as Minsk psychoneurologists Pavlinskaya and Semyonova. They didn’t say anything new, but just grinned, saying that they had enough of their own problems. Yakov concluded that his abilities arouse absolutely no interest among others.

How can you take advantage of the extra eight hours of work if you have excellent physical health?

Yakov replied that he did not use this time in any way. For him this is not extra time, but ordinary time, like for any person. At night, when everyone is asleep and he can’t do any noisy things, he does the usual things: reads, writes, or thinks about something.

The fight against this insomnia is futile

Over the past year, Yakov has stopped spending a lot of time trying to sleep. However, with the help of meditation, he learned to disconnect from the world for several hours.

At first, he tried to fight insomnia with sleeping pills. Yakov took large doses of drugs such as Radedorm, Relanium and Elenium. Medicines did not help, instead of sleep, feelings of weakness and loss of strength appeared. However, this could not replace a good night's sleep. In this regard, Yakov was forced to completely abandon medications. And yet, he still wants to be an ordinary person who is able to sleep.

Tsiperovich's fame has become dangerous

Yakov writes poems of a philosophical and lyrical nature. A film was made about him in Japan and France. The central and regional press wrote about him. In addition, a broadcast was made about the phenomenon of Yakov Tsiperovich on the Belarusian radio station “Svoboda”.

Yakov was very dissatisfied with the work of the journalists, because after the next publications about his life in the newspaper, he could not calmly go out into the street. People stood guard in Jacob's courtyard to ask their questions. His phone was constantly ringing with frequent calls. All this was in no way consistent with Jacob’s reclusive lifestyle.

In addition, his life was no longer safe. One day even sectarians came to him and knocked on the door for a long time, demanding to meet with him for some reason. That day, Yakov was saved by a large Caucasian shepherd dog living with him. He concluded that being famous is not at all as pleasant as it seemed.

Where do such phenomena come from in people? They are probably the harbingers of a new period. Today there are quite a few such people. They have a hard time in life. They are lonely. It is precisely people with such a phenomenon who are entrusted with a great mission - to change the opinions of the people and open their eyes to the world around them, which is so huge and limitless in its diversity.

Photos from open sources

A person can live up to 30 days without food, up to 5 days without water, and 3-4 days without sleep. But there are people who, contrary to all generally accepted canons of medicine, do not sleep for weeks, months and even years! (website)

Sleepless for years

One day in January 1962, teacher Joan Moore returned home late at night. That day was very stressful for her. She sat down in a chair to take a little nap, yawned sweetly in anticipation of sleep... But no matter how much Joan yawned, sleep did not come. She spent that night without sleep. And the next one, and all the subsequent ones. Since then, she spends every night sitting in a chair, looking into the night, waiting for the dawn.

Vietnamese Nguyen Van Kha has not slept since 1980. Moreover, he cannot even close his eyes. As soon as he closes his eyelids, his eyes immediately begin to burn painfully. Nguyen is over 50 years old, but he feels well, his consciousness is not clouded. As doctors say, the well-being of the Vietnamese can be the envy of many of his fellow tribesmen.

Representatives of the World Health Organization discovered an unusual monk in Tibet. Dawa is no different from the other monks of the monastery - he eats, walks, prays the same way, with the exception of one thing: he has not slept for almost 80 years.

Joan, Nguyen and Dava do not suffer at all from lack of sleep, lead an active lifestyle and have already adapted to the unusual daily routine. Scientists suggest that all three have a rare disease - chronic cholestitis (insomnia). But the presence of this disease explains wakefulness for several days, but not years! How their brain and body functions without much-needed rest is a mystery.
However, there are even more mysterious cases.

The person who will live forever?

In 1979, 26-year-old Minsk resident Yakov Tsiperovich received severe poisoning. When the ambulance arrived, he was in a state of clinical death. Doctors saved his life. But Yakov, who had been on the other side of existence, returned back completely different. His natural body temperature after the “excursion to the next world” is 34 degrees. He never sleeps. At the same time, he does not feel tired, his strength never runs out.

But the most amazing thing is that he does not age. Today he still looks the same at 26. Yakov currently lives in Germany, but German doctors, like Russian specialists, are unable to explain this phenomenon.

Tsiperovich experienced an interesting shift in his psyche and worldview - he does not feel the years he has lived, he does not feel time. Yakov never thinks how many years he has lived and how much time he has left. He perceives his life as endless.

Time simply stopped for him. Maybe he's immortal?

Numerous studies of the human brain and abilities have proven that a person cannot go without sleep for more than 11 days in a row. Prolonged wakefulness leads to serious negative consequences for the body and can be fatal. Exceptions do exist; there is a person in the world who never sleeps. Scientists and doctors have not been able to explain this unique phenomenon for many years.

