Legends are associated with him, novels are written about him. It is probably difficult to find any other phenomenon with which so many prejudices and superstitions are associated. You need to have a correct idea of ​​lethargic sleep, if only to broaden your horizons.

Lethargic sleep or lethargy (oblivion, inaction) is a state of pathological (painful) sleep with a more or less pronounced weakening of all manifestations of life, including immobility, a significant decrease in metabolism, weakening or lack of response to sound and pain stimuli, as well as touch. Lethargic sleep occurs during hysteria, general exhaustion, and after severe excitement. The changes that occur in the human body during lethargic sleep have not been studied enough.

Myths about lethargic sleep

Myths about those buried alive, in lethargic sleep, come from time immemorial and have a certain basis. Once upon a time, in crypts and underground, dead people were found with torn shrouds and bloody hands, who were trying to escape from the coffins. Sometimes such people were lucky and were saved by cemetery thieves who dug up graves to rob the deceased, or simply by people passing by who heard noises from the grave (unless, of course, they ran away in horror). In England, there has been a law for many years (it is still in force today) according to which all morgues must have a bell with a rope so that the revived can call for help.

It is known that Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was very afraid of being buried alive and therefore asked his loved ones to bury him only when obvious signs of decomposition of the body appeared. However, in May 1931, during the liquidation of the Danilov Monastery cemetery in Moscow, where the great writer was buried, during exhumation it was discovered that Gogol’s skull was turned to one side, and the upholstery of the coffin was torn.

The case with the famous Italian poet of the 14th century Petrarch would have been exactly the same, but it ended happily. At the age of 40, Petrarch became seriously ill and “died,” and when they began to bury him, he woke up and said that he felt great.

What does a person look like in a lethargic sleep?

In severe, rare manifestations of lethargy, there really is a picture of imaginary death: the skin is cold and pale, the pupils almost do not react to light, breathing and pulse are difficult to detect, blood pressure is low, strong painful stimuli do not cause a reaction. For several days, patients do not drink or eat, the excretion of urine and feces stops, weight loss and dehydration occur.

In mild cases of lethargy, there is immobility, muscle relaxation, even breathing, sometimes fluttering of the eyelids, and rolling of the eyeballs. The ability to swallow remains, and chewing and swallowing movements follow in response to irritation. The perception of the surroundings may be partially preserved.

Bouts of lethargy begin suddenly and end suddenly. There are cases with harbingers of lethargic sleep, as well as with disturbances in well-being and behavior after waking up.

The duration of lethargic sleep ranges from several hours to several days and even weeks. Individual observations of long-term lethargic sleep with preserved ability to eat and perform physiological acts are described. Lethargy does not pose a danger to life.

Lethargic sleep in forensic medicine

In severe cases of lethargy, especially in forensic medical practice, when examining a corpse at the scene of an incident, the question arises of establishing the authenticity of death. In this case, if lethargy is suspected, the patient is immediately sent to the hospital.

The question of the danger of burying alive persons in a state of lethargy has long lost its significance, since burial is usually carried out 1-2 days after death, when reliable cadaveric phenomena (signs of decomposition) are already well expressed.

Along with cases of true lethargy, there are also cases of its simulation (usually in order to hide the crime or its consequences). In this case, the person is monitored in the hospital. It is very difficult to simulate the symptoms of lethargy for a long time.

Help with lethargic sleep

The treatment for lethargic sleep is rest, clean air, and vitamin-rich food. If it is impossible to feed such a patient, food can be administered in liquid and semi-liquid form through a tube. Solutions of salts and glucose can be administered intravenously. A person in a state of lethargic sleep requires careful care, otherwise bedsores will begin on the body after lying for a long time, an infection will develop, and the condition will sharply become more complicated.

Death is the natural end of a person’s life, but it is with this phenomenon that people’s deepest fears are associated. Quite often, they are frightened not even by the fact of the inevitable death of everyone living on earth, but by the inexplicable and frightening phenomena associated with this process.

So, the most terrible thing that can happen to the deceased is his revival after the recorded fact of death. It is interesting that the possibility of such a phenomenon is described in various ancient sources: in biblical texts, in tales and legends found in India, Africa, China, and Eastern Europe. As many cultural scientists suggest, at all times and in all cultures, people have encountered mysterious and inexplicable things happening to a deceased person. Not finding a logical explanation for the phenomena occurring, they composed myths and legends that partially explained the unnatural behavior of the revived corpse. This is how the tales of “nosferatu” and zombies appeared.

