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Sleepless guy

Skiltch

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I was wondering if Thai "Hai" Ngoc, the Vietnamese guy who hasn't slept in 33 years, would be eligible for the million? I'd post the link, but I haven't posted 15 posts yet. You can google 'hasn't slept in 33 years' to find the article.
I find this case fascination. He'd be a very cool study of why sleep is important... if they could figure out what's wrong with him.
 
Well, it doesn't violate any known laws of physics, unlike the guys who haven't eaten in 33 years. That there would be severe brain damage is a given. But personally I smell hoax.
 
I stumbled across something called "sleep state misperception." In the extreme cases, the patient does not know he has slept at all, even though he shows all the physiological markers of sleep. I'm guessing that this is that guy, along with some run of the mill sleep disorders. Here's guessing he spends six hours a day just sitting quietly.
 
I would say the severe lack of sleep would indeed be paranormal.

But from the challenge rules would be deemed ineligible do the harm to the subject it would cause.

Seeing research has shown it to kill rats and severely affect humans:



A 1999 University of Chicago team led by Eve Van Cauter limited a group of lean young men to four hours of sleep per night for sixteen days. The subjects showed decreased levels of leptin and increased levels of cortisol. The subjects also increased their daily caloric intake by 1,000 calories. The team discovered that the subjects' insulin and blood sugar levels resembled the impaired glucose tolerance of prediabetics, an indication that they were no longer properly processing carbohydrates. Studies have also linked sleep deprivation to an increased incidence of obesity.




Experiments with rats have measured the effects of long-term sleep deprivation. In one experiment, a pair of rats were placed on a circular rotating platform and separated by a wall. Both were instrumented with electroencephalograms. Whenever the "subject" rat began to show signs of sleep, the platform rotated, forcing both rats to either walk in the direction opposite to the rotation or be forced off the platform into shallow water. The "control" rat was allowed to sleep while the "subject" rat was awakened. After approximately three weeks the "subject" rat became unable to regulate body temperature; even if allowed to sleep at this point, it died shortly afterward from septic shock.
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Lack of Sleep

I recall a TV program about sleep (on the BBC probably over a decade ago), It showed what sleep deprevation did to normal people. There was also a guy who claimed not to sleep, or sleep very little (I can't recall his precise claim). He said it started after some head injury. Indeed, they observed him for several days in a sleep lab, trying to get him to sleep, and he slept I think like < 30 minutes a day. IIRC he was otherwise quite normal.

The conclusion was he'd had some brain injury, but the puzzle was why the lack of sleep did not prevent him functioning normally.
 
As I recall from the article, this guy has taken to doing odd jobs at night to supplement his income (building fences, etc), so if he was faking the neighbors who hired him would probably notice when their fences weren't built, I think. He also beat a drum for mourners at night, which was presumably heared by others.
I think the danger problem might be worked around like this:

1. He claims that even sleeping pills and liquor can't make him sleep. Maybe give him a variety of powerful sleep inducers, and if he doesn't go to sleep, he wins?

(I just found this site and have been reading the commentary like mad for the past week, and am curious to learn what sort of things the challenge applies to -- just those who claim to be paranormal, or cases like this, where no one is alleging paranormality but no one has any scientific idea why this is happening regardless).
 
Skiltch said:
As I recall from the article, this guy has taken to doing odd jobs at night to supplement his income (building fences, etc), so if he was faking the neighbors who hired him would probably notice when their fences weren't built, I think. He also beat a drum for mourners at night, which was presumably heared by others.
I think the danger problem might be worked around like this:

1. He claims that even sleeping pills and liquor can't make him sleep. Maybe give him a variety of powerful sleep inducers, and if he doesn't go to sleep, he wins?

(I just found this site and have been reading the commentary like mad for the past week, and am curious to learn what sort of things the challenge applies to -- just those who claim to be paranormal, or cases like this, where no one is alleging paranormality but no one has any scientific idea why this is happening regardless).
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I doubt it would qualify for the challenge as described. It's a difference between "there is no known scientific explanation" vs. "it's not scientifically possible". The former is not paranormal by JREF standards, the latter is. Until sleep is well understood, it would be difficult to support a view that ability to function without it is paranormal.
 
In any case, if this is true, it would be ZERO paranormal. A strange disorder perhaps, but nothing more.
 
People who worked with Thomas Edison said he never slept but he did take a lot of naps.

As Christine suggests sleep state misperception. People can and are
able to make do with little sleep and think they've had none. There is also a cluster of diseases collectively referred to as fatal familial insomnia, familial because it has been seen in families and has a genetic component. Some FFI cases are described as prion diseases.

I have never heard of a case that had absolutely no sleep for 30 years; such patients usually die within one year of not sleeping at all. And yes, medication doesn't work.

In any case while unusual, even rare. it is not paranormal. And if I were designing the test for the challenege I'd want the subject to be wired up to EEG/EOG/EMG, 24 X 7 polysomnography recording for 2 or 3 years. The cost of such testing would be staggering so if this guy wins any prizes it's for claiming he has a condition which cannot easily be confirmed. But of course the minute sleep is confirmed by the test, then the test is over and the claimant loses. This could happen in days, weeks, or months which is still lengthy and expensive in terms of lab time and personnel required.

Semin Neurol. 2005 Mar;25(1):81-9.




Insomnia in neurological diseases.

Provini F, Lombardi C, Lugaresi E.

Department of Neurological Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.

Insomnia is the most common sleep complaint. Insomnia is not a disease itself but mostly a clinical sign of an underlying disease. Degenerative and vascular diseases involving the central nervous system (CNS) may impair sleep either as a result of the brain lesion or because of illness-related discomfort (motor immobility, social and familial impairment, depression, drugs). Some neurological conditions characterized by movement disorders that start or persist during sleep hinder sleep onset and/or sleep continuity, causing a poor sleep complaint. CNS lesions and/or dysfunction in three specific neurological conditions (fatal familial insomnia, Morvan's chorea, and delirium tremens) impair the basic mechanisms of sleep generation inducing a syndrome in which the inability to sleep is consistently associated with motor and sympathergic overactivation. Agrypnia excitata is the term that aptly defines this generalized overactivation syndrome.
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Okay. Thanks for the help, everyone. I was just curious.
And hey, I learned a couple of new terms (FFI/prion diseases). Guess the day wasn't a total waste.
 
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
In any case, if this is true, it would be ZERO paranormal. A strange disorder perhaps, but nothing more.
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I was under the impression that although the challenge was termed to be testing "paranormal" claims, "perinormal" claims could also succeed in collecting the million. Since the applicant is under absolutely no obligation to explain why the effect is occuring, it could easily be demonstrated and he would win.

Of course, there is enough evidence to suggest that this phenomena may actually happen and although a "why" is not known, it would not qualify (JREF would not accept the application). I am merely pointing out that if (for example) somebody said that they could read minds, did so in the test, and then the next day scientists discovered some form of uber-special brainwave allowing the action; this would not invalidate the test. Even if it ended up being a non-para-normal phenomenon, he would still get the million, as long as it was paranormal enough at the time of the agreed upon protocol.
 
opqdan said:
I was under the impression that although the challenge was termed to be testing "paranormal" claims, "perinormal" claims could also succeed in collecting the million. Since the applicant is under absolutely no obligation to explain why the effect is occuring, it could easily be demonstrated and he would win.

Of course, there is enough evidence to suggest that this phenomena may actually happen and although a "why" is not known, it would not qualify (JREF would not accept the application). I am merely pointing out that if (for example) somebody said that they could read minds, did so in the test, and then the next day scientists discovered some form of uber-special brainwave allowing the action; this would not invalidate the test. Even if it ended up being a non-para-normal phenomenon, he would still get the million, as long as it was paranormal enough at the time of the agreed upon protocol.
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The question is how are you going to document or prove that the claimant stays completely awake 24 X7 for X amount of time and we're talking a year or more since medically victims of FFI have had no sleep for that long before they died. Remember this guy is claiming 33 years of not sleeping at all. If this is what's to be proved do we have to monitor him for the next 33 years since we can't document the last 33? The only documented way of proving someone is not sleeping is by EEG which means he'd have to wear EEG electrodes and have a continuous (24 x 7) EEG collected on him and then evaluated for the decided upon time period which would be more than a year. And no napping on a bathroom or shower break either. Off hand the salaries of the prof. tech staff watching him would run to $600.00 a day. The cost of EEG lab time is about $2000.00 for each 24 hour period. Who would pay for that? As I said above this guy wins the prize for having a claim which can't be easily proven or disproven. If he has a medical condition causing this (he needs to submit to and pay for several detailed exams) it is not paranormal. If perinormal means rare but not beyond explanation by scientific means then I don't understand why this qualifies for the challenge. There is a whole bunch of people with rare medical conditions that would be lining up right now if that were the case.
 
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