Why is sleep so important?

Experiments in the complex realm of human dreams have been carried out all over the world. Military specialists were especially interested in this topic. Serious research was aimed at creating an army in which soldiers could go many days without rest. Various methods were used on the brain, but after 5-6 days the subjects still fell asleep. All attempts to artificially deprive a person of sleep have ended in failure. Each subsequent night spent awake affects the body in the following ways:

one night – fatigue and decreased concentration;
two nights – deterioration of vision and coordination of movements, nausea, irritability;
three nights – speech impairment, weakness in the limbs;
four nights or more – memory loss and hallucinations.

Prolonged lack of sleep ultimately leads to numbness and complete indifference to the world around us.

A person cannot live without sleep, which is why insomnia is one of the most painful diseases. People suffering from this disease age faster and have many health problems. During sleep, the work of all organs slows down, the most important systems of the body receive rest, and the process of cell renewal accelerates. The brain works in a special mode, systematizing emotions and memories. Sleep is a vital process necessary for the normal functioning of the body, but there are unique examples in the world that prove the opposite. Science knows a man who never slept and people who lost this ability in the course of their lives.

Phenomenal people

There are many cases of long-term insomnia recorded around the world, but one of the most unusual is the story of Al Harpin, a resident of the USA . In the 50s of the twentieth century, researchers became interested in a ninety-year-old man living in the slums of New Jersey. In his long life he never slept for a minute. In order to test this, many experiments and observations were carried out, the result of the study turned out to be incredible. Al Harpin really could go without sleep. After hard physical work, it was enough for him to sit for a while, deep in reading, and his strength would be restored. The intellectual and physical abilities of the unique old man were at the level of an ordinary person; in addition, he had excellent health. Scientists were never able to identify the cause of the unusual feature, but the elder himself claimed that he was injured in the womb due to a strong blow. Contrary to all known facts, a man who never slept lived to a ripe old age, being active, healthy and able to work.

More famous is h man-phenomenon from Minsk Yakov Tsiperovich , who lost the ability to sleep after a tragic accident. A jealous wife tried to poison him with a strong poison, as a result Yakov experienced clinical death. After a long course of rehabilitation, he returned to normal life and found that he could not sleep. All attempts to turn off consciousness and forget, even for a moment, ended in failure. Exhausting insomnia, according to Yakov, caused him inhuman suffering, but a year later everything changed. The lack of sleep stopped bothering him, and fantastic processes began to occur in his body:

incredible physical strength and endurance appeared;
the aging process has slowed down significantly;
new knowledge about the world around us was discovered.

The ability to do without sleep, remarkable physical abilities and virtually unchanged appearance of Yakov interested scientists from all over the world. As a result of the examination, it turned out that his body temperature did not exceed 35 degrees, as if his body was in a state of suspended animation. In all other respects, Yakov is completely healthy. The man who doesn't sleep has become the hero of many films and television shows, and newspapers have written about him. Famous doctors examined the phenomenon's brain, but its unique abilities.

Surely most readers know that the average person can last no longer without sleep than without food. If you've ever stayed up one, two, or even three nights in a row, you'll agree that staying up for years is beyond human capabilities. But in fact, there are some people who have not slept a wink for decades, feeling quite good about it. And no, now we are not talking about fictional characters like the main characters of “Fight Club” or “The Machinist”, but about real people.

Al Herpin

One of the earliest references to a person who is completely capable of going without sleep is by Al Herpin. This man was born in 1862 in Paris and then moved to New Jersey, USA. According to him, he never slept throughout his entire life. And after numerous experiments and experiments that scientists performed on him, he proved that he really could do without sleep without any problems.

Al was studied many times by scientists who again and again came to the conclusion that the physical condition of their ward, despite the complete lack of sleep, is absolutely normal. Researchers proposed various reasons that could provoke this phenomenon, but they were unable to come to a consensus and agreement on this matter. Al Herpin himself shared the point of view of his mother, who assumed that the unusual quality was caused by the fact that she accidentally hurt herself right before giving birth. But what was much more interesting was how Herpin was able to maintain normal functioning without sleep.

One of the possible answers to this question was suggested to scientists by nature itself. Some whales are able to go without rest for several months. But at the same time, they alternately “sleep off” either the left hemisphere of the brain or the right one. A similar explanation for the lack of sleep was proposed during the examination of Al Herpin - but was not confirmed experimentally.

How did Al feel? What kind of life did he lead? This man preferred modest farming. From morning to evening he worked, providing himself with food. Of course, after exhausting physical labor, Herpin was tired. However, instead of sleeping, he simply sat in a chair and read until he felt rested enough to continue working. Herpin outlived many of his researchers and died at 94.

