Mysterious lethargic dream: interesting facts from around the world. Lethargic sleep - what is it?

Lethargy is defensive reaction organism to danger, genetically programmed and dating back to ancient forms of dormancy.

Many were the result of or were associated with circumstances dangerous to humans.

Suddenly falling into sleep, a person literally escapes from cruel reality, but he himself does not realize it.

An attack of lethargy can be provoked various reasons: strong nervous stress, fainting, hysterical shock, exhaustion, etc. The duration of sleep can be different: several hours or tens of years.

Lethargic sleep our compatriot Nadezhda Lebedina is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records. Nadezhda fell asleep in 1954 after a serious quarrel with her husband, and woke up 20 years later, and was absolutely healthy.

Modern medicine practically does not use the phrase “lethargic sleep” in relation to this phenomenon; terms such as hysterical lethargy or hysterical are applied to it.

And hysterical lethargy have nothing in common. An electroencephalogram showed that during the attack the patient slept for some time in real sleep; this form of sleep was called “sleep within a dream.”

The electroencephalograph records that corresponding to the waking state, the brain reacts to external stimuli, but the sleeper does not wake up. It is impossible to forcibly withdraw from an attack of lethargy; it ends as unexpectedly as it begins.

Sometimes the attack can recur more than once. In this case, the patient feels it approaching characteristic features. Since an attack is always caused by a strong emotional stress or nervous shock, then the vegetative response is primarily:

• headaches, lethargic state, increased blood pressure and body temperature, increased heart rate, increased sweating.

A person feels as if he is doing hard physical work. Mental trauma, causing an attack Lethargy can be very severe or very insignificant: to people susceptible to hysteria, it even seems like the end of the world.

Disconnecting from the outside world with its problems, patients unconsciously go to sleep.

Before the invention of the electroencephalograph, which recorded brain biocurrents, there was a possibility of being buried alive during an attack of lethargy. This is not surprising, because in a severe form of the disease, the sleeping person does not show any signs of life, it is not for nothing that the meaning of the word lethargy is translated from Greek as “imaginary death” or “small life”.

Nowadays in England there is still a law obliging morgues to have a bell so that the “dead person” who suddenly comes to life can announce his resurrection.

Lethargic sleep has occupied the human imagination for a long time. Pushkin’s dead princess, who lay under the wing of sleep, fresh and quiet, “just like.”

The Sleeping Beauty from the fairy tale of the French poet Charles Perrault, The Bogatyr Stream A.K. Tolstoy - world literature abounds with poetic characters who have slept through the lethargic sleep of a decade, year or century. According to legend, Epimenides of Crete, an ancient Greek poet, slept for 57 years in the cave of Zeus.

The characters in fairy tales and poems differ little from the lethargic sleep of patients in neurological clinics. The difference from the Dead Princess is that they breathe, but very weakly, and their heart beats so quietly and rarely that they can but think about the death of the patient.

Characteristic signs of lethargic sleep:

• decline physical manifestations life, metabolism, heart rate, breathing, pulse, lack of reaction to pain and sound.
• For a long time, a person does not eat or drink, loses weight, dehydration occurs, and there are no physiological functions.

There is also a case of long-term lethargy that occurred with preserved function of eating.

Mental development in a long lethargic sleep is inhibited. A six-year-old girl fell asleep in Buenos Aires and plunged into lethargy for 25 years. Waking up mature woman, she asked where her dolls were.

Lethargy often stops. Beatrice Hubert, a resident of Brussels, slept for twenty years. Awakening from sleep, she was as young as she had been before her lethargy. True, this miracle did not last long, in a year she made up for her physical age - she aged 20 years.

Cases of lethargic sleep

During the First World War, soldiers and some residents of front-line cities could not be awakened.

Mario Tello, a nineteen-year-old Argentinean, heard about the assassination of her idol, President Kennedy, and fell asleep for seven years.

A similar story happened with one official in India. Bopalkhand Lodha, Minister public works State of Jodhpur was removed from office due to circumstances unknown to him. He demanded an investigation from the state government, but the resolution of his issue was delayed for one and a half months.

All this time Bopalkhand lived in a constant state and suddenly fell into a lethargic sleep that lasted seven years. During sleep, Lodha never opened his eyes, did not speak, and lay as if dead.

He was given proper care: food and vitamins were supplied through rubber tubes inserted into his nostrils, his body was turned over every half hour to avoid blood stagnation, and his muscles were massaged.

