Lethargic sleep how long does it last. Lethargic sleep: its causes and symptoms, known cases

Evidence of this is the excavation of graves, where the dead lay in a coffin in unnatural poses, as if resisting something. During a lethargic sleep, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to determine and say with certainty whether a person is alive or has gone to another world, because the boundaries separating life from death are vague and uncertain.

However, there were cases when it was possible to escape from the captivity of the grave. For example, the case of one artillery officer, who was thrown off by a horse and when he fell, he broke his head. The wound seemed to be harmless, they let him bleed, took measures to bring him to his senses, but all the efforts of the doctors were in vain, the man died, or rather, he was mistaken for the deceased. The weather was hot, so it was decided to hurry up with the funeral and not wait three days.

Two days after the funeral, many relatives of the deceased came to the cemetery. One of them cried out in horror when he saw that the ground on which he had just sat "moved". It was the grave of an officer. Without hesitation, the newcomers took up their shovels and dug out a shallow grave, somehow covered with earth. The “dead man” did not lie, but half-sitting in the coffin, the lid was torn off and slightly raised. After the “second birth”, the officer was taken to the hospital, where he said that, having regained consciousness, he heard the steps of people above his head. Thanks to the gravediggers, who carelessly filled the grave, air entered through the loose earth, which made it possible for the officer to receive some oxygen.

People can be in a state of lethargy without interruption for many days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years, in exceptional cases- decades. Dr. Rosenthal in Vienna published a case of trance in a hysterical woman, who was pronounced dead by her doctor. Her skin was pale and cold, her pupils were constricted and insensitive to light, her pulse was imperceptible, her limbs were relaxed. Melted sealing wax was dripped onto her skin and they could not notice the slightest reflected movements. A mirror was brought to the mouth, but no traces of moisture could be noticed on its surface.

Not the slightest breath sounds were heard, but in the region of the heart, auscultation showed a barely noticeable intermittent sound. The woman had been in a similar, apparently lifeless state for 36 hours. When examined with intermittent current, Rosenthal found that the muscles of the face and limbs contracted. The woman woke up after 12 hours of faradization. Two years later, she was alive and well and told Rosenthal that at the beginning of the attack she was not aware of anything, and then heard talk of her death, but could not help herself.

An example of a longer lethargic sleep is given by the famous Russian physiologist V. V. Efimov. He said that one French 4's summer girl with a sick nervous system, she was frightened by something and fainted, and then plunged into a lethargic sleep that lasted 18 years without a break. She was taken to the hospital, where she was carefully looked after and fed, thanks to which she grew into an adult girl. And although she woke up as an adult, her mind, interests, feelings remained the same as they were before lethargy. So, waking up from a lethargic dream, the girl asked for a doll to play with.

An even longer sleep was known to academician I.P. Pavlov. For 25 years, a man lay in the clinic as a “living corpse”. He did not make a single movement, did not utter a single word from the age of 35 to the age of 60, when he gradually began to show normal motor activity, began to get up, speak, etc. The old man began to be asked what he felt during these years while lying "a living corpse". As it turned out, he heard a lot, understood, but could not move or speak. Pavlov explained this case by stagnant pathological inhibition of the motor cortex hemispheres brain. By old age, when the inhibitory processes weakened, cortical inhibition began to decrease and the old man woke up.

In America in 1996 after the 17th summer dream Greta Stargle of Denver, Colorado, became conscious. “An innocent child in the body of a luxurious woman” is what doctors call Greta. The fact is that, as journalists reported, in 1979, 3-year-old Greta was in a car accident. Grandparents died, and Greta fell asleep for ... 17 years. “Miss Stargle's brain turned out to be absolutely intact,” said Hans Jenkins, a Swiss neurosurgeon who flew to America to get acquainted with a recently recovered patient. - The 20-year-old beauty looks like an adult, but retained the intelligence and innocence of 3 summer child". Greta is smart and a pretty fast learner. However, she absolutely does not know life. “Recently we went to the supermarket together,” says Greta's mother Doris. - I walked away literally for a minute, and when I returned, Greta was already heading for the exit with some guy. It turned out that he invited her to go to his house and have a lot of fun, and Greta willingly agreed. She could not even imagine what exactly was meant. After passing the test, Greta is now at school. Her teachers assure that the girl gets along remarkably well with classmates. How the life of the former sleeping beauty will turn out, the future will show ...