Despite the fact that many centuries have passed since ancient times, and man has found a scientific explanation for many once mystical phenomena, his superstitious fear and curiosity about the living dead still remains one of the strongest. It is not surprising that books and films shot in the horror genre with a plot about the rise of the dead from their graves always attract great interest.

So could the supernatural awakening of the dead, described in numerous sources, take place in real life?

Despite the fact that death is an irreversible phenomenon, the revival of a person after his death is still possible. Shocking cases of such an unnatural course of events are described in medical and historical treatises.

So, for example, the living dead is Francesco Petrarca, a famous Italian poet and philosopher who worked in the Middle Ages and laid the foundation for the Proto-Renaissance. As witnesses to the incident said, the writer suddenly lost consciousness and was without signs of life for a long time. His body became cold, his heartbeat could not be heard, there was no breathing, and his pupils did not react to light. Petrarch's relatives and friends put on mourning clothes and were already in full swing preparing for the funeral ceremony, when suddenly, twenty hours later, the poet unexpectedly woke up and was in excellent health. After the mysterious “death,” the man lived for about thirty more years, without any complaints about his health.

It is known that such famous personalities as Nikolai Gogol, Marina Tsvetaeva, scientists Alfred and Emmanuel Nobel, philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer experienced panic fear of waking up after their own funeral, so they even left a will not to bury the body until there were obvious signs of decomposition. All these people experienced a superstitious fear of death and an even greater fear of the thought that their dying would not be as natural and final as everyone else's.

What really makes people come back to life after death?

In fact, behind the seeming supernatural phenomena associated with the awakening of a person after his funeral, there is a rather serious medical problem. Only at the end of the twentieth century did scientists and doctors finally manage to understand the reason for the awakening of people after death and dispel the mystical aura of this phenomenon. Thus, it turned out that death followed by revival is not death, and lethargic sleep is to blame.

Lethargic sleep is a little-studied human condition caused by certain problems in the processes occurring in the brain. Doctors were able to find out that the area of ​​the brain that is responsible for the rapid phase of sleep can work incorrectly, spontaneously turning on and off, and these processes are extremely difficult to influence from the outside. If in healthy people the REM sleep phase lasts on average up to half an hour and helps a person fall asleep and wake up, then in people prone to lethargy, REM sleep occurs suddenly and can last from several hours to several years! At the same time, during lethargic sleep, all metabolic processes in the human body slow down to such an extent that they cannot be detected without special equipment: the temperature drops to 30 degrees, the heart beats 2-3 times per minute, breathing slows down to 1-2 times per minute .

Without accurate diagnostic tools, people for centuries mistook a person sleeping in a lethargic sleep for the dead, and arranged his funeral. It happened that the “deceased” unexpectedly woke up right at the funeral or during the funeral service. However, there were also completely tragic cases when awakening occurred too late, in a coffin buried in the ground. The gasping and frightened man tried in vain to get out, knocking on the coffin lid and screaming. Frightening groans and grinding noises coming from the fresh grave gave rise to numerous myths and legends about the living dead.

Fortunately, these days, the fact of death is verified by high-precision instruments, so now many more people susceptible to lethargy are saved from premature burial. Cases of this condition are extremely rare, however, they still occur.

For example, the incident that happened to Nadezhda Lebedina was included in the Guinness Book of Records. The woman fell into a lethargic sleep for twenty years. In 2011, a man “rose from the dead” in Simferopol; his awakening happened just in time, since his body had already been placed in one of the city morgues. In 2015, a similar story happened to a sixteen-year-old girl from Honduras; her lover saw her awaken a few minutes before her burial.

As you can see, mysterious and inexplicable, at first glance, events are constantly happening in the world, but their nature is not always connected with the world of mysticism and paranormal phenomena. Be that as it may, the rational nature of many phenomena does not exclude the existence of supernatural forces that from time to time remind a person of their presence in his life...

It is not customary for many peoples of the world to bury the dead immediately after death - funeral rituals last several days. And this is no coincidence. There are many cases where the dead regained consciousness before burial.