Perhaps he would have slept longer if it had not been for malaria. The temperature rose to forty degrees, and the next day dropped to 35. The former minister moved his fingers that day, soon opened his eyes, and a month later he was able to turn his head and sit on his own.

Only six months later his vision returned, and he finally recovered from lethargy a year later. Six years later, he celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday.

In the 14th century, Francesco Petrarch, an Italian poet, became seriously ill and fell into a lethargic sleep for several days. He was considered dead as he showed no signs of life. During the burial ceremony, the poet comes to life literally at the edge of the grave. He was then forty years old, and for another thirty he lived and worked happily.

Milkmaid Kalinicheva Praskovya from the Ulyanovsk region began to suffer periodic attacks lethargy since 1947, when her husband was arrested after the wedding. The fear that she could not do it alone pushed her to have an abortion from a healer. Neighbors reported her, and Praskovya was arrested and exiled to Siberia - at that time abortions were prohibited.

There she had her first attack while working. The guards decided that she had died. But the doctor, having examined Kalinicheva, stated that the woman had fallen into a lethargic sleep, that this was her body reacting to the stress and hard work she had experienced.

After returning to her native village, Praskovya gets a job on a farm; attacks overtake her in a club, in a store, at work. The villagers are so accustomed to her strange behavior that they immediately took the fallen woman to the hospital.

Lethargic sleep with medical point vision is a disease. The word “lethargy” itself comes from the Greek lethe (oblivion) ​​and argia (inaction). In a person in lethargic sleep, the life processes body - metabolism decreases, breathing becomes shallow and unnoticeable, reactions to external stimuli are weakened or completely disappear.

Scientists have not established the exact causes of lethargic sleep, but it has been noted that lethargy can occur after severe hysterical attacks, anxiety, stress, or when the body is exhausted.

Lethargic sleep can be either light or heavy. A patient with a severe “form” of lethargy may look like dead person. His skin becomes cold and pale, he does not respond to light or pain, his breathing is so shallow that it may not be noticeable, and his pulse is practically not palpable. His physiological state worsens - he loses weight, biological secretions stop.

Mild lethargy causes less radical changes in the body - the patient remains motionless, relaxed, but he retains even breathing and partial perception of the world.

It is impossible to predict the end and beginning of lethargy. However, as does the duration of being in sleep: cases have been recorded when the patient slept for many years. For example, the famous academician Ivan Pavlov described a case when a certain sick Kachalkin was in a lethargic sleep for 20 years, from 1898 to 1918. His heart beat very rarely - 2/3 times per minute. In the Middle Ages, there were many stories about how people who were in a lethargic sleep were buried alive. These stories often had a basis in reality and frightened people, so much so that, for example, the writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol asked to be buried only when signs of decomposition appeared on his body. Moreover, during the exhumation of the writer’s remains in 1931, it was discovered that his skull was turned on its side. Experts attributed the change in the position of the skull to the pressure of a rotten coffin lid.

Currently, doctors have learned to distinguish lethargy from real death, however, it has still not been possible to find a “cure” for lethargic sleep.

What is the difference between lethargy and coma?

Distant properties of these two physical phenomena exist. Coma occurs as a result physical influences, injuries, damage. The nervous system is in a depressed state, and physical life supported artificially. As with lethargic sleep, a person does not react to external stimuli. You can get out of a coma in the same way as with lethargy, on your own, but more often this happens with the help of therapy and treatment.

Burial alive - is it real?

First of all, let's determine that deliberate burial alive is criminally punishable and is regarded as murder with particular cruelty (Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

However, one of the most common human phobias, taphophobia is the fear of being buried alive unintentionally, by mistake. In fact, the chances of being buried alive are very low. Modern science There are known ways to determine that a person has definitely died.

Firstly, if doctors suspect the possibility of lethargic sleep, they must take an electrocardiogram or electroencephalogram, which records the activity of the human brain and cardiac activity. If a person is alive, similar procedure will give results even if the patient does not respond to external stimuli.

Next, medical experts conduct a thorough examination of the patient's body, looking for signs of death. This can be either obvious damage to body organs that is incompatible with life (for example, traumatic brain injury), or numbness of the body, cadaveric spots, signs of rotting. In addition, a person lies in the morgue for 1-2 days, during which visible cadaveric signs should appear.

