The man who doesn't sleep. The Man Who Never Sleeps: A Phenomenon Unexplained by Science

“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 Piraha, " 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 this new person you won’t like it - you’ll simply stop being yourself if you sleep 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 slowly changes 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, Pirahã change their name every 6-7 years, and for each age they have their own suitable names, so you can always tell by name we're talking about about a child, teenager, youth, man or 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 suit themselves fasting days. They practice therapeutic fasting even when there is enough food in the village.

A language problem has led to 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 to be simply 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.

Besides, interesting fact: Pirahã consider dreams part of their reality life experience and talk about dream events as if they happened in reality.

As a result, according to eyewitnesses:

People who never sleep are characterized by increased cheerfulness.

True, it would be nice not to participate in social games in general, and in games of “shame, guilt, resentment” in particular.”

I wonder if it is possible to experience such cheerfulness within the framework of modern civilization?..

If a person is deprived of sleep for 7 days, then starting from the 5th day, high risk die from lack of sleep - for example, from heart attack due to hallucinations. This is how humans are designed - we need to recuperate after a day's work. During sleep, the subconscious is actively involved in the work, processing information accumulated during the day occurs. The muscles of the body are resting, internal organs calmly occupied with their functioning, consciousness is turned off. Why is it so important to go to bed at the right time? sufficient quantity time and under no circumstances deprive yourself of sleep for a long time? This is easy to understand if you trace what happens to a person suffering from insomnia. various reasons. The consequences are dire...

1st day
1 day without sleep is quite a bit. Surely you will remember a situation when you didn’t have to go to bed for a whole day. Fatigue, bad memory and concentration, wandering attention, headache, indigestion is what is usually observed after sleepless night. Memory and attention cannot function normally due to the fact that neocortex did not recover overnight. All systems in the body are connected, which is why other organs react to lack of sleep. For health, 1 day cannot cause significant damage, but the state of health is very unpleasant.

2–3rd day
Not only attention is impaired, but also coordination of movements. Frontal lobes brain cannot work normally without proper rest, because creative thinking you can forget. A person left without sleep for 3 days is in a state of nervous exhaustion. May occur nervous tic, panic attacks. The appetite will increase, because under stress the body will secrete a large number of the hormone cortisol, which promotes uncontrollable food eating. I want fried, salty, spicy, and this despite the fact that digestive system works poorly and unsystematically. Oddly enough, falling asleep is very difficult - again due to overwork of the nervous system.

4–5th day
Hallucinations will definitely appear. The person will speak incoherently, have a poor understanding of what is happening to him, and solving the simplest problems will become impossible for him. In this case, irritability and anger will increase in proportion to the time spent without sleep. Parietal area and prefrontal cortex will refuse to work, that's why all this is happening.

6–7th day
American student Randy Gardner did not sleep for 11 days. Already on day 7, he behaved extremely strangely, experiencing severe hallucinations and showing symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Tremor of the limbs, inability to think sensibly and severe paranoia - this is what he had to endure for the sake of a scientific experiment.

Among the causes of insomnia are nervous and muscle tension, pain syndrome and indigestion. Stuffiness, bright light, an uncomfortable bed - this is what prevents you from falling asleep. Insomnia itself is considered the cause of many diseases; doctors say: if you want to get better, first get rid of insomnia. But it happens that a person does not sleep for several days on his own initiative - this may be related to work. In doing so, you must be aware of the consequences of failure in normal mode life. It is recommended to sleep at night rather than during the day, because complete darkness the human body produces melatonin hormone. Melatonin prolongs youth, improves brain function, protects a person from oncological diseases. Sleep is a medicine that everyone needs.

Today Yakov is 62 years old, but he looks no older than 45. 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 in reality was like everyone else, if not for the existence of such 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 stopped recognizing the world. 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 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 ordinary 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 put him to bed, she would still accept 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 grew by itself, and the 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 tired enough to help him fall asleep.

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 forming 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. 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 everything physical strength and a lot of time for self-development, work and creation. Science knows nothing in such cases.

ABOUT medical workers and doctors of science, Yakov speaks with chagrin. 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.