During lethargic sleep, not only voluntary movements, but also simple reflexes are so suppressed, the physiological functions of the respiratory and circulatory organs are so inhibited that a person who is little familiar with medicine can take the sleeping person for the dead. From here, probably, the belief in the existence of vampires and ghouls originates - people who died a “fake death”, leaving graves and crypts at night to maintain their half-dead-half-dead existence with the blood of living people.

Up to XVIII century on medieval Europe plague periodically swept through. The most terrible was the "black death" of the XIV century, which claimed almost a quarter of the population of Europe. A merciless disease mowed down everyone indiscriminately. Every day, wagons loaded to the top with bodies took out a terrible load out of the city to the grave pits. The doors of the houses where the infection settled were marked with red crosses. People abandoned their relatives for fear of infection and left cities in the grip of death. The plague was considered a disaster worse than war. The fear of being buried alive was especially great from the 18th century to early XIX centuries. Many cases of premature burials are known. The degree of their reliability is different.

1865 - 5-year-old Max Hoffmann fell ill with cholera, whose family had a farm near a small town in Wisconsin (America). The urgently called doctor could not reassure the parents: in his opinion, there was no hope for recovery. Three days later it was all over. The same doctor, covering Max's body with a sheet, declared him dead. The boy was buried in the village cemetery. The next night my mother saw terrible dream. She dreamed that Max turned over in his grave and seemed to be trying to get out of there. She saw him fold his hands and place them under his right cheek. Mother woke up from her heartbreaking scream. She began to beg her husband to dig a coffin with a child, he refused. Mr. Hoffmann was convinced that her sleep was the result of a nervous shock and that removing the body from the grave would only increase her suffering. But the next night the dream was repeated, and this time it was impossible to convince the excited mother.

Hoffmann sent his eldest son for a neighbor and a lantern, because their own lantern was broken. At two o'clock in the morning, the men began the exhumation. They worked by the light of a lantern hanging from a nearby tree. When they finally got to the bottom of the coffin and opened it, they saw that Max was lying on his right side, as his mother had dreamed, with folded handles under right cheek. The child did not show any signs of life, but the father took the little body out of the coffin and rode on horseback to the doctor. With great disbelief, the doctor set to work trying to revive the boy, whom he had declared dead two days earlier. More than an hour later, his efforts were rewarded: the baby's eyelid twitched. Brandy was used, sacks of heated salt were placed under the body and hands. Little by little, signs of improvement began to appear. Within a week, Max had fully recovered from his fantastic adventure. He lived to be 80 and died in Clinton, Iowa. Among his most memorable things were two small metal handles from the coffin from which he was rescued thanks to his mother's dream.

As you know, lethargic sleep of natural, and not traumatic or other origin, as a rule, develops in hysterical patients. In some cases and healthy people, by no means tantrums, using special psychotechnics, can cause similar states in themselves. For example, Hindu yogis, using the techniques of self-hypnosis and breath-holding known to them, can voluntarily bring themselves into a state of deepest and long sleep similar to lethargy or catalepsy.

1968 - Englishwoman Emma Smith set the world record for the longest burial alive: she spent 101 days in a coffin! True ... not in a lethargic dream and without the use of any psychotechnics, she simply lay in a buried coffin in full consciousness. At the same time, air, water and food were supplied to the coffin. Emma even had the opportunity to talk with those who were on the surface, using the phone installed in the coffin ...

Society today is accustomed to treating myths, legends, tales as fiction. People are accustomed to judging ancient Civilizations as underdeveloped and primitive. But some material finds in the mines allow us to conclude that representatives ancient civilization, possessing parapsychological abilities, went to the caves of the Himalayas and entered the state of Somati (when the Soul, having left the body and leaving it in a “preserved” state, can return to it at any moment, and it will come to life (this can happen in a day and in a hundred years , and after a million years), thus organizing the Human Gene Pool. According to scientists, sleep is the best medicine. Indeed, the kingdom of Morpheus saves people from many stresses, diseases, and simply relieves fatigue.