If doubts arise, capillary bleeding is checked with a light incision, and a chemical blood test is performed. In addition, doctors check big picture the patient’s health status - whether there were any signs that may indicate that the patient fell into a lethargic sleep. Let's say if he had any observations hysterical fits whether he was losing weight, whether he complained of headaches and weakness, or a decrease in blood pressure.

Lethargic sleep is one of the most unknown and least studied phenomena human body. It is so rare that the concept itself has acquired a magical aura. This phenomenon has a second name - imaginary death, and this is quite understandable. Despite the fact that the person is not dead, he falls asleep so deeply that it is almost impossible to wake him up. At the same time, everything vital functions It’s not that they stop and stop their activities, but they slow down so much that they can be very difficult to notice. Essentially, they freeze.

Outwardly and at first glance, lethargic sleep (lethargy) is no different from normal sleep. A sleeping person can cause concern to those around him only if he does not wake up during the day, especially if he does not even change his position all this time. Of course, if this is not the result of too much overwork, when a person is able to sleep for a day.

WITH scientific point sight, lethargy is painful condition related to:

• emotional shock;
• mental disorder;
• severe physical (anorexia) or mental exhaustion.

A person stops reacting to any irritants, all processes in the body practically stop. Even the pulse and breathing become so weak and superficial that an inexperienced person can mistake this condition for death, although the brain continues to work actively.

More often women, and mostly young ones, fall into lethargy.

Scientists explain "care" in deep sleep an attempt to isolate oneself from problems and experiences. That is, this is a kind of protective reaction of the body. Most likely, this is so - there are many known cases when, during strong emotional experiences, a person constantly falls asleep (of course, in this case not lethargic). Similarly, the body defends itself by trying to conserve energy during illness. That is why it is believed that sleep is best medicine.

There is usually no treatment for such conditions. However, with long-term inexplicable dream recommended to pass comprehensive examination to identify true reasons such a long sleep.

Considering that human brain has been studied very poorly so far, and all hypotheses are based mostly on assumptions and subjective interpretations of research results; the causes of lethargic sleep are still unknown. Scientists believe that this is the result of a strong slowdown in processes in the cerebral cortex.

However, the main factors that could provoke this condition can be identified:

• mental disorder(hysteria, depression, nervous breakdown);
• physical exhaustion (prolonged fasting, anorexia, severe blood loss);
• a rare form of streptococcus that causes tonsillitis.

According to the observations of scientists, lethargy is often inherent in people who have had a sore throat, and the infection had a special, rather rare form. It is believed that it is this infection that causes lethargy.

Despite the fact that outwardly lethargy looks the same as normal sleep, it is a completely different process. Until a certain time, it was impossible to distinguish between them - the only difference could be only the duration of such “sleep,” which sometimes cost people their lives. Fortunately, modern technology and advances in medicine over many years have made it possible to distinguish between normal sleep, lethargy, coma and death.

There are two ways to help determine for sure that a person is at least alive:

1. Electroencephalogram.
2. Pupil reaction to light.

The first case is more scientific and, naturally, more reliable. Its essence lies in the fact that the encephalograph records nerve impulses in the brain. During normal sleep, the brain is at rest, or at least less active than during wakefulness. When a person dies, his brain also dies, that is, no activity will be recorded. But during lethargic sleep, when a person seems to be just sleeping, his brain works the same way as in active phase. It is in such a situation that lethargy can be stated or at least assumed.

Interestingly, waking up from a lethargic sleep is as sudden and unpredictable as falling asleep.

The reaction of the pupils is the easiest way to understand whether a person is alive. If he has fallen into a lethargic sleep, then, as already mentioned, the body’s activity does not stop, so the pupils will react to the stimulus in any case, even if the other receptors have turned off.

It is possible to clearly record the symptoms of lethargic sleep mainly only when it manifests itself in acute form.

The condition is characterized the following signs:

1. Cold and pale skin.
2. Hypotension muscle tissue.
3. Reduced blood pressure.
4. Weak pulse (up to 2-3 beats per minute).
5. Exchange processes are slowing down.

When similar condition flows into more mild form, the person retains chewing reflexes, the eyelids twitch in response to light. The brain is in an active phase.

It is possible to distinguish lethargic sleep from coma only instrumental methods. During coma, the activity of the central nervous system is suppressed nervous system and reflexes, many body functions are blocked, breathing and blood circulation are impaired. In lethargic sleep, even in severe form, this is not observed.