Because the 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 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

Behind Last year Yakov 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 in large doses 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 good sleep. In this regard, from medical supplies Yakov was forced to refuse completely. 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 Jacob was saved by a great 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 this 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.

July 31st, 2018

Near the Maisi River in Brazil lives an extraordinary tribe of Piraha Indians. With a unique way of life and your own faith. Writer and former missionary Daniel Everett lived among the Pirahã for 30 years!

They can't count - even to one. They live here and now and do not make plans for the future. The past has no meaning for them. They do not know the hours, days, mornings, nights, and even more so, the daily routine. They eat when they are hungry, and sleep only in fits and starts of half an hour, believing that prolonged sleep takes away strength.

They are unaware of private property and do not care at all about everything that is valuable to a modern civilized person. They are unaware of the anxieties, fears and prejudices that plague 99 percent of the world's population.

People who don't sleep.

What do people say to each other when they go to bed? IN different cultures wishes sound, of course, differently, but everywhere they express the hope of the speaker that his opponent will sleep sweetly, see pink butterflies in his dreams and wake up in the morning fresh and full of strength. 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, leaning against the wall of a palm hut or snuggling under a tree. And the rest of the time they chat, laugh, make something, dance around the fires and play with children and dogs. Nevertheless, the dream slowly changes 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 you can always tell by name, we are talking about a child, teenager, youth, man or old man

People without tomorrow.

Perhaps it is precisely such a structure of life in which night sleep not dividing the days with the inevitability of a metronome has allowed the Pirahã to establish a very strange relationship with the category of time. They do not know what “tomorrow” is and what “today” is, and they also have poor understanding of the concepts of “past” and “future”. So the Pirahãs do not know any calendars, timekeeping or other conventions. That’s why they never think about the future, because they simply don’t know how to do it.

Averea first visited the Pirahã in 1976, when nothing was known about the Pirahã. And the linguist-missionary-ethnographer experienced his first shock when he saw that the Pirahã were not stockpiling food. At all. For a tribe leading a virtually primitive way of life not to care about the coming day is, according to all canons, impossible. But the fact remains: the Pirahã do not store food, they simply catch it and eat it (or do not catch it and do not eat it, if their hunting and fishing luck betrays them).

When the Pirahã have no food, they are phlegmatic about it. He doesn’t even understand why he eats every day, and even several times. They eat no more than twice a day and often arrange fasting days for themselves, even when there is a lot of food in the village.

People without numbers.

For a long time, missionary organizations failed in their attempts to enlighten the hearts of the Pirahã and direct them to the Lord. No, the Pirahã warmly greeted representatives of Catholic and Protestant missionary organizations, gladly covered their nakedness with beautiful donated shorts and ate canned compote from jars with interest. But this is where the communication actually ended.

No one has ever been able to understand the Pirahã language. Therefore, the US Evangelical Church did a smart thing: they sent a young but talented linguist there. Everett was prepared for the language to be difficult, but he was wrong: “This language was not difficult, it was unique. There is nothing else like it on Earth."

It has only seven consonants and three vowels. More more problems with vocabulary. 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 (the only people with whom the Pirahã had some contact)

Verbs and nouns are not particularly separated among them, and in general they are familiar to us language norms here, it seems, they were drowned as unnecessary. For example, the Pirahã do not understand the meaning of “one.” Badgers, crows, and dogs understand, but the Pirahã do not. For them, this is such a complex philosophical category that anyone who tries to tell the Pirahã what it is, at the same time can retell the theory of relativity.

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. What is one piranha? It's just a piranha. It’s easier for a Russian to explain why articles are needed before words than to explain to a Pirahã why they should count a piranha if it’s a piranha that doesn’t need to be counted. Therefore, the Pirahã will never believe that they are a small people. There are 300 of them, which is certainly a lot. It is useless to talk to them about 7 billion: 7 billion is also a lot. There are many of you, and there are many of us, it’s just wonderful.

People without politeness.

“Hello”, “how are you?”, “thank you”, “goodbye”, “sorry”, “please” - people of the big world use a lot of words to show how well they treat each other. The Pirahã do not use any of the above. Even without all this, they love each other and have no doubt that everyone around them is a priori happy to see them. Politeness is the byproduct of mutual distrust, a feeling that the Pirahã, according to Everett, are completely devoid of.

People without shame.

The Pirahã do not understand shame, guilt or resentment. If Haaiohaaa dropped a fish into the water, it’s bad. No fish, no lunch. But what does Haaiohaaa have to do with it? He just dropped the fish into the water. If little Kihiohkiaa pushed Okiohkiaa, it was bad because Okiohkiaa broke his leg and it needed to be treated. But it happened because it happened, that's all.

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.

If infant If he doesn’t take his mother’s breast, that means no one will force-feed him: he knows better why he doesn’t eat. If a woman who has gone to the river to give birth cannot give birth and the forest is filled with screams for the third day, it means that she does not really want to give birth, but wants to die. There is no need to go there and dissuade her from doing it. Well, the husband can still go there - in case he has compelling arguments. But why is he trying to run there? a white man with weird iron things in a box?

People who see differently.

The Pirahã have surprisingly few rituals or 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.

One day, Everett woke up in the morning and saw that the entire village was crowded on the shore. It turned out that a spirit had come there, wanting to warn the Pirahã about something. Coming out onto the beach, Everett found that a crowd was standing around an empty place and talking fearfully, but animatedly, to this empty place. To the words: “There’s no one there! “I don’t see anything” - Everett was told that he was not supposed to see, since the spirit came precisely to the Pirahã. And if he needs Everet, then a personal spirit will be sent to him.

People without God.

All of the above made the Pirahã an impossible target for missionary work. 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. Wow, such a big and intelligent man, but he doesn’t know how people are made.

The story of Jesus Christ translated into Pirahã also did not look very convincing. The concept of “century”, “time” and “history” is an empty phrase for the Pirahã. Listening to very kind person, which evil people nailed to a tree, the Pirahã asked Eferett if he had seen it himself. No? Did Epherett see the man who saw this Christ? Also no? Then how can he know what was there?

Living among these small, half-starved, never sleeping, never in a hurry, constantly laughing, he came to the conclusion that man is a much more complex creature than the Bible tells us, and religion does not make us better or happier. Only years later did he realize that he needed to learn from the Pirahã, and not the other way around.

White people have an amazing “talent” for brazenly invading supposedly undeveloped territories and imposing their own rules, customs and religion. The World History colonization is a clear confirmation of this. But still, one day, somewhere on the edge of the earth, a tribe was discovered whose people never succumbed to missionary and educational activities, because this activity seemed worthless and extremely unconvincing to them.

American preacher, part-time ethnographer and linguist Daniel Everett arrived in the Amazon jungle in 1977 to spread the word of God. His goal was to tell about the Bible to those who knew nothing about it - to set savages and atheists on the true path. But instead, the missionary met people living in such harmony with the world around them that they themselves converted him to their faith, and not vice versa.

First discovered by Portuguese gold miners 300 years ago, the Piraha tribe lives in four villages in the area of the Maisi River, a tributary of the Amazon. And it was thanks to the American, who devoted years of his life to studying their life and language, that it gained worldwide fame.

The story of Jesus Christ made no impression on the Piraha Indians. The idea that a missionary seriously believed stories about a man whom he himself had never seen seemed to them the height of absurdity.

Dan Everett: “I was only 25. Then I was an ardent believer. I was ready to die for my faith. I was ready to do whatever she asked. Then I did not understand that imposing my beliefs on other people is the same colonization, only colonization at the level of beliefs and ideas. I came to tell them about God and about salvation so that these people could go to heaven and not to hell. But I met special people there for whom most of the things that were important to me did not matter. They couldn’t understand why I decided that I had the right to explain to them how to live.”

“Their quality of life was in many ways better than most religious people that I knew. I found the worldview of these Indians very inspiring and correct,” Everett recalls.

But not only life philosophy Piraha shook the young scientist’s value system. The Aboriginal language turned out to be so different from all others known language groups that literally turned over traditional performance about the fundamental principles of linguistics. “Their language is not so complex as it is unique. There is nothing else like it on Earth.” Compared to others, the language of these people seems “more than strange” - it has only seven consonants and three vowels. But in Piraha you can speak, hum, whistle and even communicate with birds.

One of their books, which Everett wrote under the impression of “incredible and completely different Indians,” is called: “Don’t sleep there are snakes!”, which literally translates: “Don’t sleep, there are snakes everywhere!” Indeed, among the Pirahas it is not customary to sleep for a long time - only 20-30 minutes and only as needed. They are convinced that long sleep can change a person, and if you sleep a lot, there is a risk of losing yourself, becoming completely different. They do not have a daily routine as a fact, and they simply do not need regular eight-hour sleep. For this reason, they do not sleep at night, but only doze a little where fatigue overtakes them. To stay awake, they rub their eyelids with the juice of one of the tropical plants.

Observing the changes in their body associated with the stages of growing up and aging, the Pirahã believe that sleep is to blame. Gradually changing, each Indian takes a new name for himself - this happens on average once every six to eight years. They have their own names for each age, so that, knowing the name, you can always tell who we are talking about - a child, a teenager, an adult or an old man.

Everett's 25 years as a missionary did not in any way change the Pirahã's beliefs. But the scientist, in turn, gave up religion once and for all and became even more immersed in scientific activity, becoming a professor of linguistics. While comprehending the worlds of the Aboriginal people, Daniel kept coming across things that were difficult for him to wrap his head around. One of these phenomena is absolute absence counting and numerals. The Indians of this tribe use only two corresponding words: “few” and “many.”

“The Pirahã don’t use numbers because they don’t need them—they get along just fine without it. I was once asked: “So Pirahã mothers don’t know how many children they have?” I replied: "They don't know exact number their children, but know them by name and face. They don’t need to know the number of children to recognize and love them.”

Even more uncanny is the lack of separate words for colors. It’s hard to believe, but the aborigines living in the middle of tropical jungles filled with bright colors have only two words for the colors of this world - “light” and “dark”. At the same time, all Pirahã successfully pass the color separation test, distinguishing the silhouettes of birds and animals in a mixture of multi-colored strokes.

Unlike their neighbors from other tribes, these people do not create decorative patterns on their bodies, which indicates a complete lack of art. Pirahã has no past or future tense forms. Myths and legends also do not exist here - collective memory is built only on the personal experience of the oldest living member of the tribe. At the same time, each of them has truly encyclopedic knowledge about thousands of plants, insects and animals - remembering all the names, properties and features.

Another phenomenon of these extraordinary inhabitants of the remote Brazilian countryside - complete absence food hoarding ideas. Everything that is caught by hunting or fishing is immediately eaten. And they go for a new portion only when they are very hungry. If a foray for food does not bring results, they treat it philosophically - they say that eating often is as harmful as sleeping a lot. The idea of storing food for future use seems as absurd to them as the tales of white-skinned people about a single god.

Piraha is eaten no more than twice a day, and sometimes even less. Watching how Everett and his family devoured their next lunch, dinner or dinner, the Piraha were sincerely perplexed: “Is it possible to eat so much? You will die like this!”

With private property, things are also not like with people. Most of the things are common. Except that everyone has their own simple clothes and personal weapons. However, if a person does not use this or that item, it means that he does not need it. And, therefore, such a thing can be easily borrowed. If this fact upsets the previous owner, then it will be returned to him. It should also be noted that Piraha children do not have toys, which, however, does not in the least prevent them from playing with each other, plants, dogs and forest spirits.

If you set yourself the goal of finding people on our Planet who are free from any prejudices, then here Piraha comes first. No forced joy, no false politeness, no “thank you”, “sorry” and “please”. Why is all this necessary when the Piraha already love each other without any stupid formalities? Moreover, they do not doubt for a second that not only their fellow tribesmen, but also other people are always happy to see them. Feelings of shame, resentment, guilt or regret are also alien to them. Anyone has the right to do what he wants. Nobody educates or teaches anyone. It is impossible to imagine that any of them would steal or kill.

“You will not find Piraha syndrome chronic fatigue. You won't encounter suicide here. The very idea of suicide is contrary to their nature. I have never seen anything even remotely reminiscent of them mental disorders, which we associate with depression or melancholy. They just live for today, and they are happy. They sing at night. This is simply a phenomenal degree of satisfaction - without psychotropic drugs and antidepressants,” Everett, who has devoted more than 30 years of his life to Pirahã, shares his impressions.

The relationship between the children of the jungle and the world of dreams also goes beyond our usual boundaries. “They have a completely different concept of objective and subjective. Even when they dream, they don't separate them from real life. Experiences experienced while asleep are considered as important as those experienced while awake. So, if I dreamed that I walked on the moon, then from their point of view, I actually took such a walk,” Dan explains.

The Piraha see themselves as an integral part of nature - children of the forest. For them, the forest is a complex living organism, towards which they experience genuine awe, and sometimes even fear. The forest is filled with inexplicable and strange things, which they do not try to solve. And there are also a whole lot of mysterious spirits living there. The Piraha believe that after death they will certainly join their ranks - then they will receive answers to all their questions. In the meantime, there is no point in filling your head with all sorts of nonsense.

Everett repeatedly observed how his Indian friends communicated with invisible spirits in an extremely animated, loud voice - as if they were ordinary people. When asked why the scientist did not see anything like this, he always received a categorical answer - they say, what is incomprehensible here - the spirits did not come to him, but to Piraha.

Contrary to Daniel's fears related to the possible disappearance of the tribe due to a collision with Big World, the number of Pirahas today has increased from 300 to 700 people. Being in four days paths along the river, the tribe still lives quite separately. Here they still hardly build houses and do not cultivate the soil to meet their needs, completely relying on nature. Clothing is the Piraha's only concession modern life. They are extremely reluctant to accept the benefits of civilization. “They agree to accept only certain gifts. They need fabric, tools, machetes, aluminum utensils, thread, matches, sometimes flashlights and batteries, hooks and fishing line. They never ask for anything big - just little things,” comments Dan, who has thoroughly studied the customs and preferences of his unusual friends.

“I think they are happy because they don’t worry about the past and the future. They feel able to take care of their needs today. They don't strive to get things they don't have. If I give them something, good. If not, that's good too. Unlike us, they are not materialists. They value the ability to travel quickly and easily. I have never seen anywhere (even among other Indians of the Amazon) such a calm attitude towards material objects.”

As you know, nothing changes consciousness and inner world like travel. And the further you manage to get from home, the faster and more powerful this effect is. Going beyond the familiar and familiar world can become the most powerful, vibrant and unforgettable experience in life. It’s worth leaving your comfort zone to see something you haven’t seen before and learn about something you had no idea about before.

“I have often drawn parallels between the Pirahã worldview and Zen Buddhism,” Everett continues. “As for the Bible, I realized that for a long time I was a hypocrite, because I myself did not fully believe in what I was saying. Man is a much more complex creature than the Holy Scriptures tell us, and religion does not make us better or happier. I'm currently working on a book called "The Wisdom of Travelers" - about how important and useful lessons we can learn from people who are very different from ourselves. And the greater the differences, the more we can learn. You won’t get such a valuable experience in any library.”

It is unlikely that anyone on this Planet will have precise definition of what happiness is. Perhaps happiness is living without regrets and fear of the future. It is difficult for people in megacities to understand how this is even possible. But the natives from the Piraha tribe, living “here and now,” simply do not know any other way. What they do not see for themselves does not exist for them. Such people do not need God. “We don’t need heaven, we need what’s on earth,” say the most happy people There are people in the world whose faces never leave a smile - the Piraha Indians.

Today at Big World only three people speak Pirahã - Everett, his ex-wife, and the missionary who was Daniel's predecessor in the lost Amazon jungle.

What is the Pirahã language and culture? Here are their main features (and main feature- extreme poverty of abstract thinking):

The world's poorest set of phonemes. There are three vowels (a, i, o) and eight consonants (p, t, k, ‘, b, g, s, h). True, almost each of the consonant phonemes corresponds to two allophones. In addition, the language also has a “whistle” version, used to transmit signals during hunting.

Absolutely no billing. All other peoples of the world, no matter how primitive they may be, can count to at least two, that is, they distinguish between “one”, “two” and more than two. Pirahas can’t even count… to one. They do not distinguish between singularity and plurality. Show them one finger and two fingers and they won't know the difference. They have only two corresponding words: 1) “small / one or a little” and 2) “big / many”. It should be noted here that in the Pirahã language there is no word for “finger” (there is only “hand”), and they never point at anything with a finger - only with the whole hand.

Lack of perception of integrity and particularity. In the Piraha language there are no words for “all”, “all”, “everything”, “part”, “some”. If all the members of the tribe ran to the river to swim, then the Piraha story will sound like this: “A. went for a swim, B. went, V. went, a big/lot of pirah went/let’s go.” Also, the Pirahã has no sense of proportion. White merchants have been bartering with them since the end of the 18th century and are always amazed: a piraha can bring a couple of parrot feathers and demand in return the entire luggage of the steamship, or they can bring something huge and expensive and demand a sip of vodka for it.

Lack of subordination in syntax. Thus, the phrase “he told me which way he would go” is not literally translated in Piraha.

Extreme poverty of pronouns. Until recently, the Pirahã most likely did not have personal pronouns at all ("I", "you", "he", "she"); those they use today are clearly borrowed from their Tupi neighbors.

Lack of separate words to designate colors, and, consequently, poor perception of them. Strictly speaking, there are only two words: “light” and “dark”.

Extreme poverty of concepts of kinship. There are only three of them: “parent”, “child” and “brother/sister” (without any gender distinction). In addition, “parent” also means grandfather, grandmother, etc.; “child” - grandson, etc. The words "uncle", " cousin" and so on. No. And since there are no words, there are no concepts. For example, sexual intercourse aunts and nephews are not considered incest, because... there are no concepts of “aunt” and “nephew”.

The absence of any collective memory older than personal experience the oldest living member of the tribe. For example, modern Pirahãs do not realize that there was once a time when there were no white people in the area at all, that they once came.

Almost complete absence of any myths or religious beliefs. All their metaphysics is based solely on dreams; however, even here they do not have a clear idea of what kind of world this is. It should be noted here that in the Pirahã language there are no separate words for “thought” and “dream”. “I said”, “I thought” and “I saw in a dream” sound the same, and only the context allows you to guess what is meant. There is no hint of a creation myth. Pirahã live in the present tense and today.

There is an almost complete absence of art (no patterns, no body paint, no earrings or nose rings). It should be noted that Pirahã children do not have toys.

Lack of consistency circadian rhythm life. All other people are awake during the day and sleep at night. The Pirahãs don’t have this: they sleep in different time and little by little. I wanted to sleep - I lay down, slept for 15 minutes or an hour, got up, went hunting, then slept a little again. Therefore, the phrase “the village fell into a peaceful sleep” does not apply to the Pirahas.

No food accumulation. There are no warehouses or storage facilities. All the meat brought from the hunt is immediately eaten, and if the next hunt is unsuccessful, they go hungry until they are lucky again.

With all this, the Pirahã are very happy with their lives. They consider themselves the most charming and attractive, and the rest - some strange subhumans. They call themselves by a word literally translated as “ normal people”, and all non-Piraha (both whites and other Indians) - “brains are askew.” Interestingly, the closest (genetically) to them, the Mura Indians, were apparently once the same as them, but then assimilated with neighboring tribes, lost their language - and their primitiveness - and became “civilized”. The Pirahas remain the same as they were, and look down on the Mura.

Here are more stories about tribes and traditions: is this really true? This is where you know. Here's a recent topic like:

Everyone knows how important sleep is for a person, and what a person experiences during it. complete relaxation, and the muscles gain strength for the coming day. During sleep, the brain is restored, the body is charged with vigor to accomplish new things. It turns out that not all people sleep! There are several people around the world diagnosed with long-term insomnia. They don't sleep for years and still feel great.
A series of experiments made it clear that on the second day without sleep, the average person begins to experience discomfort in relation to the world around him: the mood deteriorates, coordination deteriorates, the person feels unwell, and only caffeine allows him to concentrate on anything. On the third and fourth days, he absentmindedly tries to do at least something, but his actions are slow.
The brain in this state sends signals slowly, it is hampered by the processing of processes that have accumulated during the time without sleep, the person begins to perceive what is happening detachedly. As they say, he sees everything “in a veil.” On the 5th day a person begins serious problems, for example, auditory and visual hallucinations. He sees nightmares, but is not able to discern whether it is a dream or reality, which indicates a distorted perception and deep depression. Insomnia greatly affects the body and psyche, causing irreversible processes and phenomena in the body.
Colestite: life without sleep
There are people in the world who experience insomnia throughout their entire life cycle. The condition is called cosmetitis.
There are several examples of the disease captured in patient histories.
Around 1940-1950, an ordinary beggar, Al Harpin, lived in New York. He lived in a hut built from leaves and scrap materials, but there was a small nuance: in his house, as unnecessary, there was no place to sleep. Al, at 90, no longer remembers when he wanted to sleep. When legends began to circulate about the old man, doctors began to visit him, trying to find out the reasons strange state. Al believed that the gift was given to him before birth, because his mother received a severe injury in the abdominal area during pregnancy, and the newborn initially did not sleep well.
In the 19th century, a US newspaper published news about David Jones, who did not sleep for 90 days in a row. A year later, insomnia appeared again, but already on the 131st day. Every year, a wave of insomnia hits David. He was monitored, which revealed that he was indeed awake and still felt well and was able to carry out daily activities.
There are other cases that are more surprising than those presented above. Forty-year-old Joanna Moore in 1962, after a serious working day at school, came home, planning to rest. And then her deceased mother appeared in front of her. Since then, she has not closed her eyes, and felt exhausted every day, trying to sleep, but her attempts ended in failure. Drowsiness and loss of appetite caused problems for the woman. Doctors who performed the examination discovered brain damage. It’s interesting, but otherwise the girl’s health remained the same.
Thai Ngoc has lived without sleep for 39 years. It is surprising that experts did not identify any deviations. There is insomnia that is not accompanied by secondary symptoms. In an interview in 2006, the hero admitted that his condition is similar to what a plant feels in a featureless desert. Insomnia pills don't help Ty.
Vietnamese Nguy Van Kha spent 27 years in wakefulness. In 1979, strange things began to happen to him. In the evening, Ngue decided to lie down after coming home from work, but when he closed his eyelids, he felt an incredible burning sensation. All attempts to fall asleep had the indicated effect. Doctors tried to study the disease, but did not find answers to numerous questions. Many medications and sleeping pills were used - no results. Interestingly, Van Kha feels great without sleep.
The most famous person with the colestite is Yakov Tseperovich, a native of Minsk. At the age of 26, he experienced clinical death; doctors literally pulled him out of the other world. Yakov commented on the incident with his wife’s attempt to poison him.
After clinical death Yakov learned everything again, both to speak and to perform everyday actions. It started to come to his head interesting ideas and thoughts expressed in poetic form, although he had not previously been seen engaging in such an activity.
Yakov realized that he had forgotten how to sleep and dream. This condition frightened the patient. At first, it was difficult for Yakov to come to terms with the state of affairs; he wanted to fall asleep, as happens with insomnia. After a while, he reconciled himself and began to use his free hours to his advantage. He spent days doing push-ups and lifting weights. Eyewitnesses claim that Tseperovich has stopped aging. If you compare photographs of him at 46 years old and at 25 years old, only minor differences can be identified. The hero comments on his condition as follows: “I don’t feel the passage of time, it seems to me that life is a day. It’s like I’m going to live forever.” When doctors examined Yakov’s body, they discovered an interesting detail: his body temperature did not rise above 34 degrees. No further deviations were found.
On this moment Yakov lives with his wife, with whom he has a son. To disconnect from problems and recharge his energy, he does yoga and meditation.
Yakov admits that he would like to sleep. “I don’t use the night for good; everyone sleeps at night, and therefore noisy activities are postponed until daylight hours. At night I usually read, I think,”
"I want to be normal person, with the ability to sleep,” Yakov admitted.