David Jones

David Jones is another American farmer who can go without sleep for a long time. But, unlike Herpin, Jones still slept sometimes. True, I did this about once every three to four months.

News about David Jones appeared in an American newspaper in 1895. It mentions that two years ago Jones had a bout of insomnia lasting 93 days, and a year after that - 131 days without sleep. The paper states that Herpin is once again experiencing an episode of constant wakefulness that has been going on for three weeks. The farmer was placed under medical supervision. Doctors noted that David ate, talked, worked and socialized as usual. Judging by his testimony, he did not experience any particular fatigue from lack of sleep. Moreover, the farmer was clearly not upset by the prospect of never sleeping again - he, on the contrary, rejoiced at the prospect of working calmly and having a lot of free time.

Nothing is known about whether David Jones slept after this next attack - the scientists quickly gave up and stopped observing the farmer, and he himself clearly did not want extra popularity, and therefore did not appear anywhere else.

Already the second human phenomenon turns out to be an American farmer

Rachel Sagi

Rachel Sagi is a housewife from Hungary. One morning in 1911, she woke up from a terrifying headache that plagued her for a long time. Rachel could not understand the cause of such a migraine and turned to the doctor. The doctor suggested that the pain could be caused by excessive sleep. The doctor's order was simple - sleep less, 5-7 hours a day. As it turned out, the doctor was only partly right - the headaches were indeed associated with sleep. As soon as the housewife stopped sleeping at all, the migraine went away and never returned. Rachel managed to spend 25 years without sleep - from that visit to the doctor she never slept a wink until her death.

Not much information has been preserved about Rachel - there were no detailed studies of her health, or they were not published. The housewife herself told the newspapers (which sometimes raised her as a sensational topic) that she felt quite normal, and was no more tired than when sleep was part of her daily routine.

Video: Fedor Nesterchuk

Valentin Medina

A very remarkable story of 61-year-old Valentin Medina. This man, without sufficient funds, was unable to buy a train ticket to Madrid in 1960. So, being a persistent man, he simply walked to his destination from Southern Castile. Valentin completed the 140-mile road in four days. Sometimes Medina stopped on the side of the road to rest his tired legs. What made the poor man so desperate to head to Madrid? The fact is that Valentin suffered from many years of insomnia. According to the man himself, he had never slept in his life. Local doctors in Southern Castile could not help him, so he went to doctors in larger cities. They accepted Valentin and, questioning the veracity of his story, contacted doctors from his hometown. They, to the surprise of scientists, confirmed the uniqueness of Valentine’s condition.

One of the doctors knew Medina as a little boy - and even then it was proven that he never sleeps. The boy's father, concerned about his son's condition, brought the boy to the doctor.

Madrid doctors examined and examined Valentin, but found no pathologies. The man was completely healthy - as much as possible for a 61-year-old poor man. The doctors collected money for Valentin’s return ticket and sent him home, equipping him with a package of powerful sedatives. Medina regularly took the medicine until he realized that it was acting in an undesirable way - drowsiness did not come, but his legs became weak. This hindered the man in his work.

Subsequently, journalists approached him. Medina said that he could neither write nor read - and this upset him very much. According to Valentin, literacy could help him while away sleepless nights - he could start reading books.

Eustace Burnett

Eustace Burnett is another farmer on our list, but this time he is English. This man simply stopped sleeping at the age of 27 (around 1900). Before this, it is noteworthy that he had not observed any deviations in his sleep patterns. Eustace was visited by doctors from all over the planet who wanted to see this phenomenon live. Many tried to make him fall asleep using drugs or hypnosis. The latter only gave Burnett a headache, and the sleeping pills only deprived his body of mobility and speed of reaction - but sleep did not come.

Eustace himself is not very upset about the state of affairs. Every night, while his household sleeps, he lies in bed for about six hours to rest his body. Eustace lived for more than 80 years without complaining of fatigue or drowsiness.

There is no scientific explanation for this phenomenon yet. Which is not surprising, because there are not so many people suffering from chronic lack of sleep. But perhaps, when the reasons for this unusual phenomenon are found, we will gain more control over our sleep patterns.

“We published the article “How to sleep less without harming the body? “, where we tried to answer this question in detail. As it turns out, the world is full of miracles, and in the wilds of the Amazon there is a whole tribe: people who never sleep. And adults, and children, and old people. Not only do they not sleep, but they also don’t advise others.

People who never sleep unite into a tribe called "pirahã", the Pirahã. There are not many of them, only about 400 people. By the way, on our website we have already touched on another tribe of the Amazon (in the article “Angel Falls, the jungle, the aborigines and the preparation of sweet potato cakes”). True, they are more numerous and more civilized... But they are also less happy. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

People who never sleep have a number of surprising characteristics.