It is known that many famous people They were very afraid of the state of lethargic sleep. This was mainly due to the fear of being buried alive. The most famous story of this nature talks about the famous mystical writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The writer bequeathed to bury him only when traces of decomposition of the corpse become noticeable. According to Gogol scholars, he really suffered from the fact that he periodically fell into a lethargic sleep, hence the fear. At one time there was even a version that he was actually buried in lethargy, and when he woke up, he suffocated in the grave from lack of oxygen.

But this is nothing more than a fictional, albeit interesting, story. The writer was a famous mystic and was not afraid to describe in his works characters that others were afraid to even mention in their thoughts. Such fame as a writer made this story more believable. In fact, Gogol died from psychosis, which he suffered, probably due to his phobia.

Another famous case- the awakening of the medieval poet Francesco Petrarch while preparing his own funeral. The poet, however, fell asleep for only 20 hours. After this incident he lived another 30 years.

There are cases of the last decade when people came to life in the morgue or were buried alive, but were removed from the coffin literally immediately because they began to make sounds. The coffin was immediately opened, but in none of these cases the person could be saved. The main characters of such stories were people different ages and different genders.

Another interesting fact has been repeatedly used in cinema and literature. When a person fell asleep for several decades, and woke up in a completely new, changed world. The curious thing in this case is that over all these years he did not turn into a decrepit old man, but woke up at the same age at which he fell asleep. There is obviously some truth in this phenomenon, at least this phenomenon can be explained - since all processes in the body slow down almost to a standstill, it is logical that the aging process also freezes.

The longest sleep was recorded for a resident of the Dnepropetrovsk region. She quarreled with her husband and fell into lethargy for 20 years, after which she woke up. This incident occurred in 1954 and was included in the Guinness Book of Records.

After some time, the same phenomenon occurred in Norway. The woman fell into a lethargic sleep after giving birth and slept for 22 years, and when she woke up, she looked just as young. However, after a year she appearance changed and became age appropriate.

Another case occurred in Turkestan. The four-year-old girl who fell asleep was buried by her parents, thinking that she had died. But that same night they had a dream that their daughter was alive. So, the girl slept for another 16 years, being all this time at a research institute, after which she woke up and felt quite well and could walk normally. According to the girl’s stories, she lived in her dream and communicated with her ancestor.

Marina SARYCHEVA

“After severe suffering, death or a state that was considered death occurred... All were revealed usual signs death. His face became haggard, his features became sharper. Lips became whiter than marble. The eyes became cloudy. Rigor has set in. The heart didn't beat. She lay there like that for three days, and during this time her body became hard as stone.”

You, of course, recognized Edgar Allan Poe’s famous story “Buried Alive”?

In the literature of the past, this plot - the burial of living people who fell into a lethargic sleep (translated as “imaginary death” or “small life”) - was quite popular. Famous masters of words turned to him more than once, describing with great drama the horror of awakening in a gloomy crypt or in a coffin. For centuries, the state of lethargy has been shrouded in an aura of mysticism, mystery and horror. The fear of falling into a lethargic sleep and being buried alive was so common that many writers became hostages of their own consciousness and suffered psychological illness called taphophobia. Let's give a few examples.

F. Petrarch. The famous Italian poet, who lived in the 14th century, became seriously ill at the age of 40. One day he lost consciousness, he was considered dead and was about to be buried. Fortunately, the law of that time prohibited burying the dead earlier than one day after death. The predecessor of the Renaissance woke up after a sleep that lasted 20 hours, almost near his grave. Much to the surprise of everyone present, he said that he felt great. After this incident, Petrarch lived for another 30 years, but all this time he experienced incredible fear at the thought of being accidentally buried alive.

N.V. Gogol. The great writer was afraid that he would be buried alive. It must be said that the creator of “Dead Souls” had some reasons for this. The fact is that in his youth Gogol suffered malarial encephalitis. The disease made itself felt throughout his life and was accompanied by deep fainting followed by sleep. Nikolai Vasilyevich feared that during one of these attacks he might be mistaken for dead and buried. IN recent years he was so scared of life that he preferred not to go to bed and slept sitting up so that his sleep would be more sensitive.

However, in May 1931, when the cemetery of the Danilov Monastery in Moscow, where the great writer was buried, was destroyed in Moscow, during the exhumation those present were horrified to discover that Gogol’s skull was turned to one side. However, modern scientists refute the writer’s basis for lethargic sleep.

W. Collins. The famous English writer and playwright also suffered from taphophobia. As relatives and friends of the author of the novel “The Moonstone” say, he experienced such severe torment that every night he left a “suicide note” on his table by his bed, in which he asked to be 100% sure of his death and only then bury his body.