Imaginary death

“Lethargy” is translated from Greek as “oblivion” or “inaction.” Science has studied this state of the human body very superficially. The external signs of the disease are simultaneously similar to sleep and death. When lethargy sets in, the normal processes of life stop in the human body.

With the development of technology and the advent of modern equipment, cases of burial alive are almost impossible. However, even a century ago, during excavations of ancient graves, cemetery workers found bodies in rotten coffins that lay in an unnatural position. From the remains it was possible to determine that the person was trying to get out of the coffin.

Unexpected awakening

The religious philosopher and spiritualist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky described unique cases of deep “oblivion.” So, on Sunday morning in 1816, a Brussels resident fell into a lethargic sleep. The next day, the grief-stricken relatives had already prepared everything for the burial. However, the man suddenly woke up, sat up, rubbed his eyes and asked for a book and a cup of coffee.

And the wife of one Moscow businessman remained in lethargy for 17 whole days. The city authorities made several attempts to bury the body, but there were no noticeable signs of decomposition. For this reason, relatives postponed the ceremony. Soon the deceased regained consciousness.

In 1842, in Bergerac, France, a patient took sleeping pills and was unable to wake up. The patient was prescribed a blood transfusion. After some time, doctors declared death. After the funeral, they remembered that he had taken medications, and the grave was opened. The body was turned upside down.

bad morning

In 1838, an amazing case was recorded in one of the cities of England. One boy, walking along the graves in one of the cemeteries, heard sounds uncharacteristic for this quiet place - someone’s voice was coming from underground. The child brought his parents to the scene. One of the graves was opened. When the coffin was opened, it became clear that there was an unusual grin on the face of the corpse. Fresh wounds were also found on the corpse, and the burial shroud was torn. It turned out that the supposedly deceased was alive when he was buried, and his heart stopped before opening the coffin.

A more impressive incident occurred in Germany in 1773. A pregnant girl was buried in one of the cemeteries. Passers-by heard groans coming from her grave. Not only did the woman wake up after a lethargic sleep in a coffin, she also gave birth there, after which she died along with the newborn.

Some people were very afraid of such a fate and tried to foresee the details of their death in advance. Thus, the English writer Wilkie Collins feared that he would be buried alive, so when he went to bed, there was always a note next to his bed. It mentioned point by point measures that must be taken before considering him dead.

Lethargy in Gogol

The great Russian writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol also suffered from lethargy. To protect himself from an untimely funeral, he recorded on paper possible incidents that happened to him. “Being in the full presence of memory and common sense, I express my last will. I bequeath my body not to be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear. I mention this because even during the illness itself, moments of vital numbness came over me, my heart and pulse stopped beating,” wrote Gogol.

However, after the death of the writer, they forgot about what he had written, and the burial ceremony was performed, as expected, on the third day. Gogol’s warnings were remembered only in 1931, during his reburial at the Novodevichy Cemetery. Eyewitnesses said that there were noticeable scratches on the inside of the coffin lid, the corpse lay in an unusual position, and it also had no head. According to one version, the writer’s skull was stolen by order of the famous collector and theater figure Alexei Bakhrushin by the monks of the St. Danilov Monastery during the restoration of Gogol’s grave in 1909.

Revived Corpse

In 1964, an autopsy was performed in a New York morgue on a man who died on the street. The pathologist, having carried out all the necessary preparations for the procedure, had only just managed to bring the scalpel to the patient when he woke up. The doctor died of fright.

And in the famous newspaper “Beyskiy Rabochiy” in 1959, a unique incident was described that occurred at the funeral of an engineer. At the moment of pronouncing the funeral speech, the man woke up, sneezed loudly, opened his eyes and almost died a second time when he saw the situation around him.

In order to avoid the burial of living people in many countries, morgues are provided with a bell with a rope. A person thought to be dead can wake up, stand up and ring the bell.

Ritual burial alive

Many peoples of South America, Siberia and the Far North resort to ritual burials of living people. Some peoples perform live burials in order to cure fatal diseases.

In some tribes, shamans themselves strive to go to the grave in order to have the gift of communication with the spirits of the dead. According to ethnographer E. S. Bogdanovsky, the burial ritual was practiced by Kamchatka aborigines. The scientist managed to observe such a terrifying sight. After a three-day fast, the shaman was rubbed with incense, a hole was drilled in his head, which was sealed with wax. After that, he was wrapped in a bear skin and buried. To make it easier for the shaman to survive imprisonment, a special tube was inserted into his mouth, with which he could breathe. A few days later, the shaman was “released” from the grave, fumigated with incense and washed in water. It was believed that after this he was born again.

Dying is the worst thing that can happen to a person. At least that's what we think. Although, perhaps the worst thing is when you are mistaken for dead, with all the ensuing consequences.

1. A teenager woke up at his own funeral.

The idea of ​​attending your own funeral is quite universal, especially in movies where people fake deaths and have fake funerals. Fortunately, most of us have not had this experience. But 17-year-old Indian teenager Kumar Marevad experienced it himself. He had a high fever after being bitten by a dog and stopped breathing. Kumar's family prepared his body, placed him in a coffin and went for cremation. It's good that the guy woke up in time before he became a pile of ashes.

2. Nacy Perez Was Buried Alive, But She Died After She Was Rescued From The Grave

Neysi Perez, a pregnant girl from Honduras, suddenly fell dead and stopped breathing. The family buried Neisi and her unborn child, but the next day, when the girl's mother visited her grave, she heard sounds from inside. Neisy was dug up, and it seemed she was saved! But fate had other plans. A few hours after her release, she actually died and returned again to where she had recently been rescued.

3. Judith Johnson was sent to the morgue without being seen breathing.

Judith Johnson went to the hospital with what she thought was indigestion, but soon went straight from there to the morgue. Unfortunately, what she thought was indigestion was a heart attack, and resuscitation efforts did not help her. She was rescued by a morgue worker who discovered that Judith was still breathing. The poor thing did not die, but her psyche suffered catastrophically as a result. The grave does not let people go so easily.

4. The Miracle of Walter Williams

Walter Williams died in 2014 at the age of 78. The old man's body was taken to the morgue, but when the worker began embalming, Walter began to breathe. The family considered this return to life a miracle. However, science has its own explanation, called Lazarus syndrome, when a dead person can suddenly come to life again. This syndrome is a very rare phenomenon, but sudden resurrection after recorded death is also possible.

5. Eleanor Markham, who was almost buried alive

Eleanor Markham was 22 years old when she died in 1894 in New York. It was July heat, so the inconsolable family mourned the girl and decided to bury her quickly. As the coffin was being carried to the cemetery, sounds were heard from inside. The lid was removed, and what followed was a furious dialogue between the revived Miss Markham and the attending physician who saw her off on her last journey. According to a local newspaper report, their conversation went something like this: “Oh my God! – Miss Markham screamed heart-rendingly. “You are burying me alive!” Her doctor calmly replied, “Hush, hush, you’re fine. It's just a mistake that can be easily corrected."

6. Lonely Mildred Clark

Living alone is not scary. It's scary to die alone and be found by your neighbors by their characteristic smell. Such was the case with 86-year-old Mildred Clark, who was discovered by her landlord lying cold and dead on the floor. The old woman was taken to the morgue, where her body awaited its turn to go to the funeral home and then to the cemetery. At the morgue, her frozen legs began to twitch, and the attendant noticed that the deceased was barely breathing. So old and lonely Mildred Clark came back to life.

7. Sipho William "Zombie" Mdletshe

One day in South Africa, a 24-year-old young man, Sipho William Mdletshe, died. He lay in the morgue for two days, and then woke up in a metal box and began screaming loudly. Luckily, the guy was rescued and he immediately ran to his family and fiancee. However, the girl rejected him, considering the revived groom to be a real zombie.

8. Alice Blunden, the woman buried alive TWICE

Alice Blunden was a fat woman who loved brandy, and one day in 1675 she died and was buried. A few days later the children heard sounds from the grave. The grave was dug up, but Alice was still dead, although it was clear that she was struggling inside and calling for help. They examined the body and decided to bury it again until the forensic expert arrived. When the coroner finally arrived and the grave was reopened, Alice's clothes were torn and her face was bloody. She was buried alive for the second time. Alas, fate did not give her a third chance. The coroner finally pronounced her dead.