It is believed that the duration of sleep normal person is 5-7 hours. But sometimes the line between normal sleep and sleep caused by stress is very thin. It's about about lethargy (Greek lethargia, from lethe - oblivion and argia - inaction), a painful state similar to sleep and characterized by immobility, lack of reactions to external irritation and the absence of all external signs life. People have always been afraid to fall into a lethargic sleep, because there was a danger of being buried alive.

For example, the famous Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, who lived in the 14th century, fell seriously ill at the age of 40. Once he lost consciousness, he was considered dead and were going to be buried. Fortunately, the law of that time forbade burying the dead earlier than a day after death. Waking up almost at his grave, Petrarch said that he felt great. After that, he lived another 30 years.

1838 - in one of the English villages there was a incredible case. During the funeral, when the coffin with the deceased was lowered into the grave and began to be buried, some kind of obscure sound came from there. By the time the frightened cemetery workers came to their senses, dug the coffin and opened it, it was already too late: under the lid they saw a face frozen in horror and despair. And the torn shroud and abraded hands showed that help was late ...

In Germany, in 1773, after screams from the grave, a pregnant woman was exhumed, buried the day before. Eyewitnesses found traces of a brutal struggle for life: the nervous shock of the buried alive provoked premature birth, and the child suffocated in a coffin with his mother ...

The fears of the great writer Nikolai Gogol of being buried alive are well known. The final mental breakdown happened to the writer after the death of the woman he loved endlessly - Ekaterina Khomyakova, the wife of his friend. Gogol was shocked by her death. Soon he burned the manuscript of the second part of "Dead Souls" and went to bed. Doctors advised him to lie down, but the body protected the writer too well: he fell asleep in a sound saving sleep, which at that time was mistaken for death. In 1931, according to the plan for the improvement of Moscow, the Bolsheviks decided to destroy the cemetery of the Danilov Monastery, where Gogol was buried. During the exhumation, those present saw with horror that the skull of the great writer was turned on its side, and the matter in the coffin was torn ...

In England, there is still a law that all mortuary refrigerators must have a bell with a rope so that the revived "dead" can call for help with a bell ringing. In the late 1960s, they created the first apparatus there, which made it possible to capture the smallest electrical activity of the heart. During the testing of the device in the morgue, a living girl was found among the corpses.

The causes of lethargy are not yet known to medicine. Medicine describes cases of people falling into such a dream due to intoxication, large blood loss, hysterical seizure, fainting. It is interesting that when life was threatened (bombing during the war), those who slept in a lethargic sleep woke up, could walk, and after shelling they fell asleep again. The mechanism of aging in those who have fallen asleep is very slow. For 20 years of sleep, they do not change outwardly, but then, in a state of wakefulness, they catch up with their biological age in 2–3 years, turning into old people before our eyes.

Nazira Rustemova from Kazakhstan, being 4th summer child, at first "fell into a state similar to delirium, and then fell into a lethargic sleep." The doctors of the regional hospital considered her dead, and soon the parents buried the girl alive. She was saved only by the fact that, according to Muslim custom, the body of the deceased is not buried in the ground, but wrapped in a shroud and buried in a burial house. Nazira stayed in lethargy for 16 years and woke up when she was about to turn 20. According to Rustemova herself, “on the night after the funeral, her father and grandfather heard a voice in a dream that told them that she was alive,” which made them pay more attention to the "corpse" - they found faint signs life.

The case of the longest, officially registered lethargic sleep, listed in the Guinness Book of Records, occurred in 1954 with Nadezhda Artemovna Lebedina (who was born in 1920 in the village of Mogilev, Dnepropetrovsk region) due to a strong quarrel with her husband. As a result of the resulting stress, Lebedina fell asleep for 20 years and again came to her senses only in 1974. Doctors recognized her as absolutely healthy.

There is another record, for some reason not included in the Guinness Book of Records. Augustine Leggard fell asleep after the stress of childbirth... But she could open her mouth very slowly when she was being fed. 22 years have passed, and the sleeping Augustine remained just as young. But then the woman started up and spoke: “Frederic, it’s probably already late, the child is hungry, I want to feed him!” But instead of a newborn baby, she saw a 22-year-old young woman, like two drops similar to herself ... Soon, however, time took its toll: the awakened woman began to age rapidly, a year later she had already turned into an old woman and died five years later.

There are cases when a lethargic dream arose periodically. One priest from England slept six days a week, and on Sunday he got up to eat and serve a prayer service. Usually, in mild cases of lethargy, there is immobility, muscle relaxation, even breathing, but in severe cases, which are rare, there is a picture of really imaginary death: the skin is cold and pale, the pupils do not react, breathing and pulse are difficult to detect, strong pain irritations do not cause a reaction, reflexes are absent. The best guarantee against lethargy is a quiet life and the absence of stress.

Sopor remains an unsolved puzzle to this day. It is also called "lazy death" or "slow life". Scientific research this phenomenon did not bring definitive results. Regarding the cause, prevention, treatment of the disease, there are more questions than answers. modern medicine capable of detecting and identifying an abnormal condition in time. But "waking up" the patient is still impossible.

Awe of the unknown and incomprehensible once helped the cave people to exist in harsh prehistoric conditions. With the development of mankind, the subject of social, individual phobias has changed. How not to fall into long oblivion - a fear that lurks in the subconscious of almost everyone modern man. In the past, lethargic sleep was a real problem that was widespread. Frequent mass epidemics gave rise to many prejudices. There is a hypothesis that clinical sleep gave rise to all sorts of myths about the living dead.

It's important to know! Taphophobia is the fear of being buried alive. Many famous people experienced him: George Washington, Marina Tsvetaeva, Alfred Nobel, Nikolai Gogol.

“The sleep of reason gives birth to monsters,” a well-known phraseological unit finds repeated historical confirmation.

Here are just a few Interesting Facts on the topic of lethargic sleep:

Common healing methods were: exorcism sessions, dipping in ice water, applying a hot iron to the feet, electric shock. All of the above manipulations did not therapeutic effect, sometimes ended in the death of the sufferer.
An honorary position was the caretaker of the cemetery. His duties included periodic monitoring of the territory for the presence of "revival". Screams, blows from under the ground were a kind of "message" and served as a reason for extracting the "dead".
Human resourcefulness knows no bounds. In the past, due to the lethargic "boom", the production of "safe coffins" has expanded. Everything ingenious is simple - a box with a tube brought up to the top allowed the "revived" person to seek timely help. Adolf Gutsmon in his time made a “break of patterns” by inventing a coffin with an internal supply of food. I tested it myself, having lunch inside with sausages and beer.

Not surprisingly, most of the "saved" people lost their minds. Statistics has preserved a lot of examples when people began to live in a cemetery and "attribute" supernatural abilities to themselves.

Deciphering the term "lethargic dream"

What is a lethargic dream? Translated from the ancient Greek language, lethargy means oblivion and inaction. it pathological condition, which is characterized by a strong slowdown in the functioning of the body. There are two forms: light and heavy.

The first option cannot be called a dream, although the external manifestation resembles it:

breathing is even;
the heart works without changes;
waking up the patient is worth a lot of effort.

The second option can easily be mistaken for death. Since there are practically no external differences:

the pulse rhythm is minimal - about 3 beats per minute;
breathing is not audible;
the skin is devoid of natural pigment, cold to the touch.

The duration of the disease is variable. There are cases when the hours of "oblivion" were extended for decades.

Features of the phenomenon

Lethargy can be a symptom of CFS. Syndrome chronic fatigue- pathological fatigue, which does not disappear even after a long rest. Increased emotional stress and low physical activity provoke the onset of the disease. Potential patients - all residents big cities, businessmen, medical workers, air traffic controllers, logisticians. It is characterized by depression, lethargy, partial memory loss, fits of anger, aggressive behavior.

More about signs

Lethargic sleep is not a coma, not narcolepsy, and not epidemic encephalitis. Over time, doctors learned to tell the difference. Despite the similarity of symptoms, the listed diagnoses differ and require special treatment.

A coma is a severe disease that progresses and is characterized by loss of consciousness, impaired central nervous system, bad breath. A person has no reactions to external stimuli, reflexes. They always enter a coma due to severe complications disease, or as a result of severe brain damage. Unlike lethargy, where vital important processes are slowed down, but continue, with a coma, permanent medical maintenance of body functions is necessary.

It's important to know! People who fall into a lethargic hibernation do not age, and, upon awakening, can boast of excellent health. True, starting active life, a person quickly feels age-related changes. Because time is making up for lost time.

The consequences of a coma are often sad: the patient either dies or remains disabled. rare facts testify to a successful outcome when the patient talks about the details of the "afterlife".

Causes of the condition

The exact causes of lethargic sleep will not be named by any scientist. But researchers agree that such a state appears under the influence of severe stress, which the body cannot cope with, and therefore falls into the mode of maximum "energy conservation". There is an assumption that an unknown virus is to blame, as a result of which the European population “suffered” at the dawn of the 20th century.

The most attentive doctors suspected a connection between frequent sore throats and severe oblivion. As a result, a mutated staphylococcus aureus was named as the suspected cause.

There are many versions, but all studies agree on one thing: the development of a deep inhibitory process in the brain causes lethargy.

Duration

The illness can last from a few hours to months. At one time, the record was set by Ivan Kachalkin, which made him famous in scientific circles. He had a lethargic dream for 22 years. The patient was under the supervision of I.P. Pavlova. A well-known academician described the details: “The state of a living corpse without movements and minimal external manifestations". The recumbent was fed with a tube, by the age of sixty the patient was able to visit the restroom and sometimes eat on his own.

Awakening and aftermath

Modern medicine has not yet invented a way to wake up from the "slow life". When the patient wakes up, no one can predict. True, Indian yogis know how to fall into a lethargic sleep and voluntarily come out of it. Unfortunately, most people do not have this degree of enlightenment.

Usually the awakened person is healthy, but remembers the day the illness began. real case occurred in Latin America: the girl slept from six years to twenty-three. After waking up, she immediately began to play with dolls, since her mental memory remained in childhood. The famous poet Petrarch died only 30 years after a lethargic sleep. During these years, the life of the legendary personality was fruitful, he even managed to receive a laurel wreath as a reward.

Death and lethargic sleep: how to distinguish

Today, the fear of being buried alive has no serious basis. The occurrence of lethargic sleep is ultimately investigated by doctors. With the help of special devices, the brain and heart activity of the body is analyzed. The totality of the results may indicate the presence of "life". Then the doctors carefully examine the person's torso, recognize the damage important organs, exclude signs of smoldering of tissues. The third stage is a blood test (flow strength, chemical analysis). If a medical examination determines the presence of lethargy, the patient is sent for treatment.

Home care or hospital

Close relatives decide to stay at home, or to be under the direct supervision of medical staff, based on real strengths and capabilities. There is no need for clinical intervention.

Treatment is symptomatic, so an important component of care is the organization of feeding (“with a spoon” or through an umbrella) and careful hygiene of the patient.

Advice! Often, awakened people note that during sleep they perfectly hear the surrounding sounds. Therefore, the immediate environment is advised to talk with the patient more often. positive aspect with the syndrome of "lazy death" can be considered the absence of danger to life.

Realistic descriptions of cases of lethargy

Various cases of lethargic sleep and further awakening are striking in their drama. Some are worthy of becoming an interesting plot of a thriller, "horror" or comedy:

France, 19th century, in a rich house, the head of the family faints. The doctor confirmed - death. The closest relatives wanted to share the inheritance without putting the matter on the back burner. The process turned into a grandiose scandal, during which the "deceased" was not spared. What a surprise it was when the deceased sat down in the coffin just in the midst of the funeral service and said that he had heard everything. The end of the story remains a mystery.
An example from the recent past: 2011, the city of Sevastopol. One of the local mortuaries was rented by a metal band to prepare for concerts. The place is ideal both in style and soundproofing. One fine day, the guys tried especially hard and woke up a man who was considered a corpse. Rockers ran to the screams coming from the refrigerator, the unfortunate man was saved. But I had to rehearse in another place.
A resident of Norway fell asleep due to the stress caused by childbirth. The illness went on for a long time. A woman woke up after 20 years as young as at the time of the “blackout”. Sitting next to the home bed Old man and an older girl. As it turned out - husband and daughter. In less than a year, the awakened woman began to look in accordance with her age.

The surrounding world is still fraught with many mysteries. Let's hope that the human mind will eventually find the missing pieces of the "puzzle" and cope with the next task.

Conclusion

A lethargic dream is a kind of "horror story". Spending a certain life period in the "land of dreams" is not the best prospect. But an adult differs from a child in the ability to deal with his own phobias. Excellent assistants in this matter are knowledge and common sense. The evolution in the field of medicine makes it possible to identify and diagnose lethargy. Emotional stability, an ironic attitude to life are indispensable conditions for health and full-fledged activity.

Lethargy comes from the Greek lethe "forgetfulness" and argia "inaction". This is not just one of the varieties of sleep, but a real disease. In a person in a lethargic dream, everything slows down life processes body - the heartbeat becomes rare, breathing is superficial and imperceptible, there is almost no reaction to external stimuli.

How long can lethargic sleep last

Lethargy can be mild or severe. In the case of the first, a person has noticeable breathing, he retains a partial perception of the world - the patient looks like a deeply sleeping person. In a severe form, it becomes like a dead man - the body turns cold and turns pale, the pupils stop responding to light, breathing becomes so imperceptible that even with the help of a mirror it is difficult to determine its presence. Such a patient begins to lose weight, biological discharge stops. In general, even at the modern level of medicine, the presence of life in such a patient is determined only with the help of an ECG and chemical analysis blood. What to say about the early eras, when humanity did not know the concept of "lethargy", and any cold and unresponsive person would be considered a dead man.

The length of a lethargic sleep is unpredictable, as is the length of a coma. An attack can last from several hours to decades. There is a known case observed by Academician Pavlov. He came across a patient who "overslept" the revolution. Kachalkin was lethargic from 1898 to 1918. After waking up, he said that he understood everything that was happening around him, but "felt a terrible, irresistible heaviness in the muscles, so that it was even difficult for him to breathe."

The reasons

Despite the case described above, lethargy is most common in women. Especially those who are prone to hysteria. A person can fall asleep after severe emotional stress, as happened with Nadezhda Lebedina in 1954. After a quarrel with her husband, she fell asleep and woke up only after 20 years. Moreover, according to the recollections of relatives, she reacted emotionally to what was happening. True, the patient herself does not remember this.

In addition to stress, schizophrenia can also cause lethargy. For example, Kachalkin, mentioned by us, suffered from it. In such cases, according to doctors, sleep can become a natural response to an illness.

In some cases, lethargy arose as a result of serious head injuries, with severe poisoning, significant blood loss and physical exhaustion. A resident of Norway, Augustine Leggard, fell asleep after giving birth for 22 years.

Can lead to lethargic sleep side effects and an overdose of strong medicines, for example, interferon - an antiviral and antitumor drug. In this case, to bring the patient out of lethargy, it is enough to stop taking the medicine.

AT recent times there are more and more opinions about viral causes lethargy. Yes, doctors medical sciences Russell Dale and Andrew Church, having studied the history of twenty patients with lethargy, revealed a pattern that many of the patients had a sore throat before falling asleep. Further searches bacterial infection revealed a rare form of streptococci in all these patients. Based on this, the scientists decided that the bacteria that caused angina changed their properties, overcame immune defenses and caused inflammation of the midbrain. Such damage to the nervous system could provoke an attack of lethargic sleep.

taphophobia

With the realization of lethargy as a disease, came phobias. Today, taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive, is one of the most common in the world. her in different time such famous personalities as Schopenhauer, Nobel, Gogol, Tsvetaeva and Edgar Poe suffered. The latter devoted many works to his fear. His story “Buried Alive” describes many cases of lethargic sleep that ended in failure: “I peered; and by the will of the unseen, who was still squeezing my wrist, all the graves on the face of the earth were opened before me. But alas! Not all of them fell into a deep sleep, many millions more were others who had not died forever; I saw that many, seemingly resting in the world, in one way or another changed those frozen, uncomfortable postures in which they were buried."

Taphophobia is reflected not only in literature, but also in law and scientific thought. As early as 1772, the Duke of Mecklenburg introduced a mandatory postponement of funerals until the third day after death to prevent the possibility of being buried alive. Soon this measure was adopted in a number of European countries. From the 19th century, safe coffins began to be produced, equipped with a means of salvation for the “accidentally buried”. Emmanuel Nobel made for himself one of the first crypts with ventilation and signaling (a bell, which was set in motion with a rope installed in the coffin). Subsequently, the inventors Franz Western and Johan Tabernag invented a bell protection against accidental ringing, equipped the coffin with a mosquito net, and installed drainage to avoid flooding with rainwater.

Safe coffins exist to this day. The modern model was invented and patented in 1995 by the Italian Fabrizio Caseli. His project included an alarm, a communication system like an intercom, a flashlight, breathing apparatus, a heart monitor, and a pacemaker.

Why Sleepers Don't Get Old

Paradoxically, in the case of a long lethargy, a person practically does not change. He doesn't even age. In the cases described above, both women, Nadezhda Lebedina and Augustine Leggard, corresponded to their previous age during sleep. But as soon as their life acquired a normal rhythm, the years took their toll. So, during the first year after awakening, Augustine aged dramatically, and Nadezhda's body caught up with its "fifty kopeck" in less than six months. Doctors recall: “What we managed to observe is unforgettable! She is aging before our eyes. Every day added new wrinkles, gray hair.

What is the secret of the youth of sleeping people, and how the body so quickly returns the lost years, scientists have yet to find out.

The Latin saying says that the most definite thing in life is death, and the hour of life belongs to uncertainty. But in life there are situations when there is no real opportunity draw a clear line between life and death. Our article will focus on lethargic sleep, as one of the most incomprehensible states of the body, which cannot be explained by scientists from all over the world. What is a lethargic dream?

Lethargic sleep is a painful state of a person, very close and similar to sleep, which is characterized by immobility, lack of reactions to any external stimuli, and also a sharp decline all outward signs of life.

Lethargic sleep can last as long as several hours, or stretch out to several weeks, and only in rare cases reaches several months or years. Lethargic sleep is also observed in a hypnotic state

Lethargic sleep - causes

The causes of lethargic sleep are such conditions as hysteria, general exhaustion -, strong excitement, stress

Signs of lethargic sleep

It is very difficult to distinguish a sleeping person from a dead person. Breathing is imperceptible, body temperature becomes the same as environment; the heartbeat is barely perceptible (up to 3 beats per minute).

Waking up, a person instantly catches up with his calendar age. People age at lightning speed

Lethargic sleep - symptoms

In a lethargic sleep, the consciousness of the sleeping person is usually preserved and the patients perceive and remember everything around them, but they cannot react to it.

It is necessary to be able to distinguish and isolate the disease from encephalitis, as well as narcolepsy. In the most severe cases, a picture of imaginary death appears, when the skin becomes cold and pale, and the pupils completely stop responding to light, while breathing, as well as the pulse, is difficult to feel, decreases arterial pressure, and increased painful irritations are not able to cause any reactions. For several days, the sick do not drink or eat, there is a cessation of urine and feces, there is a sharp weight loss and dehydration of the body.

Only in mild cases of sleep is there stillness, even breathing, muscle relaxation, rare twitching of the eyelids, and rolling eyeballs. Able to retain the ability to swallow, as well as chewing and swallowing movements. Partially capable of preserving the perception of the environment. If feeding is impossible, the process of maintaining the body is carried out using a probe.

The symptoms are difficult to define and what nature they would not be, there are a lot of unanswered questions.

Some doctors attribute the disease to metabolic disorders, while others consider it one of the pathologies of sleep. foundation latest version studies have been carried out American doctor Eugene Azerinsky. The doctor deduced an interesting pattern: in the phase of slow sleep, the human body is like a motionless mummy, and only after half an hour the person begins to toss and turn, and also pronounce words. And if it is at this time that a person awakens, then it will be very fast, as well as easy. After such an awakening, the sleeper remembers what he dreamed about. Later this phenomenon was explained as follows: in the phase REM sleep the activity of the nervous system is extremely high. It is in the phase of shallow, superficial sleep that varieties of lethargic sleep fall. Therefore, coming out of this state, patients are able to describe in detail what happened when they were supposedly unconscious.

Due to prolonged immobility, a person returns to the world due to sleep with a bunch of diseases (pressure sores, blood vessels, septic damage to the kidneys, as well as bronchi).

The longest lethargic dream occurred with 34-year-old Nadezhda Lebedina after a quarrel with her husband. The woman fell asleep in a state of shock and slept for 20 years. This case is listed in the Guinness book.

Gogol's lethargic dream was mistakenly perceived as death. This was evidenced by the discovered scratches on the inner lining of the coffin, and individual fragments of the fabric were under the nails, and the position of the body of the brilliant writer was changed

Lethargic sleep - treatment

The problem of treatment remains to this day. From the end of the 1930s, short-term awakening began to be used in this way: first, a sleeping pill was administered intravenously, and then an exciting drug. This method of treatment allowed a living corpse to come to its senses for ten minutes. Hypnosis sessions were also effective in treatment.

Often, after waking up, people claim that they have become owners of unusual abilities: they spoke foreign languages, began to read minds, as well as heal ailments.

To this day, the frozen state of the body is a mystery. Presumably, this is inflammation of the brain, which makes the body tired and it falls asleep.

Lethargic sleep is one of the sleep disorders that is extremely rare. The duration of such a state can last from several hours to several days, less often - up to several months. Only a few dozen cases have been recorded in the world when a lethargic dream lasted several years.

The longest "sleep hour" was recorded in 1954 by Nadezhda Lebedina, who woke up only twenty years later.

Causes

To date, medicine can not yet answer with certainty what is the cause of this condition. Based on many data, lethargic sleep is primarily due to the occurrence of a deep inhibitory process that occurs in the cut of the brain. Most often, such a disorder occurs after suffering severe and emotional shocks, nervous imbalance, hysteria, against the background of physical exhaustion.

Such a dream stops as suddenly as it began.

Symptoms of lethargic sleep

The symptoms of lethargic sleep disorder are quite simple. The person is sleeping without being disturbed physiological processes(I don’t feel like eating, drinking, getting up, and so on), the metabolism in the body decreases. The patient has practically no reactions to external stimuli.

Mild cases of lethargic sleep are characterized by the immobility of the patient, while his eyes are closed, breathing is even, not interrupted, the muscles are completely relaxed. In this form, this type of disorder has the appearance of just a full-fledged deep sleep.

The severe form has distinctive features:

Muscular hypotension;
Paleness of the skin;
There is no reaction to external stimuli;
Arterial pressure is lowered;
Some reflexes are missing;
The pulse is practically undetectable.

In any case, after waking up, a person should be registered with a doctor for further monitoring of his body.

Diagnosis of the disease

Lethargic sleep should be distinguished from narcolepsy, epidemic and coma. This is very important, since the methods of treatment for all these diseases differ significantly from each other.

Conduct any research or laboratory tests does not seem possible. In this case, it only remains to wait until the patient wakes up and independently tells about his feelings.

Treatment Methods

Actually, the methods of treatment are purely individual. With lethargic sleep, it is not necessary to hospitalize the patient. It is enough just to leave him under the close supervision of relatives and friends. It is worth noting that a person with such a disorder should be provided normal conditions activity in order to avoid subsequent problems upon awakening. What does it mean?