M.I. Tsvetaeva. Before her suicide, the great Russian poetess left a letter asking her to carefully check whether she really died. Indeed, in recent years, her taphophobia has worsened greatly.

In total, Marina Ivanovna left three suicide notes: one of them was intended for his son, the second for the Aseevs, and the third for the “evacuees,” those who would bury her. It is noteworthy that the original note to the “evacuees” was not preserved - it was seized by the police as evidence and then lost. The paradox is that it contains a request to check whether Tsvetaeva has died and whether she is not in a lethargic sleep. The text of the note to the “evacuees” is known from the list that the son was allowed to make.

WITH Greek language“lethargy” is translated as “imaginary death” or “small life.” Scientists still cannot say how to treat this condition, or name exact reasons, provoking an attack of the disease. Doctors indicate possible sources of lethargy severe stress, hysteria, big loss blood and general exhaustion. So, in Astana, a girl fell into a lethargic sleep after the teacher reprimanded her. Out of resentment, the child began to cry, but not with ordinary tears, but with bloody tears. In the hospital where she was taken, the girl’s body began to go numb, after which she fell asleep. Doctors diagnosed lethargy.

Those who have fallen into lethargic sleep more than once claim that before the next attack they begin to have a headache and feel lethargic in their muscles.

According to those who woke up, throughout their lethargic sleep they can hear what is happening around them, they are simply too weak to react. Doctors also confirm this. When studying the graph of electrical activity in the brains of patients with lethargy, it was found that their brains work in the same way as when awake.

If the illness is mild, the person looks as if he is sleeping. However, when severe form he can easily be mistaken for a dead man. The heartbeat slows down to 2-3 beats per minute, biological secretions practically stop, the skin becomes pale and cold, and breathing is so light that even a mirror raised to the mouth is unlikely to fog up. It is important to distinguish hibernation due to encephalitis or narcolepsy from lethargic sleep.

It is impossible to predict how long lethargic sleep will last: a person can fall asleep for several hours or oversleep for many years. There is a known case when an English priest slept six days a week and woke up only on Sunday to eat and serve a prayer service.

AiF.ru talks about the most interesting cases"imaginary death"

We didn't wait

Medieval poet Francesco Petrarca woke up from a lethargic sleep in the midst of preparations for his funeral. The predecessor of the Renaissance woke up from a sleep that lasted 20 hours, and, much to the surprise of everyone present, declared that he felt great. After this curious incident, Petrarch lived another 30 years and was even crowned with a laurel wreath for his works in 1341.

After a quarrel

If the medieval poet slept for only 20 hours, then there were cases when lethargic sleep lasted for several years. Officially, the longest bout of lethargic sleep is considered to be a case Nadezhda Lebedina from Dnepropetrovsk, who slept for 20 years after a quarrel with her husband in 1954. The woman suddenly regained consciousness upon hearing about the death of her mother. After awakening, Lebedina, who eventually got into the Guinness Book of Records, lived for another 20 years.

22 years in a flash

Since body functions slow down during lethargic sleep, patients practically do not age. Native of Norway Augustine Linggard fell asleep in 1919 due to the stress of childbirth and slept for 22 years. Throughout all these years, she remained as young as on the day of the attack. Opening her eyes in 1941, she saw her old husband near her bed and already adult daughter. However, the effect of youth in such cases does not last long. Within a year, the Norwegian looked her age.

First things first, dolls

Lethargy slows down and mental development. So, the first thing a 25-year-old girl from Buenos Aires wanted to do when she woke up from a lethargic sleep was to play with dolls. An adult woman at the time of her awakening, she fell asleep when she was only six years old and simply did not realize how much she had grown.

Concert in the morgue

There were cases when patients in lethargic sleep were found already in the morgue. In December 2011, in one of the morgues in Simferopol, a man woke up from a long sleep to the sounds of heavy metal. One of the city's rock bands used the morgue as their rehearsal space. The room was well combined with the image of the group, and so they could be sure that their music would not disturb anyone. During one of the rehearsals, the metalheads heard screams coming from one of the refrigeration units. The man, whose name has not been released, was released. And after this incident, the group found another place for rehearsals.

However, the case in Simferopol is a rarity in modern world. After the invention of the electroencephalograph - a device that records the biocurrents of the brain - the danger of being buried alive was practically reduced to zero.