What do they say when going to the side? The wishes sound different, but they all express the hope that the interlocutor will sleep sweetly, see naked piglets in a dream, and wake up fresh and full of strength in the morning. In Pirahã, “Good night” sounds like “ Just don't try to sleep! There are snakes everywhere!»

The Piraha believe that sleeping is harmful.

First of all, sleep makes you weak.
Secondly, in a dream you seem to die and wake up as a slightly different person. And the problem is not that you won’t like this new person - you’ll simply stop being yourself if you start sleeping too long and too often.
Well, thirdly, there really are a lot of snakes here.

So the Pirahã don't sleep at night. They doze in fits and starts, for 20-30 minutes (a familiar sleep rhythm from the article “How to sleep less without harming the body?”), leaning on something. Otherwise

chatting
laughing,
tinkering,
dancing around the fires
play with children and dogs
etc..

Nevertheless, the dream is slowly changing the Pirahã - any of them remembers that before there were some other people instead of him.

“They were much smaller, did not know how to have sex and even fed on milk from their breasts. And then those people all disappeared somewhere, and now instead of them it’s me. And if I don't sleep for a long time, then perhaps I won't disappear. Having discovered that the trick did not work out and I changed again, I take a different name for myself ... "

On average, the Pirahã change their name once every 6-7 years, and for each age they have their own suitable names, so by name you can always tell whether we are talking about a child, a teenager, a young man, a man or an old man

Perhaps it was precisely this kind of sleep without distinction between day and night that created an unusual relationship to time. There are no concepts in the tribal language (or they are very poorly developed):

"Tomorrow"
"Today"
"past"
"future".

In general, as in the song:

There is no calendar on the damned island

Only the “savages” do not cry at all, but are content and happy.

With no concept of tomorrow, the Pirahã cannot think about the future. They just don't know how to do it. Consequently, they stock up on food. At all. They simply catch it and eat it (or don’t catch it and don’t eat it, if their hunting and fishing luck betrays them).

What do the Pirahã do when there is no food? They arrange fasting days for themselves. They practice therapeutic fasting even when there is enough food in the village.

A problem with the language meant that for a long time no one could understand the Pirahã. In particular, attempts to introduce Christianity to them constantly failed.

But after a linguist visited the tribe, it turned out that the barrier to understanding was deep in the basics. The Pirahú language turned out to be unique (the only living language from the Murano family of languages - the languages of central Amazonia). For example:

The language has only seven consonants and three vowels.
the Pirahã do not know pronouns, and if they need to show in speech the difference between “I”, “you” and “they”, the Pirahã ineptly use the pronouns used by their neighbors, the Tupi Indians
verbs and nouns are not particularly separated between them
The Pirahã do not understand the meaning of “one.”
They don’t know numbers or counting, making do with just two concepts: “a few” and “a lot.” Two, three and four piranhas are a few, but six is clearly a lot.

So it is not possible to find out the history of the tribe, even from myths, where they got such ideas about life. Unless someone finds a time machine :) Or explains the category of time to the Pirahãs and awakens the memories of their ancestors :)

The simplicity of the language leads to the absence of many “extra” words:

Polite words: “hello”, “how are you?”, “thank you”, “goodbye”, “sorry”, “please” and so on are absent.
In the same way, Indians do not understand what shame, guilt or resentment is. Even small children are not scolded or shamed here. They may be told that grabbing coals from a fire is stupid, they will hold a child playing on the bank so that he does not fall into the river, but they do not know how to scold the Pirahã.

Primitiveness is usually combined with a huge bunch of religious taboos, beliefs, and so on (as is typical, for example, of the aborigines of Australia). Whereas the Pirahã have surprisingly few rituals and religious beliefs:

The Piraha know that they, like all living things, are children of the forest. The forest is full of secrets... no, the forest is a universe devoid of laws, logic and order. There are many spirits in the forest. All the dead go there. That's why the forest is scary.
But the fear of the Pirahã is not the fear of the European. When we are afraid, we feel bad. The Pirahã consider fear simply a very strong feeling, not without a certain charm. You could say they love to be afraid.
The idea of a single god, for example, stalled among them for the reason that the Pirahã, as already mentioned, are not friends with the concept of “one”. Messages that someone had created them were also met with bewilderment by the Pirahã.

So, the Pirahã believe in the spirits of the forest, but have no religion, rituals, or ideas about God or deities.

Also, an interesting fact: the Pirahã consider dreams to be part of their real life experience and talk about dream events as if they happened in reality.

As a result, according to eyewitnesses: