4) The Man That Never Slept
Paul Kern, a Hungarian military man, was shot in the head by a Russian soldier during WWI. The impact blew out part of his frontal lobe, the section of the brain that deals with a number of things including memory, attention and planning. The blast didn’t kill Kern, it just altered him slightly: for the remaining 40 years of his life he could no longer sleep. At all.
Even when he took sleeping pills and sedatives he couldn’t steal a quick 40 winks. Doctors told him to lie down in a darkened room for an hour a day with his eyes closed so that he could at least get some rest. Kern reported this hour of rest as the most boring part of his day and he regularly smoked throughout his time in bed.
According to Kern, despite his massive sleep debt, he felt fine. The Adelaide Chronicle reported his daily routine:
From 9 to 2 o’clock, work at the Pensions Department; 2 to 6 o’clock, writing and reading; 7 to 7 o’clock, a round of the night clubs, cabarets, a bath, and a change of clothes. Then breakfast, and again work.
His only complaint was that he got the occasional headache and that staying awake 24 hours a day was expensive.
